Robert Moses

Artist-in-Residence, Dance. Choreographer Robert Moses founded Robert Moses’ Kin in 1995 and since then has created numerous works of varying styles and genres for his highly praised dance company. He has created commissioned works for England’s Transitions Dance Company of the Laban Centre; Dance Exchange in London; African Cultural Exchange in Birmingham, UK; Oakland Ballet; Cincinnati Ballet; Lawrence Pech Dance Company; Robert Henry Johnson Dance Company; and Savage Jazz Dance Company, among others. His work has been performed nationally and internationally, including England, Italy, and Ireland, and he has performed with his company at many nationally esteemed venues such as Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (2002 and 2004), Colorado Dance Festival, and the Bates Dance Festival.

Moses and his company have been honored with many prestigious grants and awards, among these an Irvine Dancemakers grant; three project awards from the NEA, a 1998, 2001, and 2003 Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzie); the Bonnie Bird North American Choreography Award; a San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie; and the SF Weekly Black Box Award. Moses has held residencies at ODC Theater and in the San Francisco public schools as part of the San Francisco Arts in Education Foundation Artist-in-Residence Program, and was a Duke/Wattis Artist-in-Residence at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Moses’ film and theater credits include major productions for the Lorraine Hansberry Theater, New Conservatory Theater, Los Angeles Prime Moves Festival (L.A.C.E.), Olympic Arts Festival, and Black Choreographers Moving Toward the Twenty-First Century. Moses has collaborated with many notable artists; among them are Julia Adam, Margaret Jenkins, Alonzo King, Sara Shelton Mann, SoVoSo, Marcus Shelby, Keith Terry, Frank Boehm, Will Power, Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble, and Youth Speaks.

Moses has been on faculty at Stanford University since 1995 and teaches ongoing technique classes at San Francisco Dance Center. He has been a Master Teacher or Guest Faculty at Columbia College Chicago, the Bates Dance Festival, Colorado Dance Festival, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, University of Texas, University of Nevada, Mills College, San Jose State University, Saint Mary’s College, California Dance Educators Association, American College Dance Festival, and San Francisco Dance Center.

Prior to establishing Robert Moses’ Kin, Moses has been a member of American Ballet Theatre, Twyla Tharp Dance, ODC/San Francisco, Long Beach Ballet, Walt Disney World Productions, and Gloria Newman Dance Theater, among others. He graduated from CSULB.

back to top

Ann Carlson

Visiting Artist, Modern Dance, Performance Art. Ann Carlson is a dancer, choreographer, and performance artist. She creates “dances that reflect and investigate the metaphor of the everyday” and are coauthored by the performers, who have included non-dancers, such as lawyers, doctors, and nuns (“the real-people series”). With a background in visual and performance art, Carlson often shows her work in unconventional dance sites, including museums, trains, and barnyards. A.C.
back to top

Muriel Maffre

Visiting Artist, Ballet. Born in Enghien-les Bains, France, Muriel Maffre received her ballet training from the Paris Opéra Ballet School and Paris National Conservatory of Music from which she graduated with a Premier Prix with honors. Prior to joining the San Francisco Ballet as a
Principal Dancer in 1990, Muriel danced with the Hamburg Ballet and Monte-Carlo Ballet. Muriel is Chevalier in the French order of Arts and Lettres. She is a Gold Medalist from Paris 1st International Ballet Competition, and the recipient of two Isadora Duncan Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Individual Performance for both 1990 and 2002repertory season performances with the San Francisco Ballet. Muriel performed leading roles in the romantic, classical and contemporary repertory. She also created roles in ballets by major present-day choreographers. She toured extensively and made guest appearances in eminent theaters in America, Europe, Russia and Asia. Muriel holds a B.A. in Performing Arts from St Mary’s College of California. Muriel retired from the San Francisco Ballet with a Farewell Gala on May, 6th 2007. Since, she has been involved in dance education and public humanities. She currently is a Master candidate in Museum Studies.
back to top

Ralph Lemon

Visiting Artist, Modern Dance. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Lemon graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1975, and was part of the Nancy Hauser Company before cofounding Mixed Blood Theater Company in 1976. He moved to New York in the late 1970s and, after a stint with Meredith Monk (whom he first saw perform at the Walker Art Center), formed his eponymous company in 1985. Lemon quickly gained attention for his collaborative acumen and singular facility for expression within the vacillating fiats of postmodern choreography in New York at that time.[1] The core of his celebrated style of the late 1980s and early 1990s seemed organically rooted in the body but could just as easily flow seamlessly into enigmatic austerity. Having embraced, in such works as Boundary Water (1984) and Killing Tulips (1993), both cerebral classicism and romantic rumination, Lemon’s choreographic ambitions began to outgrow the constraints of formulaic formality: “When you start with the same dancers, you often end up making the same dance. Yes, there’s a refinement. . . . But I began to question the relevance of a private language that no one outside my company understood.”[2] At what seemed to be the height of his career, he decided to dissolve his company in 1995, after ten years of internationally acclaimed work, and to look beyond the familiarity of New York and the creative process as he knew it.

Since 1995, Lemon and a handpicked roster of international collaborators have been on a ten-year odyssey of diasporic discovery, a quest for the pieces of dance and the linkages to the past (and present) needed to complete a whole.[3] The Geography Trilogy—a profound examination of Lemon’s own history—is a remarkable inquiry into the social gravities of race and identity at the turn of the twenty-first century. Lemon’s ambitious vision for the movement vocabulary of the Trilogy has relied on the ebb and flow of many social tide pools—a language that swirls between notions of modern and traditional, East and West, light and dark, formal and free-form. His direction and choreography, equal parts art and anthropology, illuminate the clash and charm of cultural juxtapositions while striving to remain respectful of the considerable significance of dance traditions in distinct civic frameworks.

back to top

Ronnie Reddick

Visiting Artist, Hip Hop, Jazz, Fashion and Theatrics. Ronnie Reddick is a multi-faceted San Francisco-based choreographer/dancer. He made his mark by combining Hip Hop, Jazz, Fashion and Theatrics to create one of the most explosive and dynamic styles to hit the dance scene recently, making him one of the most sought after choreographers in the Bay Area and beyond.

Reddick is the choreographer and Show Director at Asia SF and the soon to open Asia SF/Hollywood, in Los Angeles. He has choreographed and worked with many designers and fashion brands, and is teaching Master classes at Princeton University. In the entertainment world, Ronnie has worked with such artists as Michael and Janet Jackson, Deborah Cox, Paula Abdul, Liza Minelli, Santana, Ultra Nate, Kelly Price, Vicky Shepard, RuPaul, Jeanie Tracy, Abigail and M.C. Hammer. He also choreographs and tours around the country with many corporate bands.

"Technique is only the beginning of what makes a memorable dancer, and we don't start dancing to end up doing chorus," says Reddick, "you have got to have that extra something."
back to top