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LECTURERS

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ROTIMI AGBABIAKA | Lecturer

  ROTIMIA@STANFORD.EDU MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM 107

 

Rotimi Agbabiaka

Lecturer. Rotimi Agbabiaka is an actor, writer, director, and teacher. Most recently, Rotimi played Oberon and Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Folger Theatre, Washington D.C.) and originated the roles of William Craft in The N***** Lovers (Magic Theatre), James Baldwin in In the Evening By The Moonlight (Lorraine Hansberry Theatre), and Cellphone/Narrator in If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons, Off-Broadway). Other acting credits include roles at Yale Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, California Shakespeare Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Shotgun Players, and TheatreWorks. Rotimi is also a company member of Word for Word, Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience (BACCE), and the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe. As a playwright, Rotimi penned and toured the solo shows Homeless, Type/Caste (Theatre Bay Area award), and MANIFESTO; the musical, Seeing Red — co-written with Joan Holden and Ira Marlowe and produced by the San Francisco Mime Troupe; and is writing a play, inspired by the art of Romare Bearden, that will premiere at Cutting Ball Theatre in 2024. Rotimi has taught acting, movement, and play creation at the Yale School of Drama, Middlebury College, Bennington College, Southern Illinois University, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and American Conservatory Theatre, among others. Directing credits include the world premieres of VS. at TheatreFIRST and The Red Shades: A Trans Superhero Rock Opera at Z Space. Rotimi trained at the Moscow Art Theatre, received an MFA in Acting from Northern Illinois University, and has presented work at museums (the deYoung), in parks (with We Players), on street corners (with Jess Curtis’ GRAVITY), and on nightlife stages around the world (as alter ego Miss Cleo Patois). rotimionline.com

NINA BALL | Core Lecturer

  BALLNINA@STANFORD.EDU  MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM 146

 

Nina Ball

Core Lecturer, Set Design. Nina Ball (she/her) is a scenic designer, visual artist, and teacher based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has been seen at American Conservatory Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Rep., St. Louis Rep., Theatreworks, California Shakespeare Theater, Shotgun Players, San Francisco Playhouse, Marin Theatre Company,  Aurora Theatre Company, among many others. Recent productions include the west coast premiere of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 at Shotgun Players (nominated for a SFBACC Award), Romeo and Juliet,  How I Learned What I Learned (transferred to Seattle Rep), and Confederates (transferred to St. Louis Rep) at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Hamlet and Twelfth Night at Marin Shakespeare Company, and In Every Generation at Theatreworks. Other awards include TBA awards for Blasted at Shotgun Players and The Nether at SF Playhouse. SFBACC awards for My Fair Lady at SF Playhouse, Metamorphosis at the Aurora.  

 

Ms. Ball is also a production designer and has worked on numerous film, TV and commercial productions locally and in LA. Notable projects include Pushing Dead, by Tom Brown, and A Blank Slate, by Sara Eliassen. She received her MFA in Scenic Design with a Costume Design secondary from San Francisco State University. Ms. Ball holds a BA in Biology with an emphasis in Marine Ecology from UC Santa Cruz and studied visual art and photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City. Ms. Ball has been a company member at Shotgun Players in Berkeley since 2009 and is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829. She teaches Scenic Design at Stanford University. 

BECKY BODURTHA | Senior Lecturer; Coordinator of the Theater-Making Concentration

  BBODURTH@STANFORD.EDU    MEMORIAL HALL ROOM 146

 

Becky Bordurtha

Senior Lecturer, Costume Design; Theater-Making Concentration Coordinator. Becky Bodurtha is a costume designer with regional, international and New York City credits. Recent credits include Felix Starro (Theatre Ma-Yi), Open (The Tank), 1000 Nights and One Day (Prospect Theatre Company), and Mr. Burns (NYU Gallatin). Other credits: Constellations (Wilma), The Strangest (East 4th Street), ACE (Margorie Deane), Among the Dead (Theatre Ma-Yi) Passover (Cherry Lane) The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra, Go! (Theatre Ma-Yi), Livin’ La Vida Imelda (Theatre Ma-Yi), and This Lingering Life (HERE Arts). International credits include Movement for Humanity and Africa’s Hope for the Ubumuntu Festival in Kigali, Rwanda. Becky is the resident costume designer for Vermont Shakespeare Festival where she recently designed Taming of the Shrew and Julius Caesar. She received her undergraduate degree from Waldorf College and her MFA from the University of Iowa. Please visit her website at: www.beckybodurtha.com 

