Katelyn Altmann (she/her) is a movement-based artist, choreographer, and improvisor currently residing in Milwaukee, WI. She received her BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts (2019). During this time Katelyn has collaborated with and performed in works of Joe Goode, Daniel Burkholder, Maria Gillespie, Esmé Boyce, Ishmael Huston-Jones, Esther Baker-Tarpaga, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Melanie George, among others. She is a current collaborative artist with Wild Space Dance Company, Danceworks, and Hyperlocal MKE. Katelyn has presented both her solo and collaborative work throughout Milwaukee, at Seattle Festival for Dance Improvisation, American Collage Dance Association (ACDA), Dance Masters of Wisconsin, Bates Dance Festival/Gibney Connect NYC, and Chicago National Association of Dance Masters. During her time at UW-Milwaukee, Altmann received two Undergraduate Research Fellowships immersed in movement research under the mentorship of faculty member, Maria Gillespie.

Gelline Guevarra is an artist, choreographer, and massage therapist currently based in Las Vegas, NV. Originally from Sacramento, CA, she has danced professionally with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company 2 (DCDC2), BBmoves, and TwoPoint4 Dance Theatre. Gelline began her professional dance journey in the Fall of 2015, discovering a passion for Modern dance. She holds a BA in Dance and Deaf Studies/American Sign Language from Sacramento State University, a dual foundation that enriches her connection to movement and community engagement. She has trained extensively with Diavolo, Elisa Monte Dance, the Bates Dance Festival, Visceral Dance Chicago, and Raja Feather Kelly, performing works by acclaimed choreographers such as Lula Washington, Gary Masters, and Maurice Watson. Gelline’s movement style emphasizes the seamless connection of phrases and the storytelling power of contact improvisation. In 2018, she founded GGProjects, presenting her original works at venues including the Austin Dance Festival, MODArts, and Dance Bloc NYC. Gelline is honored to be making her debut performance with Li Chiao-Ping Dance Company, bringing her passion for meaningful movement and connection to this new chapter.

"Piper" Morgan Hayes has danced with LCPD since 2019 and is grateful to have met many new faces and toured to California, Hawaii, Virginia, Arizona, and New York with the company. She holds a BFA in Contemporary Dance from UNC School of the Arts (Winston-Salem, NC) and an MFA in Dance from Hollins University (Roanoke, VA). Hayes has served as dance faculty at Carthage College, UW-Madison and currently as an Academic Staff Lecturer in the Theatre/Dance department at UW-Whitewater. She is thankful for her family, partner and RMH/SLH for helping her to continue to find the light. "Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become." Always becoming.

Elisa Hildner, originally from Naperville, IL, is a movement instructor and dance artist based in Madison, WI. She practices and teaches Pilates, strength training, and dance to educate and empower the unique bodies of all individuals. Her practice emphasizes the exploration of anatomy and the utilization of embodied information to develop functional and powerful movement. She strongly believes that Pilates and movement practices benefit physical, mental, and emotional health—she advocates for inclusion and movement for all. Elisa is a graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Dance and a certificate in Pilates. While in undergrad, Elisa was awarded the Buff Brennan Senior Honors Award. She used this award/grant/scholarship to present choreographic research in the form of an evening-length performance entitled she/her/hers. Upon graduation, Elisa was awarded the Anna R. Nassif Dance Award for her choreographic works created while she was a student. She is currently a dancer with Li Chiao-Ping Dance, as well as working on independent choreographic projects.

Kaori Kenmotsu is a faculty member at the University of MN Twin Cities. Her Theater/Dance credits include company member of Black Label Movement, TimeTrack Productions, Mu Performing Arts, Pangea World Theater, Offleash Area Productions, 10,000 Dances, and Gomez Dance. In 2000, she completed a two-year teacher training program with senior Iyengar yoga teacher, Patricia Walden. Her studies have included Laban Movement Analysis, aerial arts, Feldenkrais and Global Somatics. She received her M.F.A. from UW-Milwaukee and J.D. from Mitchell Hamline School of Law focusing on alternative dispute resolution. Her current work focuses on the intersectionality of art, community and law with a focus on embodied forms of conflict negotiation.

