oXymoros Dance Theatre

oXymoros Dance Theatre

Bios

Irina Constantine Poulos (Choreographer) was born in Athens, Greece where she trained in classical ballet. Upon her graduation from Athens College with a concentration in physics and sociology, she then attended the American College of Greece-Deree College, where she performed with the Deree Dance Company, and received her AAS and BA in Dance with Honors. Irina has danced the leading roles in Les Sylphides, Don Quixote, Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Giselle, Pas de Quatre, The Dying Swan, Paquita, Copellia, Legend of Love and other ballets with the Alexei Feoktistov Dance Company . Irina holds an MFA in Choreography & Performance from the NYU-Tisch School of the Arts . In 2004 she brought into being the oXymoros Dance Theatre and co-founded the ANNEX group . Since then her work has been presented to d.um.b.o, Whitewave, Cool NY festivals for the past three years, Outside/ Input at the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre (Richard Foreman) , Bessie Shoenberg Workshop (NYU), the Vortex Theater, Chashama's Oasis Festival, La MaMa for the New School of Education, Tisch School of the Arts-NYU for the Undergraduate Program of the Theater Department and the Target Margin Theater at the Kitchen.

While giving movement workshops for underprivileged children through the Children's Hope Foundation , Irina mentors and directs young choreographers, is currently working on Aqua , a new work in collaboration with and funded by Christine Jowers-the Moving Arts Project and is in the process of developing a new center for the arts at Brooklyn's Greenpoint waterfront, which will be called Choreo Theatro Center.

William D. Arnold earned his BFA in Dance at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts . He has received additional training from Joffrey Ballet School, the Kirov Academy of Ballet , Pennsylvania Governer's School for the Arts, Northwestern University's National High School Institute for the Performing Arts , Ballet Theater of Scranton and Scranton Civic Ballet .He is currently working with Incidents Physical Theater, Ballet Theater of Scranton, Hudson Vagabond Puppets and the Metropolitan Opera of New York , while in the past he worked as an apprentice with the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company . William is also a classical pianist and composer. In his spare time, William enjoys the finer things in the life of a well paid dancer, such as dining on raman noodles and shopping for things he can't afford. His favorite restaurant is Waffle House and his least favorite restaurant is Bennigan's or The Olive Garden (he can't decide).

For some reason, William receives a free copy of Entertainment Weekly every week. He doesn't read it. He thinks it's trash. His favorite noise is applause (not yet... the show hasn't started). He would like to thank each of you for reading this far... Thanks.

Upon further deliberation, he now thinks his least favorite restaurant is definitely Bennigan's . William proudly uses Old Spice Deodorant .

Blake Faulds has been training in dance for the past two years at NYU Tisch School of the Arts . While attending NYU, Blake is perusing a BFA in dance as well as a BS in Chemistry while on the pre-med track. Before coming to New York, Blake trained at Milwaukee Ballet for one year under the tutelage of Robin VanValin . In his free time, Blake enjoys reading, drawing, acting like a huge nerd, and developing math thermos. Blake hopes to be the first dancer to come up with a perfect logarithm that will enviably dictate the perfect dance. Using advanced calculus, Liner algebra, as well as a little string theory he hopes to uncover the mathematical harmonies found in dance. Blake also enjoys walking old women across the street and pretending to be a genius disguised as a buffoon.

Jill Frere enjoys dancing with Alethea Adsitt & Company , Cila Vee Motion Sculpture , oXymoros dance theatre , Sydney Skybetter , and Emily Tschiffely . Also she recently guested with Larry Kegwin and Company at the Duke on 42nd Street. She recently graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Dance. Her most recent choreographic work was performed last February by the dance company Go! at Pellissippi State. Other education includes North Carolina School of the Arts, Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, London Contemporary Dance School, Jacob's Pillow, and American Dance Festival. Her favorite color is greengold.

Melana L. Lloyd is a native of Lafayette, Louisiana where she studied with Pamalor Joseph , Marie S. Broussard and Garland Goodwi n. She is currently pursuing an MFA at NYU Tisch School of the Arts . Special thanks to: Irene Rampino, Kathy Grant, Jackie Villamill, her Family for their encouragement and God for her gifts.