DAVID BRESENHAM | Lecturer

  DBRESENH@STANFORD.EDU   MEMORIAL HALL ROOM 110

 

David Bresenham

Lecturer, Media Production. Bresenham is a reality television showrunner with an MFA from USC Film School and a J from Harvard Law School. He has produced and directed dozens of television shows including Whale Wars, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, The Simple Life, and 90 Day Fiancé.

MATT CHAPMAN | Core Lecturer

  MATTCH@STANFORD.EDU     MEMORIAL HALL ROOM 210

 

Matt Chapman

Core Lecturer, Movement. Matt Chapman (he/him/they) is a performer, director, and teacher of physical theatre, movement, and clown. He is the Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Under the Table, collaborating on each of the company’s 13 works produced since its founding in 2001. Based in Oakland, CA, Matt began working with TAPS as a lecturer in Winter 2017.

 

Matt’s performances, directing, and teaching have happened across the world — in South Africa, Denmark, Colombia, the Netherlands, Canada, Mexico, and England. Matt has worked on the Faculties of several programs at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, and spent years on the Faculty at Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre.

 

He has toured extensively to venues across North America – from Broadway’s Signature Theatre to a Senior’s Center in Saskatoon. His work in NYC has been seen at HERE Arts Center, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Williamsburg Art neXus, Under St. Marks, a hallway at City College, etc. He has collaborated with NYC’s Eavesdrop; Durban, South Africa’s African Dream Circus; Sweden’s Cirkus Cirkor; Denmark’s Filuren and Jomfru Ane Teatret; Blue Lake’s Dell’Arte Company; Philadelphia’s Hotel Obligado; Arcata, CA’s Pequeño Teatro DanceTheatre, and Clowns Without Borders. He also had the honor to work as Movement Consultant for Stanford’s The Good Person of Szechwan, directed by Mina Morita.

 

Matt writes music for and plays guitar in the Oakland punk band The Big Forgive, and is a graduate of Dell’Arte International and the University of Kansas. He was a recipient of Theatre Communications Group’s New Generations Future Leaders program.

ALETA HAYES | Senior Lecturer; Coordinator of the Dance Concentration

  AHAYES1@STANFORD.EDU (650) 721-3951   ROBLE GYM ROOM 111A

 

Aleta Hayes

Senior Lecturer, Contemporary Dance, Performance & Choreography; Coordinator of the Dance Concentration. Aleta Hayes is a dancer, choreographer, performer, educator and lecturer. Hayes holds an M.F.A. (1993) in Dance and Choreography from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a B.A. (1991), with Departmental Honors, in Drama, with a concentration in Dance and the Visual Arts from Stanford University.

 

Hayes worked in New York City for fifteen years, choreographing solo and group dance pieces. Performances interpolated acting and singing with dance. She had leading roles in major productions such as Jane Comfort’s dance/opera Asphalt (book by Carl Hancock Rux, music and lyrics by Toshi Reagon) and Robert Wilson’s The Temptation of St Anthony (with music and libretto by Bernice Johnson Reagon). Hayes taught for eight years at Princeton University in the Program in Theater and Dance and the Program in African American Studies. While at Princeton, she developed pedagogically innovative courses that combined cultural history, theory, and performance.

