FUSION 12
Photo by Ashkan Images
JUNE 10–14, 2024
Professional / Pre-Pro / Youth (9+)
Houston, TX
ABOUT
FUSION 12 offers pre-professional and professional dancers a focused environment to further their growth in technique and artistry. This week-long, all-day intensive takes place from June 10–14, 2024 at Vitacca School for Dance, Houston.
Participating dancers study classical and contemporary styles through repertoire and technique classes led by an outstanding assembly of leading industry professionals. This challenging, motivating curriculum is designed to support the skill, creativity, and versatility required of a professional contemporary ballet dance company such as Vitacca Ballet.
Dancers work with Vitacca faculty as well as exciting guest artists, which this year includes:
Jess Hendricks - Contemporary
Robyn Mineko-Williams - Choreographic Lab
Christian Denise - Contemporary + Choreographic Lab
Sean Aaron Carmon - Horton Technique
Ty Graynor - Limon Technique
Kelly Ann Vitacca - Vitacca Ballet Repertoire
Tina Kay Bohnstedt - Ballet
SAMPLE SCHEDULE
10:00am–4:00pm classes daily
ABOUT 2024 FACULTY
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Robyn Mineko Williams is a director, interdisciplinary artist, dancer and producer. She works and creates within the lanes and intersections of performance, design, culture, and place. She is the founder and director of Robyn Mineko Williams and Artists (RMW&A) and has received commissions from Pacific Northwest Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Malpaso Dance Company among others. Robyn has been in residence at Baryshnikov Arts Center and is a 2023 Artist-in Residence at the Chicago Cultural Center. Named one of “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine in 2014, she is a 2023 Dysart Award winner and Princess Grace Foundation-USA Fellowship grant recipient. In tandem with her creations for the stage, Robyn works as a creative director and movement consultant on an array of projects including immersive experiences, film, installation, pop-up performances and music videos.
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Jess Hendricks graduated from the University of Colorado with a BFA in Dance. Her training and education includes Perry Mansfield School of the Performing Arts, American Dance Festival, Harvard Dance Festival, EDGE Scholarship, Gus Giordano and Hubbard Dance Street.
Her credits include commercials and industrials for Godiva, L’Oreal, Reebok, Toys R Us, Universal Studios, Volkswagen and Warner Brothers. Jess worked on the European tour of HAIR as Dance Captain for years, performed for the opening premiers of Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby and can be seen in such movies as Living Out Loud and Between The Sheets. She has danced in or been an assistant choreographer for the World Ski Championships, Elan Awards, Bob Fosse Awards, Ms. America Pageant, CARNIVAL, Dance Break and Broadway Bares.
Jess has choreographed the New York musicals “The Shaggs”, “The Book Of The Dun Cow” and “Dead City” as well as the movie musical “Free Fall”. She has choreographed the music video “Just A Dress” for the Berlin Film Festival and Sofia Strati’s “Mia Agapi Fotia” for Eurovision.
Jess has taught at Universities and Festivals throughout Canada, Costa Rica, Cyprus, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway and the United States. Jess was a company member with “The Wes Veldink Movement” and Co-Created her own company “Two Peas & A Pod” in NYC. She has created work for A Great Big World and Alicia Keys Set The World On Fire Tour. Jess has debuted work at Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as set work or taught at Marymount Manhattan College, Point Park University, PACE University, James Madison University, University of Colorado, Southern Methodist University, Houston METdance, Dallas Black Dance Theater Encore, DanceWorks Chicago, Wanderlust Dance Project and Dance Lab New York.
Jess is currently an adjunct professor at PACE University, on faculty with 24Seven Dance Convention, Co-Director of Creating WAVES with Peter Chu and a Co-Founder of Dancers Give Back Dallas.
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Christian Denice is a dancer and choreographer originally from Los Angeles, California. His professional dance experience includes Odyssey Dance Theatre, River North Dance Chicago, and BJM Danse (Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal). As an artist, Christian seeks to examine and unravel the mysteries of the human experience by way of dance and dance making. His work is driven by emotion and reaction, and the process becomes an incubator for researching how humans live, breathe, interact, connect, and engage in the world we are living in. Christian is passionate about making dance that is thought provoking and allows both dancers and audiences the invitation to take part in a reflection of sensations in this world, and hopefully gain new perspectives and opinions on not only art, but their place in this world.
As a choreographer, he has created new works for such companies and organizations as Nevada Ballet Theatre, Moving Arts with dancers of Kansas City Ballet and Cincinnati Ballet, Chamber Dance Project, Odyssey Dance Theatre, DanceWorks Chicago, Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company, Missouri Contemporary Ballet, Western Michigan University, Modern America Dance Company, Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company, Eisenhower Dance Detroit, Houston Contemporary Dance Company, Wright State University, Kit Modus, Dance Lab New York, Santa Barbara City College, Manhattanville College, and Dreyfoos School for the Arts. As a dance educator, Christian brings his movement language both nationally and internationally, and has been on faculty with Modas Dance, Open Doors Dance Festival, EPIC Dance Utah, Eisenhower Dance Detroit NEWdanceFEST, Kansas City Jazz Dance Fest, DanceWorks Chicago Dance360, AXIS Connect Los Angeles, Peridance Center in New York City, and SALT Dance Link Festival. Christian was the 2015 winner of the University of South Florida's Echo Choreographic Competition and selected as one of the three choreographers for the Joffrey Academy's Winning Works Choreographic competition in 2016.
