Christina Gesualdi

Artist in Residence

Christina Gesualdi is a Philly based dance, choreographer, and movement educator.  She is an artist in residence at Mascher Space Co-op where she makes experiential work that researches a certain softness and imaginative off-ness in the body.  Christina has performed with Nicole Bindler, Meg Foley, Annie Wilson, Melisa Putz, Zornitsa Stoyanova – [Here]begin Dance, and <fidget>.  She is an advocate for DIY, small scale cooperation, collaboration, and community exchange in Philly’s dance community.  She is also a yoga teacher who loves teaching senior citizens, Temple University undergraduates, and experimental movers at The Whole Shebang. She is currently doing a new yoga training at Motherheart Studio in Fishtown.  Finally, “YES to the way dancing bodies can breed pluralism and anti-absolutism.”

Loren Groenendaal

Artist in Residence

Loren Groenendaal is dancer, improviser, choreographer, and movement educator. She earned an MFA in Choreography at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a BA in Dance and Visual Arts from Oberlin College. Loren is also a Certified Movement Analyst from the Laban/Bartinieff Institute of Movement Studies. Loren is particularly interested in building unique movement vocabularies drawing from her experience with modern, Balinese, social, breakdance and contact improvisation, investigating the community building possibilities of live art, the spectrum between improvisation and composition, and the spectrum between ritual and performance. Her work has been performed in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and presented by various organizations including the the Abington Art Center, the CEC including the New Edge Mix, Cultivate, Green Space Blooms, Inhale, Philly Fringe Festival, the North Carolina Dance Alliance, and the StudioSeries at Studio 34. Loren was a founding member of Mascher Space Cooperative from 2005-2007 and happily returned in 2013.

Curt Haworth

Artist in Residence

Curt Haworth is an expatriate Californian who lived in New York City for twenty years before moving to Philadelphia in 2009. He holds a BA in Creative Writing from UC Santa Cruz and a MFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.  He has an eclectic movement background ranging from athletics to modern dance and postmodern techniques, to yoga, contact improvisation and ballet. Curt toured internationally with David Dorfman Dance from 1990 to 2002, while creating over 15 original roles. He was a Movement Research Artist in Residence in 2001-2002, he has taught regularly at Movement Research and DNA (formerly Dance Space Center) in NYC and is on faculty at ADF. He was the co-director of PARD in Philadelphia, an organization dedicated to supporting new movement performance and teaching, located at the Mt Vernon Dance Space. He has taught and set work as a guest artist throughout the United States, South America and Europe and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

paige phillips

Artist in Residence

Paige Phillips' work lies at the intersection of the visual and performing arts. She engages most frequently with dance, movement scores, installation, and video, and seeks to blur the lines between the sacred and profane. Some venues where she has exhibited include: National Museum of Singapore, Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Park Gallery (Kathmandu, Nepal), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NYC), Microscope Gallery (NYC), Urban Arts Space (Columbus), On the Boards (Seattle), Velocity Dance Center (Seattle), and Pyramid Atlantic (Hyattsville.), along with Philadelphia venues Mascher Space, the CEC, FringeArts' Scratch Night, High Tide Gallery, and Little Berlin. Phillips' work has been supported through grants from The Embassy of the United States in Nepal and Singapore, Ohio Arts Council, Greater Columbus Arts Council and The Ohio State University. She has performed for choreographers and visual artists nationally and abroad such as Cyrus Khambatta, Yael Bartana, Josiah McElheny, and Noelle Chun. She holds an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University with an interdisciplinary specialization in Folklore, a BFA in Dance from Cornish College of the Arts, and diploma from Interlochen Arts Academy. Phillips is currently a Lecturer at Rowan University, and recently participated in Philadelphia Dance Project's BILATERAL Exchange, a residency in Budapest, Hungary.

dawn pratson

Artist in Residence

Dawn Pratson is an interdisciplinary artist - dancer, choreographer, musician - and educator with a background in creative arts in therapy. She is interested in finding new ways to integrate dance and music. Her training started out in music (flute, piano, voice) and expanded to dance and movement arts during college and young adulthood (Humphrey-Limon, Graham, Kung-Fu, Laban Movement Analysis, Dance-Theater and Somatics). After earning a masters degree in creative arts in therapy she worked as a dance/movement and arts therapist while studying and performing dance in and around Boston MA and the North Shore. During that time she founded and directed a women’ a cappella group, ‘LEVEN, for 12 years.

Dawn became involved in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, an approach to music education through body movement after being hired to teach a comprehensive graduate course in movement at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA. Since then her focus has been on music education (she was the founding music specialist at the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School here in Philadelphia) and on finding innovative choreographic and performance opportunities to bring together music and dance.