 

In 2004, Hayes returned to Stanford on a Ford Foundation Resident Dialogues Fellowship through the Committee on Black Performing Arts. A Lecturer since 2006, Hayes’s contemporary dance classes are a hybrid of dance, drama and performance. Introduction to Contemporary Modern Dance: ‘Liquid Flow’ is the gateway, foundational dance and movement course for Contemporary Dance in TAPS. Other notable classes include, Dance Improvisation StratLab, Afro-Styles and Dance-Making and Musical Theater Dance. For the course Stanford Dance Community: Inter-Style Choreography Workshop, taught since 2018, guest instructors include leaders and choreographers from dance clubs on campus.

 

The Chocolate Heads Band started as a performance-making workshop created by Hayes to teach choreography, interdisciplinary research, and collaboration. An admixture of dance styles, genres, and contemporary performance, this class welcomes student artists from dance, music, visual and spoken word art, and design, as well as from non-art fields. Taught each Fall as a choreography workshop and performer training lab, Chocolate Heads becomes a ‘prototypical’ dance troupe that performs frequently around the campus.

 

Hayes also teaches at the d.school, (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) and other arts entities and programs on campus. At Stanford, Hayes has had many leading roles as a dancer, singer and actor including, most notably: Suzan-Lori Park’s In the Blood, directed by Professor Harry J. Elam, Jr. (2005). In the spring of 2006, she choreographed, performed a multimedia solo piece, Deianeira (an adoption of Sophocles’ Women of Trachis) created for her and directed by Drama and Classics Professor Rush Rehm. She performed the role of ‘Mama’ in Raisin in the Sun (2019), directed by Elam. Hayes has choreographed musicals and plays in TAPS, including Everybody (2020), directed by Michael Rau, ReViVal: Remembering the Afro Now-One Nation Portal to the Future (2019) directed by Amara Tabor-Smith, Spring Awakening (2016) directed by Elam, and Helen/Hecuba (2018), directed by Rehm.

STEPHANIE HUNT | Lecturer

  SJHUNT@STANFORD.EDU  MEMORIAL HALL ROOM 210

 

Stephanie HuntLecturer, Voice; Acting. Stephanie is an actor, director, and teacher of voice and acting. As a core member of the Bay Area theater company, Word for Word, Stephanie has acted in numerous productions, including Tobias Wolff’s Sanity, Colm Tóibín’s Silence, Upton Sinclair’s Oil! and Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of her Peers. For Word for Word, she directed the productions of Bullet in the Brain and Lady’s Dream by Tobias Wolff, Cornell Woolrich’s noir story Angel Face, and All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P. Jones, which played at the Z Space before touring France. She has acted with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Campo Santo, Aurora Theatre, the Magic Theatre, Berkeley Shakespeare, the One Act Theater, and in New York at La MaMa. For two years with Pulp Playhouse, Stephanie performed late-night comedy improv with O-Lan Jones and Mike McShane at the Eureka Theater. She has taught voice at ACT in the Summer Training Congress, and at the University of San Francisco, Chabot College, San Francisco State and Sonoma State University. She has directed a number of university productions, most recently at USF, where she directed Twelfth Night, and adapted and directed Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock. Her teaching at Stanford has included Acting Fundamentals, Voice for the Actor, Voice II: Shakespeare and Greek Tragedies, Audition and Monologue, Scene Study, and a class focused on acting in the plays of Anton Chekhov. As a vocal coach, she has worked on five productions at Stanford – Cabaret, Everybody, As Soon as Impossible, Pali, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She has an MFA from the American Conservatory Theater and certification as an Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework. Stephanie is committed to creating and teaching ensemble-based theater with a focus on heightened language.

ALEX KETLEY | Advanced Lecturer

  AKETLEY@STANFORD.EDU    (650) 721-3890  ROBLE GYM ROOM 111

 

Alex KetleyAdvanced Lecturer, Ballet and Choreography. Alex Ketley is an independent choreographer, filmmaker, and the director of The Foundry. Formerly a classical dancer with the San Francisco Ballet, he left the company to create The Foundry as a platform to explore his interests in alternative methods of devising performance. The company has allowed Ketley the freedom to pursue projects that would be difficult to realize within his commissioning career. A few examples of these are: Syntax, an hour-long duet systemically using the mechanics of language as an organizing mechanism; Lost Line researched how the application of environment affects the generation of movement and studied in direct response to California’s diverse physical landscapes; Please Love Me jettisoned the structure of performing in a theater context and was developed with a curiosity about how people genuinely connect and experience artwork; and the No Hero Trilogy which was a multi-year project that explored what dance and performance means to the lives of people living throughout rural America. The Foundry’s diverse work has been enthusiastically received by audiences, the press, and funders.

