Lucy Pollak Public Relations

Dance at the Odyssey – Artist Bios

Vanessa Hernández Cruz is an interdependent Chicana disabled dance artist and disability justice activist. She is from the unceded lands of the Tongva & Kizh lands colonially known as Los Angeles, California. She graduated from California State University Long Beach with her BA in Dance Science.Over the past few years Vanessa’s work has been shown nationally and internationally. She was recently commissioned by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs to create and perform a new work titled: La Lucha Sigue/The Fight Continues to celebrate & honor Corita Kent and Dolores Huerta for their EMPOWERMENT: Cortia + Huerta events. She recently was a guest speaker at Chapman University where she spoke about disability dance and workshopped her contemporary ballet repertoire Nycto-Eternity. Vanessa was a guest artist-in-resident and collaborator for Bradford Chin’s dance MFA Thesis The world was ending, so they danced, & they were free at the University of California, Irvine. Through her dance films and choreographic work, Vanessa presents the audience with thought-provoking pieces that ignite the imagination and explore disability aesthetics in contemporary forms and experimentation. She is shifting the dance field away from the inspirational-porn perspective of disability to a humanistic perspective. To learn more visit: https://www.galaxiesdance.info Follow IG: https://www.instagram.com/galaxiesdance/

DarrelFriidomDunn is a Dallas, TX native based in Los Angeles. He has a degree in Arts and Technology from the University of Texas at Dallas, and has worked as a director, choreographer, actor and composer in front of and behind the camera. Friidom is known for pioneering the cinematic movement style known as Epiic. His life’s mission is to spread this movement philosophy and raw expressive movement by creating worlds and bridging divides as a true “Willy Wonka of Movement.”

Corina Kinnear trained at her mother’s studio, Parker Dance Academy,  then at International Ballet School.  She continued in San Francisco, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet and Dominican University, as well as her certification as a Gyrotonic® instructor.  Since, she has danced and toured as a performing artist and choreographer with companies in Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, Colorado, San Francisco and throughout Europe including the Deutche Oper Ballet, LA Opera, Invertigo Dance Theatre, MiMoDa, Gibson Muriva Dance Company, Deutche Fernsehballet, The Movement Movement, Apex Contemporary Dance Theatre, Arrogant Elbow, and creating work in residencies at PARTS in Brussels, the CND in Paris, TanzFabrik in Berlin, and for the Odyssey Theatre Dance Festival. “As a choreographer, I have developed productions as a medium of an artful expression of reality as well as a form of entertainment.  My goal is to create a mood that transports the audience into a place where they can appreciate details in humanity that sometimes are not recognized as well as enjoy the emotional expression, physicality, and shape of dance as a medium of art.”

Marcella Lewis, recipient of the 2018 Princess Grace Award in Dance, hails from Los Angeles, CA, where she began her dance training at the Lula Washington Dance Theatre. She then continued her studies at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts(LACHSA). She later received her BFA from the Purchase Conservatory of Dance in 2016, where she was awarded the Adopt-A-Dancer Scholarship. She joined A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in fall 2016, as a dancer, soloist, and company liaison. Marcella was featured with A.I.M in Dance Magazine in August 2017 and was mentioned in the New York Times for the A.I.M’s Joyce season in May 2018. Marcella is currently a performer with TRIBE multidisciplinary visual performances and is a freelance artist, choreographer and teacher in Los Angeles and New York.

Hannah Millar is an educated and passionate teacher, choreographer and mover. Hannah is internationally sought after for her award-winning choreography, including a Gold Telly and Gold Muse Award for a Chukchansi Casino and Resort commercial. Her creative movement has been celebrated by the ICU World’s Competition winning the Gold Medal, the Carnival Choreographer Ball, and the Young Tanzsommer Austria Tour. Hannah is the founder of LA based Dance Company, Imprints, and is the Artistic Director and Choreographer. Imprints premiered their first full evening work, “Let Us Bleed, Then Heal” as part of the Dance at the Odyssey Festival in July 2022. Imprints has performed in MashUp’s International Women’s Day Show, at the Paul Shaghoian Theater in Fresno and has created many dance films in collaboration with Taso Papadakis.  In addition to her artistic credentials, Hannah’s degree in Athletic Training, certification in Barre and Pilates enables her to synthesize a love and passion for anatomy, physiology and kinesiology into an original approach to education and choreography. In the past few years, mindfulness has become an essential core part in Hannah’s life, teaching and choreography. Hannah has been highly intrigued with how our bodies move, through the lens of energy anatomy and interested in teaching and creating work from this perspective. This curiosity led her to completing her 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, Sound Therapy Training, becoming Reiki certified and a Qigong Instructor. Because of the energy work Hannah has been trained in, she is passionate about guiding humans to connect to the energy in, and around their bodies to inform their movement from a deeper, more sensitive and authentic place.

Alejandro Perez is a first-generation Mexican-American from Los Angeles, California. He was first introduced to dance at the age of 12.  He joined a street dance crew in which he use to compete and showcase internationally. Alejandro’s passion continued to unfold as he enrolled at Hamilton Performing Arts High School to begin refining his techniques. He is a recipient of scholarships at UCLA, Jacob’s Pillow Ballet Summer Programs 85th Anniversary GALA, & Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program.  Alejandro just completed a 3 week residency in the world renowned Orsolina28 in Moncalvo, Italy dancing under the direction of Mike Tyus. He has also performed with ISHIDA, dawsondancesf, ZiRu Dance, and recently performed Stranger Love at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in addition to several other companies in the United States. He is currently a dancer and choreographer throughout California and has set works on the LINES Ballet Training Program, Summer Program, YAGP and the California summer school for the arts.  @alekss.perez

Chie Saito is a performance artist and educator based in Los Angeles and Japan. She obtained M.F.A in Contemporary Performance at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where she found her mentor Barbara Dilley and Wendell Beavers. Chie is currently a professor at Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy teaching physical performance practice, Six Viewpoints, and Suzuki Method of Actor Training as well as teaching workshops at Will Gear’s  Theatricum Botanicum. She believes that bringing awareness of the body and mind will also awaken the awareness of the effect of oneself to the society. Instagram: sasayaki_productions  https://www.instagram.com/sasayaki_productions/

Lara Wilson is a choreographer, dance filmmaker, designer, and gallerist based in Joshua Tree and Orange County, CA. Originally from outside Detroit, she was formally trained as a dancer and choreographer, graduating in 2009 from New York City’s Ailey/Fordham B.F.A. program. While in NY, she showed her choreography at venues including Jacob’s Pillow, Symphony Space, Dance New Amsterdam, the Joan Weill Center for Dance and Galapagos Art Space. In 2014, Lara co-founded and later directed The Assembly Dance, a platform for dancers and collaborating artists to create semi-annual dance performance pop-ups. She also contributed writing and art direction to the dance journalism site and print journal, DIYdancer. Since 2017, Lara has consulted with MacArthur Genius Award-winning artist, Elizabeth Turk, on multiple projects including Shoreline Project, an installation for 1,000 bodies and umbrellas — and several thousand onlookers — on Laguna’s Main Beach, commissioned by Laguna Art Museum. Lara opened Compound YV, an artist-led gallery and performance space, in 2018 with her husband, Michael Townsend.