Abbey Mills is originally from Louisville, Kentucky where she trained and performed with the Louisville Ballet. She received additional training from the Boston Ballet and later on pursued her BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She performed in the ballets Serenade, Giselle, Don Quixote, and The Nutcracker, amongst others, and has worked with many choreographers including Robert Battle, Gus Solomons Jr., Domy Reiter-Soffer, Irina Constantine Poulos, Mikelle Bruzina and Alun Jones. When not performing or directing rehearsals, she acts as the administrative assistant for oXymoros dance theatre.

Jessy C. Smith, a native to Hudson, Ohio, graduated with honors from NYU Tisch School of the Arts . As a choreographer and improviser, she has collaborated with DNO Sequencing Projects , LAUNCH , and the International Disco Assassins. Her love of music, dance, fashion and fantasy led her to conceive POW! Artistic Adventures , which most recently inspired her travels across Argentina; shortly thereafter POW! performed at Dance Theater Workshop. She is currently mastering magic under the direction of Heather Harrington Dance Company and is delighted to be performing for oXymoros Dance Theater .

Lucian Ban is originally from Romania where he studied at the Bucharest Music Academy . He founded The Jazz Unit Quintet in 1994 and released two albums as a leader for Green Records Label: Changes - Live at GreenHours in 1998 and From now on in 1999. The group toured the country in major venues and festivals and in Europe as well.

The album From now on won the Great Prize as the Best Jazz Album in Romania in 2000 awarded by The Romanian Composer Association . An original piece from the first album was included as a tribute in the Book about the famous South-African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim published by the prestigious Das Booktrader in Copenhagen. In 1999 he moves to New York with a scholarship to study at the New School Jazz Program .

A former student of Phil Markowitz , Junior Mance and Charles Tolliver he establishes the Lucian Ban Quintet with baritone sax great Alex Harding . Then later records for his own album, original pieces by Lucian Ban. He performs regularly with his band and as a sideman in New York jazz clubs and is a member of The BMI Composers Jazz Workshop . Lucian Ban also wrote music for more than 10 theater productions, films and ballet and he wrote original music for the Theater/Dance Event ZERO and Body Maps produced by Minus Company . In August 2002 Lucian Ban recorded two albums for the prestigious Creative Improvisation Productions label.

Kickplate is the beat-constructing, noise-sculpting alter ego of internationally known opera singer David Adam Moore. As a dj and composer/producer, he combines human and synthetic sounds to create a sonic playground in which heavy-handed rhythms, placid textures, abrasive electronics, and children's songs are equally at home.

Oana Botez-Ban, a native of Romania , has designed for major theater and dance companies including The National Theater of Bucharest and was involved in different international theater festivals such as the Quadrennial Scenography Show in Prague .

Oana is part of the first Romanian theater design catalogue, Scenografica.

Since 1999, her New York costume collaborations in theater and dance include Richard Foreman, Richard Schechner, Zelda Fichlander, Karin Coonrod, Eduardo Machado, Gus Solomon Jr. & Paradigm, Jay Scheib, Gisela Cardenas, Alva Rogers, Julia Whitworth, Paul Bargetto, Michael Barakiva, oXymoros Dance Company.

Oana also cofounded MINUS, a dance theater company and ANNEX , a performance group.

Stephen Gifford is happy to make this his first collaboration with oXymoros. He is a recent graduate with a MFA in Design for Theatre and Film from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Having designed many plays, musicals, operas, and even parties, this is his first venture into the world of scenic design for dance. Stephen's current projects include the Barber of Seville for the Juneau Lyric Opera and a move to LA in May. He sends all his love, best wishes, and thanks to oXymoros Dance Theatre and G.