 

For his independent work as a choreographer, he has been commissioned extensively throughout the United States, as well as projects in Germany and Italy, and has received acknowledgment from the Hubbard Street National Choreographic Competition, the International Choreographic Competition of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Saveaur, the Choo-San Goh Award, the Princess Grace Award for Choreography, four Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Residencies, the Gerbode-Hewlett Choreographer Award, the Eben Demarest Award, the National Choreographic Initiative Residency, a Kenneth Rainin Foundation New and Experimental Works Grant, three CHIME Fellowships, a Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation Grant, the Artistry Award from the Superfest International Disability Film Festival, and his work was featured on national television through an invitation from the show So You Think You Can Dance. His pieces and collaborations have also been awarded Isadora Duncan Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the categories of; Choreography, Company, and Ensemble, as well as nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design. In 2020 he became a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, one of the most prestigious honors in the United States recognizing individuals who have demonstrated exceptional creative ability in the arts.

 

As an educator he has taught throughout the world and currently holds the position of Advanced Lecturer at TAPS. He was the Resident Choreographer at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance for 14 years until its closure in 2018.

 

Most recently he has been collaborating with Bill Clark, a prolific artist and writer currently incarcerated on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison. At Stanford they taught DanceAcution: Performance Practice, Death Row, and the Evolution of Cultural Reform which used Bill’s vast experience as an artist and inmate as the platform for the students to develop new work. Bill also collaborated with Alex on The Bonds that Bind Us which premiered for the company in the spring of 2023.

DAN KLEIN | Advanced Lecturer

  KLEINIMP@STANFORD.EDU    (650) 736-8387    MEMORIAL HALL ROOM 201

 

Dan KleinAdvanced Lecturer, Improvisation. Dan Klein has returned to Stanford to teach Improvisational Theater and to direct the Stanford Improvisors. As an undergraduate at Stanford, he was a founding member of the SImps and perennial TA for Patricia Ryan Madson, his predecessor. After graduating, Klein joined the performing company BATS Improv in San Francisco, where he also coached and served as Dean of the BATS Improv School. As a renegade improv teacher, Klein has had appointments at the American Conservatory Theater, the Academy of Art University, the Berkeley Repertory Theater, Dominican University, Vector Conservatory, Menlo School, and has taught corporate workshops for clients like Visa, Cisco, Sun, Oracle, Schwab, Kaiser, Clorox, Cadence, Clif Bar, and others. He is also a member of the Kasper Hauser Comedy Group, authors of SkyMaul, the in-flight catalog parody.

LAXMI KUMARAN | Advanced Lecturer

  LAXMIK@STANFORD.EDU  MEMORIAL HALL ROOM 209

 

Laxmi KumaranAdvanced Lecturer, Stage Management. Laxmi Kumaran has been with TAPS for eight years. She splits her time between teaching at Stanford and at UC Berkeley in the Theater, Dance & Performance Studies Department where she is also the Undergraduate Academic Advisor. Laxmi spent several years as the Production Stage Manager at California Shakespeare Theater and at San Jose Repertory Theater. Before moving to the Bay Area, Laxmi stage managed in Chicago for a variety of theaters, including the Goodman Theatre and the Court Theatre. Laxmi has taught in the theater departments at San Jose State, Northern Illinois, DePaul, and Northwestern universities, and at the University of California Santa Cruz. Laxmi is a board member of the Theater Arts Advisory Committee at Santa Rosa Junior College.

