Photo by Jeff Novick

Photo by Yolanda Accinelli

Kiyohime w/Sam Blanchard, Photo by Marty Sohl

Claudine Naganuma is the founder and director of danceNAGANUMA, a company of children and adults exploring issues of children and power, ritual and magic through public performances and lecture/demonstrations. Her current collaborations include working with the Piedmont Choir’s and with electronic cabaret diva Amy X Neuburg. Her work has been performed Hawaii, New York, Seattle, Arizona, China, Japan, Latvia and Estonia. She served as the Artistic Director of Asian American Dance Performances for thirteen years. The organization was the first of its kind in the United States, promoting the work of Asian American dance artists for over 30 years. She trained in Classical Chinese and theater where she performed professionally as a young child. She received her M.F.A. from Mills College in Performance and Choreography. She was a Djerassi Artist in Resident choreographer where she received the Jack Loftis and Vibeke Strand Honorary Fellowship. She received a Wattis Artist residency as one of the five exchange artists to visit and work in Hong Kong through the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco. She has also performed and taught at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts where she set work on students and at the Hong Kong Fringe. Her Chinese and Japanese roots have inspired her work to include repertory about the Angel Island Immigration Station as well as the Japanese American Internment and has offered lectures on dance history and Asian American dance as a guest in University settings. As a costume designer and collaborator, her work has earned her a Wallace Alexander Gerbode award and two Isadora Duncan Nominations for costumes. She has also received grants from the Puffin Foundation Ltd., CA$H grant, organized by Hewlett Packard, Oakland Craft and Cultural Arts Department and the Zellerbach Family Fund. She is currently the manager of Danspace, a studio for ballet and contemporary dance where she teaches and manages approximately 300 clients. The ballet work that she specializes in is a Cechetti based technique with the approach of Alfredo Corvino (Long time Julliard instructor and ballet master for Pina Baush) and contemporary dance from the Limon family. She has performed the choreography of June Watanabe in Company, Mark Morris, H.T. Chen, Kumiko Kimoto, Ma Fish, Eri Majima, Jon Weaver, Jamie Guan and has collaborated and performed with Sha Sha Higby, Sue Li Jue, Sachiko Nakamura, and Hiroko and Koichi Tamano. She is currently on the board of directors of the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and serves on the Mills College Alumnae committee. She received her B.A. in English Literature with an emphasis in Creative Writing and is currently writing a novel about Chinese and Japanese American relations after World War II.

Lighting Designer
Dale MacDonald has been the resident lighting designer for Asian American Dance Performances for ten years. During that time, he collaborated deeply with the choreographers and other artists in their productions to accentuate the drama and intensity of the Asian American experience through color and projected imagery. He has been a visual and audio designer in San Francisco Bay area theater and dance since the early 80's. As a founder of the multimedia performance ensemble MAP, he created digitally-controlled environments to complement the pop sounds and absurdist topics. He has lately been taking his explorations of light phenomena in gallery installations, recently as part of St. Rubidium's Temple at SomARTS. In 2002 he joined the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus as their lighting designer. He holds an MFA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley. In a parallel existence, he recently co-founded Onomy Labs, a Menlo Park-based design firm.

Composer
Guillermo Galindo’s artistic work spans a wide spectrum of expression from symphonic composition to the domains of musical and visual computer interaction, electro-acoustic music, opera, film music, instrument building, three dimensional installation, live performance and sound design. His music has been performed and shown at major festivals and art exhibits throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

2008 Dancers:

Amanda Crawford graduated from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA. Since moving to the bay area she has had the chance to work with several different local choreographers. Amanda enjoys bringing the joy of dance to everyday people teaching at Rhythm and Motion and 24 Hour Fitness. Currently she is dancing with Double Vision, and has been a member of danceNAGANUMA since 2005.

Catalina Jackson-Urueña is 9 years old and in the 4th grade at Berkeley Montessori School. She has been with the company for a little more than 3 years and dances jazz, modern and ballet at Danspace. She started dancing when she was almost 6 years old. She enjoys being a dancer with danceNaganuma and hopes to one day be a school teacher.

Sierra Joe Lash, 12, began studying modern dance when she six. At eight, she began studying ballet with Claudine Naganuma at Danspace in Oakland, California. She first performed in Ms. Naganuma's "Faerie Birds" as a work in progress in 2001. She is currently in middle school and actively involved in other performing arts, especially singing and acting, and someday hopes to study fashion design.

Kristan Suko started dancing at age 6 in San Jose. She graduated from Cal Poly State University in 2001 with a degree in Graphic Communication and worked for two years before making a career switch to modern dance. She works and dances at ODC in SF and at Danspace in Oakland. Since moving to San Francisco in 2004, Kristan has worked with U Dance Electra and Christine Germain & Dancers. She has been with danceNAGANUMA since 2007.

Julia Yoshino began her ballet training in Wisconsin and was a member of Madison Ballet's Youth Company. After moving to the Bay Area in 2002, she became an active member of The Movement, a jazz, hip-hop and swing dance group at UC-Berkeley. Since graduating from Cal in 2006, Julia has been working at the Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland. She has been a member of danceNAGANUMA since February 2007.