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.”

Artist in Residence

Christina Gesualdi

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.

Artist in Residence

Loren Groenendaal

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.

Artist in Residence

Curt Haworth

Philadelphia native Kalila Kingsford Smith is an independent choreographer, performer, dance writer and dance educator. Informed by her training in modern and contemporary dance, her work flows between tension and release, momentum and suspension, storytelling and abstraction. She is interested in creating interactive environments in which the dance crosses perceived boundaries between audience and performer. Her work has been presented in throughout Philadelphia, including at Studio Works, the Come Together Festival, the FringeArts Festival, SoLow Fest, Making the Rounds, InHale Performance Series and an Evening of Duets. As a dance educator, she teaches courses in modern dance technique, improvisation, choreography, and dance history and theory. Kalila is a dance writer and editor with Philadelphia’s online journal, thINKingDANCE.net. She received her MA in Dance from Temple University, a BFA in Dance and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan. 

www.kalilakingsfordsmith.com

Artist in Residence

KALILA KINGSFORD SMITH

The Philadelphia Renaissance Faire is super excited to begin it’s partnership with Mascher Space Cooperative. Philly Ren is going into it’s 6th season this year, and you’ll find us this May at Fort Mifflin just south of the airport on the river. We’ll be holding fight practices and cast rehearsals for our 2020 season starting this month and on into the spring. I’m Sean McGarry, fight coordinator for the faire and I love being a part of a faire right here in the city to provide performance opportunities for local actors, stage combatants, dancers, jugglers and more.

Artist in Residence

Sean McGarry

Paige Phillips' artwork is situated on the border between the performing and visual arts, engaging most frequently with dance, movement scores, installation, and video. Her content is concerned with endurance challenges, and recontextualizing rituals from pop-culture and religion to better understand identity politics and community formation. Venues where she has exhibited include: National Museum of Singapore, Bangkok Art and Culture Center, Park Gallery (Kathmandu, Nepal), Microscope Gallery (NYC), Columbus College of Art and Design (Columbus), On the Boards (Seattle), and Pyramid Atlantic (Washington D.C.). She has performed for choreographers and visual artists throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia such as Cyrus Khmabatta, Josiah McElheny, Yael Bartana, Owen David, and Cai Guo-Qiang. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University with an specialization in Folklore, a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts, and diploma from Interlochen Arts Academy. Phillips also enjoys teaching, and is currently the Program and Communications Manager at the Performance Garage.

Artist in Residence

paige phillips

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.

Artist in Residence

dawn pratson

Kate Seethaler is an improviser, choreographer, dance educator, performer, and brand-newly relocated Philadelphian. Her artistic work moves from questions about the audience/performer relationship, the line (if one exists) between serious and silly, and utilizing improvisation to access other realms. Kate has had the recent pleasures of working with choreographers Barbie Diewald, Deborah Goffe/Scapegoat Garden, Katie Martin, Stephanie Turner, and Whitney Wilson. She was the Spring 2017 Artist-in-Residence at the School for Contemporary Dance & Thought (Northampton, MA), during which time she created a new evening-length work–Homing–with four collaborating dancers. Kate has served on the faculties of Springfield College, School for Contemporary Dance & Thought, Aldrich Pilates, The Taft School, and at Smith College as a Gretchen Moran Teaching Fellow. She earned her MFA in Dance/Choreography and Performance from Smith College in 2016, and her BA from Springfield College in 2008. Kate can’t wait to meet and dance with the folks of Philly!

Artist in Residence

Kate seethaler

Margot Electra Steinberg is a dancer, improviser, choreographer, and children’s dance teacher. She earned a BA in Dance at Muhlenberg College with concentrations in choreography and teaching. 

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Margot has performed in restaged works of Donald McKayle, Sharon Vazanna, and Noa Eshkol. She has also performed works by Randall Anthony-Smith, The Naked Stark, Meredith Stapleton, Lauren Linder, Lyons & Tigers, Leah Stein, Vervet Dance, The Mira Show, Paige Phillips, Nicole Bindler, and Sean Thomas Boyt. She has choreographed in collaboration with Celine McBride and Sarah Marks Mininsohn. 

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Margot currently teaches dance to children at PlayArts, Tiny Tutus Dance Studio, Philly InMovement, and through the Koresh Kids Dance Outreach Program. She has previously taught for the Muhlenberg Community Dance Center, Lume Creative Learning Studio, Buckingham Dance Studio, Napoli School of Music and Dance, and in senior living facilities in the greater Philadelphia area through Dancin’ Chairs LLC.

Artist in Residence

Margot Steinberg