Lucas Benjamin Krech

Other dance Collaborations include the work of choreographers Nicolo Fonte, Sean Curran, Johannes Weiland, Gemze De Lappe, Donald Mahler, Sallie Wilson, Paul Sutherland, Trebien Pollard, Anandha Ray, Elizabeth Riga and Keith Michael. For New York Theatre Ballet he has lit the world premiers of A. de Mille Celebration, Legends of Love and Mother GOOSE! as well as reconstructions of The Nutcracker, Cinderella, The Firebird, He Loves/She Loves and others. Other companies whose work he has designed include Moving Arts Dance, Johannes Weiland Company, Trebien Pollard Company and Refractions Dance Collective. He was the resident lighting designer for the Tisch dance department for two years lighting over one hundred dances in that time. Theatre work includes collaborations with directors Eduardo Machado, Josh Costello, Alex Lippard, Gisela Cardenas, Shoshona Currier, Marci Arlin, Drew Barr, Roy Rallo, Victor Maog and many others. Lucas has also done numerous site specific performance works and installations including The Seven Deadly Sins: A Fire Opera (Oakland, CA); Medea (San Juan, PR); and Foucault’s Pendulum (Nevada Desert). MFA from New York University.

More of his work is available at www.LucasKrech.com .

Shaun Motley got his star at Circle Repertory Theatre where he assisted on Lonely Planet , Riff Raff , and Hope Zone. He also assisted on many Broadway shows some consisting of Master Class , Power Play , Grace and Glorie, By The Se , and Freefall .

Shaun set design credits consist of Love Is Not Concerned, at the Gene Frankel Theatre, Library Play, at the John Hausman Theatre, and Full Circle at NYU Undergraduate Drama. Feature film credits are Mind The Gap and The Cry. Shaun was also featured in October 2003 Architectural Digest as the architect for Star Jones Penthouse Design .

He currently is completing his last year at NYU Graduate Design Program.

Born in Odessa , former USSR, Victoria Tzykun grew up in Tel-Aviv, Israel . After completing a BFA in Theater Design at Tel-Aviv University in 2000, she quickly gained recognition for her work as both set and Costume Designer.

Since 2002, she has lived and worked in New York, while she was awarded an MFA in Design for Stage and Film from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts . Her costume design credits in New York include the dance pieces INTRIN by Jill Frere & Melissa Quek , UNMARKED WAIST , by Melissa Beck & Aimee Rails , and SYMBOLIC PSYCHOSIS , by Corey Gosselin & Adam Scher at the Fifth Floor Theater, NYC ; and the plays FULL CIRCLE by Charles Mee (Emma Griffin, dir.) at the Abe Burrows Theater , and GOLDEN BOY by Clifford Odets (Victor Pappas, dir.) , at The Atlas Room . Her production design credits for film include the screen adaptation of NO EXIT , directed by Max Finneran and premiered in New York in Spring 2004. Her work has also appeared in Design exhibitions at the Habima National Theater in Tel-Aviv and in Sorasky Hall in Tel-Aviv University .

Upcoming - 2005 World Stage Design Exhibition in Toronto. Vic is excited to work with oXymoros Dance Theater and looks forward to a fruitful collaboration.

Magdalena Zira received a BA in Classics from Oxford University, where she focused on the study and performance of classical theatre in her academic work as well as in practice. She also holds an MA in Drama from King’s College, London and an MFA in Directing from the University of California-Irvine. In New York she has recently directed the world premier of Rebecca Tourino’s The Naked Eye Planets at the Chernuchin Theatre, American Theatre of Actors and Euripides’ Hecuba at NYU/TSOA at the Experimental Theatre Wing. Other directing credits: Paula Vogel’s Hot ‘n’ Throbbing at The Chance Theatre, Chekhov’s The Seagull, Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Ford’s Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Atkins’ Vita and Virginia at UC-Irvine, April de Angelis’s Playhouse Creatures (translated into Greek and adapted) at Theatro tis Anixis in Athens, Greece, Dekker’s The Honest Whore at RADA, London. She has also worked both in New York and regionally as Assistant Director, most recently with Kate Whoriskey on Camille (Bard Summerscape Festival) Caucasian Chalk Circle and The Clean House (South Coast Repertory Theatre), with Timothy Douglas on Love’s Labor’s Lost (Utah Shakespearean Festival) and Pericles (Juilliard), with Cathleen Conlin on A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Utah Shakespearean Festival), and on the US premier of Hitchcock Blonde with Terry Johnson (South Coast Repertory Theatre). She has also worked as dramaturg on Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, at the Chance Theatre, directed by Trevor Biship (The Chance Theatre) and on April De Angelis Playhouse Creatures directed by Amanda McRaven (The Nixon Theatre). Before coming to the US she worked with theatre professionals and students in Greece and Cyprus. Productions abroad include Our Country’s Good and Donizetti’s opera Caterina Cornaro. She currently acts as an advisor to the director of the European Cultural Center of Delphi, in Greece, devoted to contemporary productions of classical drama from around the world. Upcoming projects include a production of Aristophanes’ Frogs at the Greek Cultural Center in New York in October 2007 and a participation in the XIII International Ancient Greek Drama Symposium in Delphi, Greece in July 2007. She is a member of Coyote Rep, a New York-based theatre company dedicated to producing new work, for both stage and radio/pod-casting. Zira received a grant from the Alexander Onassis foundation in 2003 to continue her studies in theatre.

