STUDIO STORIES: REMINISCING ON TWIN CITIES DANCE HISTORY

Doug Hooker graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Dance. He has had a variety of professional performing opportunities, including with the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps, the Broadway show Blast! and the Dancing People Company, and locally with ARENA DANCES, Collide Theatrical Dance Company, Concerto Dance, José A. Louis, Paula Mann, Shapiro & Smith Dance, Rhythmically Speaking Dance, and Threads Dance Project.

Frances Machala Cerro Grew up in Cumberland, Wisconsin, graduated from St. Catherine’s College in 1965. She met Loyce Houlton there in 1963 when Mrs. Houlton began teaching at St. Catherine’s. Loyce Houton had started the Contemporary Dance Playhouse in Dinkytown by the U of M campus. It was an old Masonic Temple above a Cleaners that later burnt down. Mrs. Houlton took Frances under her wing and studied, taught and performed with the Contemporary Dance Playhouse, later the Minnesota Dance Theater until 1972. Some of the choreographies she was principal dancer in were: Chronicles, Audition, Bone Lonely, and Troth. She was in the 1 st Nutcracker Fantasy done at the Moppet Theater and later at Northrup auditorium in many roles. Mrs. Houlton brought in many teachers at that time, she took classes from Graham teachers, Francois Martinet and Madame Pereyaslavec.She performed twice at Jacob’s Pillow and in Spoleto, Italy where the company went to learn Glenn Tetley’s “Mythical Hunters”. In 1972 She married Ramon Cerro and lived in Santa Fe, Argentina for 14 years. There she started a school and company called” La Escuela de Danza Contemporanea”. They performed in Santa Fe, Argentina and in many small towns in the area. She had the privilege of working with the “Orquesta de Provincia de Santa Fe” many times, including choreographing “Peter and The Wolf” and Vivaldi’s “Gloria” with 3 choirs. The family returned to the United State in 1986 and moved to Tulsa Oklahoma. There, with other dancers started the Local Motion Foundation to bring in Modern Teachers and choreographers. She worked in the Lincoln Center Institute program for Art in to the Schools.

Kaleena Miller makes sound-focused dance and installation work, rooted in tap dance technique and deep listening modalities. Named one of DANCE Magazine’s 25 to Watch, she has received a McKnight Fellowship for Dance and a Sage People’s Choice Award, and has presented work at the Walker Art Center, Icehouse, First Avenue, Jazz Central and the Southern Theater in Minneapolis, as well as at Arts on Site, Center for Performance Research and Symphony Space in New York. Previously, she co-founded and co-directed Twin Cities Tap with Brenna Brelie, which produced the acclaimed Twin Cities Tap Festival from 2015-2021, and an additional project in partnership with the McKnight International Choreographer Fellowship in 2023. She also directed KMD2, a making-driven pre-professional ensemble for high school and college-aged dancers, from 2018-2023.  Kaleena has a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, a Deep Listening certification from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and will graduate this summer with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dancer and Choreographer Aneka McMullen is an independent performing and teaching artist who lives to dance through life, inspire & connect with all people through her passion for movement of all types.  She hails from Minneapolis and holds a BFA in dance from The Ohio State University.  Her extensive dance experience spans more than two decades and includes dynamic skills in performance and instruction in the genres of West African, Afro Modern, Modern, Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, Lyrical & Liturgical. Aneka is a co- founder and artistic director of Epitome-No Question, an open Old Skool Hip Hop dance ensemble dedicated to celebrating the community conscious roots of Hip Hop culture through dance theater.

Jennifer Hart - Hailed as a choreographer “with an imagination so exuberant that one could not be sure how one movement led to the next” and “not only inventive but heart-rending,” Jennifer Hart has been commissioned by Ballet Austin, Ballet Austin ll, Ballet Nouveau Colorado (now Wonderbound), James Sewell Ballet, Minnesota Dance Theater, The Walker Art Center’s Momentum Series, The McKnight Fellowship for Dancers, Metropolitan Ballet Project, University of Kansas, University of Massachusetts, Lawrence Ballet Theatre, Halcyon Dance Project in San Francisco, and Merick Strategies for its production of Leonard Bernstein's “Mass” and “Icons of Broadway Holiday Spectacular.” In July, 2022, Hart was one of four choreographers selected for National Choreographers Initiative. In 2011, Hart was awarded a New York City Ballet Fellowship and won third place at the Saint-Sauveur International Choreography Competition. She received second place at Ballet Nouveau Colorado’s choreography competition, and was one of three winners of the University of Kansas’ competitive choreography competition. She was chosen three times to present work at Ballet Builders, New Choreographer’s on Point in NYC. She was commissioned by University of Massachusetts in the fall of 2013; the work was chosen for the National College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center, June 2014. In 2024, she was a finalist in the Palm Desert Choreography Festival. In 2014, she formed Performa/Dance with Ballet Austin dancer Edward Carr. Performa/Dance launched its inaugural show. Ignite: Three Works, in June, 2014. Her work for Performa/Dance was awarded four Austin Critic’s Table awards for Best Short Work (“On Truth and Love”and "Camille: A Story of Art and Love"), Best Choreographer  ("Fellow Travelers" and “Murmuration"), and Best Dance Concert (Ignite: Three Works). Along with her work in concert dance, she has choreographed and performed cabaret shorts for nightclubs and television, and has begun working in video. She recently choreographed and co-directed the epic Bernstein's Mass, a work involving 300 performers. She trained at Minnesota Dance Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. Her performing career includes Minnesota Dance Theater, Ballet of the Dolls, and L.A Chamber Ballet, as well as independent choreographers. She choreographs for Ballet Austin’s apprentices and Fellowship recipients, teaches full-time in the academy and apprentice program, and serves as Curriculum Supervisor of the school where she sets syllabus and leads training for academy teachers.