Cassie Last, from Cambridge, WI, is a 2020 graduate of UW-Madison, with a BFA in dance. Cassie joined Li Chiao-Ping Dance in the fall of 2019, and recently began dancing with Jin-Wen Yu Dance. In her time at undergrad, Cassie was in works by faculty Li Chiao-Ping, Jin-Wen Yu, and Chris Walker. Cassie also had the opportunity to perform guest artist works by Scott Ewen, Merce Cunningham (“MinEvent” reset by Carol Teitelbaum), Anna Halprin (“Paper Dance” reset by Brooke Smiley), Abdel Salaam (“Be Flowin’” reset by Dyane Harvey-Salaam), and Christian von Howard, as well as many other student works. She has continued her studies in previous summers at the LA Contemporary Dance Company Summer Intensive and Bates Dance Festival Professional Training Program. Cassie was awarded multiple scholarships allowing these opportunities including, but not limited to, the Barbara Walz Scholarship, Jin-Wen Yu Award, and Genevieve Brown Wright Scholarship. Along with dancing, Cassie is currently the head coach at [solidcore] where she joins together her love of movement with science and anatomy into a challenging and unique Pilates-inspired workout.

Mayu Nakaya (she/her) is a professional contemporary dancer and choreographer originally from Japan based in New York. She has worked with Helen Simoneau Danse, Obremski/Works, SAXYN Dance Work, Rogue Wave with Catherine Messina, iKADA Contemporary Dance Company, sarAika Movement Collective, One Day Dance, Yoshito Sakuraba, and Faustine Lavie. As a choreographer, Mayu performed at several dance festivals in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Japan, also received awards as a dancer and choreographer in several competitions in Japan and South Korea. Mayu is an artist who always pursues physical expression and is interested in collaborating with artists of various genres. She founded the dance project “MNiverse”, which expresses the possibilities of diversity through dance based on the concept of human connection and dance performance with collaborators.

Elisabeth Roskopf was born in South Korea and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin where she began dancing at the age of 6. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where she earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Piano and a minor in Dance. She is a company member of Li Chiao-Ping Dance, Danceworks Performance MKE, and Wild Space Dance Company. She is currently a guest artist with the Gina Laurenzi Dance Project and Montauk Project [più mosso], and she has had the opportunity of performing with Marlene Skog Dance and Catey Ott Dance Collective. As a performer, she is described as "light as a feather, tough as nails" and "a joy to behold." Since the spring of 2014, Elisabeth has performed in the Lake Arts Project, directed by Jennifer Miller and Karl von Rabenau formerly of the Milwaukee Ballet. Since 2013, she has choreographed and performed her solo works for the Danceworks DanceLAB Get It Out There concert series. In addition to her performing, she is also a ballet and contemporary teacher and choreographer in the Greater Milwaukee Area. Elisabeth is deeply self-invested in exploring and expressing themes of racial and cultural identity within her dance work. She strongly believes in the power of sharing our stories, amplifying the diverse voices that have been continually suppressed, and celebrating our whole authentic selves so that each individual can have a sense of belonging in equitable spaces. She will keep fighting for diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to help create profound change within the field of dance. Identity is a part of who we are and who we are matters.

Hong Huo is a Chinese-American multidisciplinary artist who navigates through diverse cultures to express her identity while seeking a temporal “home” to celebrate and dwell in. Huo received her BFA degree in Kinetic Imaging from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2017 and graduated with an MFA degree in the 4D area from UW-Madison in May 2022. She was a Kohler art fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) during the 2021-2022 academic year. Her multidisciplinary practice wanders between multi-media installation, experimental animation, and performance art. Her works have been exhibited and screened nationally and internationally including the U.S., South Korea, Italy, and the Netherlands. Her ongoing body of work Strange Dwelling ( ) was exhibited and performed in New York City for the Underground Art and Design (UAAD)’s hybrid exhibition Jukebox of Dissonance in October 2024. As a visual artist, independent animator, graphic designer, and educator, Huo is constantly searching for a unique visual narrative about animation, material, body, and spirit through various mediums and processes of experimentation. She is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and Digital Media at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA.