Gisela Cárdenas is originally from Perú and is interested in working with classics and adaptations of mythological material from a contemporary perspective. She has a B.A in Anthropology from Universidad Católica in Perú, an M.A in Performance Studies from New York University and an M.F.A in Directing from Columbia University . In 2001 Gisela was invited by Arianne Mnouchkine and the Theatre Du Soleil to attend a workshop in Paris . Her New York credits include an adaptation of Marguerite Yourcenar's Fires for the Women's Center Stage Project Ionesco's The Killer , Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard , Euripides' Iphigenia At Aulis , Macbeth at the Riverside Church Theater , and Federico Garcia Lorca's Don Perlimplín for Repertorio Español as part of the Van Lier Fellowships for New Directors . As assistant director, Gisela worked for Anne Bogart and the SITI Company in their production of Midsummer Night's Dream at San Jose Repertory Theater in California and for Caryl Churchill's A Number directed by James MacDonald at the New York Theater Workshop were she is currently the directing fellow. Upcoming productions include a free adaptation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon that will be produced next fall.

More of her work is available at www.fires.tv .

Sydney Skybetter (New York, NY) began his dance training at the Interlochen Arts Academy under the direction of Sharon Randolph. He continued his studies at Columbia University, and then at New York University, where he graduated with honors. He has danced with Kun-Yang Lin / Dancers, Larry Keigwin + Company, The Anna Sokolow Foundation, and in the Bessie Schonberg Choreographic Residency at the Yard. He is also a puppeteer with the Hudson Vagabond Puppets. Sydney also works as a non-profit management and technology consultant for performing arts organizations. He provides low-cost, high-efficiency management and administration solutions, with an emphasis in dance advocacy and community service. His client roster include the oXymoros Dance Theatre Company, Larry Keigwin + Company, David Dorfman Dance, Christine Jowers / Moving Arts Projects, and Laura Peterson Choreography.

He can be contacted at sydney(dot)skybetter(at)gmail(dot)com.

Marientina Gotsis was born in Chicago and raised in Athens, Greece. She has shared what seems to be a lifetime already with oXymoros artistic director, Irina Constantine Poulos. Irina asked Marientina to design this site in order to keep Marientina off the stage. It is better that way.

She holds a BFA in Photo/Film/Electronic Media and an MFA in Electronic Visualization from the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has pursued various careers as a designer, technical writer and technical consultant and is currently the Media Lab Manager at the USC School of Cinema-TV, Interactive Media Division. She mostly enjoys writing, petting her cats and pushing people around.

Marientina is no stranger to dance. Although belly dancing is her only apparent performance talent, she has received some training in ballet and modern dance and has expressed her failures as a dancer in her art pieces La Boite and To The Loss of Innocence. Her 2003 MFA thesis project INSIDE_OUT combined virtual reality, optical motion tracking and improvisational dance and enabled audiences to actively participate onstage.

Marientina is working with Irina on SoulMates, an interactive performance piece with projections and motion sensing.

© 2004 oXymoros Dance Theatre. All rights reserved.
oXymoros Dance Theatre is a state not-for-profit organization
recognized as tax-exempt under IRS section 501(c)(3).