Christian works for Greek choreographer Andonis Foniadakis, restaging his work for companies throughout the United States and Europe, as well as dancing in his production of “Salema Revisited” which premiered in Athens, Greece in 2021. Christian worked with New York City based filmmaker Alexander Sargent on a dance film of his work “Dwellings” created on Chamber Dance Project which premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in October 2022. Christian served as Artist in Residence at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland from 2021-2023. Christian made his Broadway debut in “The Little Prince '' which opened in New York in 2021 and most recently served as répétiteur and rehearsal director for Texas based contemporary company ISHIDA Dance.
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Sean Aaron Carmon joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2011 and has performed major solo roles including Mikhail Baryshnikov’s original role in Alvin Ailey’s Pas de Duke and featured roles in ballets by other notable choreographers such as Wayne McGregor, Robert Battle, Aszure Barton, Johan Inger, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano and Christopher L. Huggins, to name only a few. In addition, he has been featured on Conan, the national TBS television talk show, Lincoln Center at the Movies, broadcast nationally on PBS and he was profiled in the Huffington Post.
As a musical theater performer, Sean has performed on Broadway in La Cage aux Folles, The Phantom of the Opera, Disney’s The Lion King and Kinky Boots.
Sean’s own choreographies have been performed all across the country and internationally and have been lauded as “everything and then some…” and “powerful” and “seriously flawless” by major national print and online publications such as The New York Times, Newsweek, Jet Magazine, BroadwayBlack, Dance Spirit and Dance Magazine. Mr. Carmon won The Joffrey Ballet’s 2017 Winning Works award and created Suite Hearts for eighteen of the Joffrey Ballet’s Studio Company member and the Joffrey Academy’s advanced trainees. Also in 2017, his work longstoryshort was commissioned by the Dance Gallery Festival NYC and was selected as the Audience Choice Award Winner out of 30 pieces created for the festival. He has also created works on the AAADT for multiple Ailey Dancers’ Resource Fund benefit performances. He has created original and lauded works for Houston Contemporary Dance Company, Vitacca Ballet and other professional companies across America. Mr. Carmon currently teaches master classes and choreographs for festivals, companies, studios and universities across the country and internationally.
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TRAINING + PERFORMANCE
Tina Bohnstedt trained at Munich’s Heinz-Bosl Stiftung Ballet Academy where she won Junior Gold Medal at the German Ballet Competition and fourth place in the Moscow International Ballet Competition. She became a principal with Munich’s Bavarian State Ballet. In 1992, she was recognized with the Bavarian Cultural Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts. She performed works by John Cranko, Peter Wright, John Neumeier, George Balanchine, Hans van Manen, Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin, and many others. Her international tours include China, Italy, Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Colombia, Peru, Poland, Belarus, Spain, and Switzerland. In 1998, she became a guest dancer with Lawrence Pech Dance Company in San Francisco. In 1999, she joined Diablo Ballet as a principal.
TEACHING
She became Diablo Ballet Apprentice Program’s director (2005) and Diablo Ballet ballet mistress (2007). She served on faculty at City Ballet San Francisco and was appointed Houston Ballet ballet master (2011). She has taught at Kirov Ballet Academy, Bavarian State Ballet, Houston Ballet Academy, Northern California Dance Conservatory, Panama Ballet, Dominic Walsh Dance Theatre, Colorado Conservatory of Dance, Atlanta Ballet and many more. From 2015-2017 she founded/directed TKB Center for Ballet and Dance in Houston. In 2018, she was appointed ballet mistress at Vitacca Vocational School for Dance, Houston. In 2020, she became the founding ballet mistress for Vitacca Ballet.
CHOREOGRAPHY
She has choreographed for Diablo Ballet and Apprentice Program, Kirov Ballet Academy, Northern California Dance Conservatory, Metropolitan Ballet Academy, Colorado Conservatory of Dance, Contra Costa Ballet, Houston Ballet II, Houston Ballet, Uptown Dance Company, Space Coast Ballet Academy, Atlanta Ballet II as well as many solos for YAGP and WBC.
LOCATION
Vitacca School for Dance, Houston
2311 Dunlavy Street
Houston, TX 77006
ADMISSION
FUSION 12 has open enrollment for intermediate to advanced and professional level dancers.
PAYMENTS
TUITION
$775 – Pay in Full option
$450 – Minimum due at time of registration to secure your spot. Full balance due by May 1
REFUND POLICY
No refunds are issued for any reason. If you are injured prior to the intensive, have tested positive for Covid-19, or have been exposed to Covid-19, a credit can be issued for a future intensive. Medical documentation is required.