Composer Byron Au Yong focuses on intercultural collaborations and site-responsive experiences with events for ensemble, choir, film, installation, taiko (drum), dance, and theater. Born to Chinese immigrants in Pittsburgh and raised in the Pacific Northwest, his upbringing informs an attention to the ways people gather to listen to music and connect with the places they call home. Variety Magazine calls his work “intimate and existential, personal and political all at once.” Au Yong has composed music for choreographer Donald Byrd’s Farewell: A Fantastical Contemplation on America’s Relationship with China and The Mother of Us All, for Spectrum Dance Theater, as well as choreographers Marianne Kim, Archana Kumar, Edisa Weeks, Olivier Wevers, Takahiro Yamamoto, and Ying Zhou. Music for theatrical productions include The Orphan of Zhao ( ), starring BD Wong, directed by Carey Perloff for the American Conservatory Theater and La Jolla Playhouse, The War of the Roses, directed by Eric Ting for Cal Shakes, as well as collaborations with playwrights Eugenie Chan and Christopher Chen. Honors include a Creative Capital Award and Sundance Institute Time Warner Foundation Fellowship. Residencies include the A/P/A Institute at NYU, Exploratorium, Montalvo Arts Center, and Yale Institute for Music Theater. Au Yong holds degrees in theater, dance, and music from NYU, UCLA, and the University of Washington. Dedicated to education as an anchor for imagination and knowledge, he serves as an Associate Professor and Director of Arts Leadership at Seattle University.

Christal Wagner holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and currently serves as adjunct faculty in the UWM dance department. She is a visual artist skilled in movement, choreography, video, and photography. She began her career performing with Your Mother Dances for four seasons both locally and nationally, and currently serves as the Artistic Director of Danceworks Performance MKE. Since 2007, she has been performing and creating both staged and video work with the company. Christal is a co-founder of Cadance Collective, a music and dance trio that creates pieces by simultaneously working on both music and dance through improvisational practices and original soundscapes. Her Video work has been presented in collaboration with Danceworks Inc, Milwaukee Dance Theatre Network, Milwaukee Opera Theatre, UWM Dance, The Saint Kate Arts Hotel, The Cactus Club, and Li Chiao-Ping Dance where she was a 2020 SEED Creation Fund grant recipient. In 2020 Christal Wagner became the Saint Kate Art Hotel’s first artist in co-residence and their weekly residancer. Christal’s mission is to support and elevate the voices of her community, collaborators, and fellow artists.
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Kimi Evelyn is a Milwaukee native who has been dancing ever since she can remember. While earning her BFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kimi was able to partake in many opportunities including performances and classes taking place from North Carolina, all the way to Panama. After graduating, Kimi moved back home where she returned to teaching at her home company Signature Dance Company as well as StudioVIA and the Wisconsin Athletic Club. She also received her 200-hour yoga certification in 2021 which allowed her to teach yoga in places where it is less accessible. Though fitness and yoga are a huge part of her passion, dance has always been her heart. Kimi’s mission is to use dance to show other black girls and women that they can own any space they step into no matter what medium they choose. She continues to take classes and train as much as she can so that she can make an impact in her community by doing what she loves the most. Kimi is a touring performer in Li Chiao-Ping’s “Here Lies the Truth” and cannot wait to see the impact that the show will make.

John Paul “JP” Alejandro is a dancer, teacher, and personal trainer from the SF Bay Area. He graduated in 2018 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a B.S. in Dance, where he received a full-tuition First Wave Scholarship for spoken word. In 2017, he attended the 30th Anniversary of the Bates Dance Summer Intensive in Maine. He has trained and worked with such choreographers as Chris Walker, Li Chiao-Ping, Michael Foley, Rennie Harris, and Gerald Casel. After returning to the San Francisco Bay Area, he joined PUSH Dance Company in 2020. He will pursue an MFA in Dance at Arizona State University this August.

Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento is an artist-scholar from Rio de Janeiro, with a particular interest in experimental performance. An actor, director, and scholar, she began a professional stage career while living in Brazil. In the United States, Tatinge Nascimento joined Cleveland’s New World Performance Laboratory (NWPL). With this company she participated in Jerzy Grotowski’s final Objective Drama Session at the UC-Irvine, and performed in Europe, North and South America. The author of Crossing Cultural Borders Through the Actor’s Work: Foreign Bodies of Knowledge (Routledge, 2008) and After the Long Silence: The Theater of Brazil’s Post-Dictatorship Generation (Routledge, 2019), her articles appear in A[l]berto (Brazil), Biblioteca Teatrale (Italy), Didaskalia (Poland), Studia Dramatica (Romania), and TDR (USA). She is the guest editor of special issues on Brazilian theater for Theater—Yale’s Journal of Criticism, Plays, and Reportage and Theatre Research International. She received a Consulate General of Brazil in New York Arts Grant to direct Pornographic Angel, her published adaptation of Nelson Rodrigues’ short stories at The Ohio Theater. Her current performance research investigates the intersection between dance and theater. She was a fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub, Wesleyan University’s Center for the Humanities, and Freie Universität-Berlin’s “Interweaving Performance Cultures” International Research Center.

Cuauhtli Ramirez Castro is a Mexican performing artist and dancer. He studied Performing Arts at the University of Guanajuato having a multidisciplinary approach, combining contemporary dance and acting techniques in his training. He has performed at the International Cervantino Festival (2016), as well as the Guanajuato International Film Festival (2015). He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a BFA in Contemporary Dance Performance and Choreography (2021). During his last year he was part of UWM´s Undergraduate Research Fellowship program as a teaching and research assistant for the project Parts of The Whole: The Body is Home under the mentorship of Maria Gillespie. During his time in Milwaukee he has performed and collaborated in works of Maria Gillespie, Morgan Williams, Emma Draves, Bernard Brown, Caitlin Mahon, Joe Goode, Mair Culbreth, Amanda Lee, and companies such as Danceworks DPMKE, and WildSpace.

Douglas Rosenberg has been making work for the screen and exhibiting internationally for over 30 years. He has made films with a number of extraordinary choreographers including, Eiko and Koma, Molissa Fenley, Sean Curran, Li Chiao-Ping and Sally Gross. He was the founding curator of the International Screendance Festival at the American Dance Festival and director of the Video Archival Project for over a decade. Rosenberg is a professor in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Screendance: Inscribing the Ephemeral Image, published by Oxford University Press. His most recent film, Song of Songs, is a deeply personal work addressing life, death, faith and devotion. It is a manifesto for Screendance.

Tim Russell lives at the confluence of the aural and the visual. He currently serves as Music Director for the University of Wisconsin’s Dance Department. In 2019, Tim was selected as one of the Cowles Visiting Artists at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, a first for a musician in the field of dance. He has a vast catalogue of works specifically for choreography, most of which exist live, in collaboration with movement. His commitment to the nowness in performance led him to co-create/curate, along with choreographer Maria Gillespie, Hyperlocal MKE, a Music and Dance improvisation series that exists to this day in Milwaukee. His current curatorial project: Common Sage Arts, promotes multidisciplinary artists through carefully curated performances. Along with Tim’s long time collaboration with the Gerald Casel Dance Company, his audio shares the stage with choreographic artists such as: Kate Corby, Abby Crain, Danceworks Maria Gillespie, Holly Johnston, Stephan Sara Shelton Mann, Li Chiao-Ping, Liz Sexe, Marlene Skog, Wildspace Dance and Jin-Wen Yu, bringing Tim and his music across the world from Dock 11 in Berlin to YBCA in San Francisco. He holds an MFA in Music Improvisation from Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied improvisation, electronic music and composition with the likes of Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell and Zeena Parkins. His 2020 album: “Junct”, a collection of improvisational duets with bassist Ari Smith, was included in Tone Madison’s top 20 records of 2020. www.avoidancepolicy.com