CHRISTIAN MEJIA | Lecturer

  CVMEJIA@STANFORD.EDU  MEMORIAL HALL 209

 

CHRISTIAN MEJIALecturer, Lighting Design. Christian Mejia (he/they) believes that light has the ability to transport us to a moment in time and cradle us within a particular place. Light affects our mood, informs our emotional landscape, and enhances the everyday moments that make up our lives. The right light can tell a story that goes beyond words.

 

Christian’s approach to design seeks to create environments that ask people to lean into and learn something about our shared humanity. His design practice includes live performance, architectural lighting, and immersive entertainment. His work has been seen on stages and in built environments around the world. He received his BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts. christianvmejia.com.

ANTON PANKEVICH | Lecturer

  ANTOSHA5@STANFORD.EDU  ROBLE GYM 147

 

ANTON PANKEVICH

Lecturer, Ballet. Anton Pankevich received his ballet training at Vaganova Ballet Academy in Russia and later on went to study at School of American Ballet and San Francisco Ballet School. Has danced with New York City Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Royal Ballet of London, Pacific Northwest Ballet and Ballet San Jose. Has worked as a ballet master and a guest teachers with: English National Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Wiesbaden Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet and Leipzig Ballet.

RICHARD POWERS | Advanced Lecturer

  VINTAGE@STANFORD.EDU     (650) 468-5862  ROBLE GYM ROOM 147

 

Richard PowersAdvanced Lecturer, Social Dance and Dance History. Over 7,000 Stanford students have discovered dance in Richard’s classes, and the waiting lists for Richard’s classes are consistently longer than the enrollment caps. Many of Richard’s social dance students have gone on to take other TAPS dance classes, and have continued a life in dance after Stanford. Richard also teaches workshops across the country and Canada, and has taught dance in Paris, London, Rome, Venice, Spoleto, Prague, Vienna, Geneva, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kirov, Tokyo and Kyoto, including 22 workshops in Russia, 25 in France, and 27 in Japan.

 

Powers was selected by the Centennial Issue of Stanford Magazine as one of Stanford University’s most notable graduates of its first century. In 1999 he was awarded the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for distinctive and exceptional contributions to education at Stanford University. Before leaving Cincinnati for Stanford, Richard was recognized as “Artist of the Year” in the Post-Corbett Awards, Cincinnati’s foremost arts recognition.

 

In addition to his TAPS courses, Richard has taught courses in period movement for theater for American Conservatory Theater San Francisco, period movement for opera for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and period movement for opera for the College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati.

 

As a noted dance historian and choreographer, Richard choreographed Bill Irwin’s original production of Scapin (off Broadway), was the dance historian for the musical Titanic(Broadway), choreographed ragtime era dance for Faye Dunaway and Richard Widmark in Cold Sassy Tree, choreographed the 19th century ballroom dances for the Warner Bros. film North and South, trained the dancers in 19th century ballroom dances for the Tri-Star film Glory, and choreographed the Victorian ballroom dances for the public television film Mrs. Perkins’ Ball.

 

Richard’s numerous opera choreographies include the recent production of Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella for Opera San Jose, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Massenet’s Cendrillon, Monteverdi’s Madrigals of Love and War, Berlioz’s Beatrice and Benedict and Monteverdi’s Orfeo. Theater choreographies include Shakespeare in Hollywood, My Antonia and Arcadiafor TheatreWorks, and Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Shakespeare’s King Henry VIII for the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

 

Richard has directed performances of historic dance at the Smithsonian Institution, Henry Ford Museum, the National Governor’s Conference, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Ballet Company, the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival, leading the Palace Hotel’s Valentines Ball, St. Moritz, Switzerland (featured on CBS “60 Minutes”); and a performance for Prince Mikasa of Japan. His workshops have been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities; The Fine Arts Fund; Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (New York City); Ohio Arts Council; American Studies Association; The Omega Institute; National Stephen Foster Conference; Goethe House New York; Lincoln Center, N.Y., Danses de Bon Ton, Paris; Arts et Mouvement, Paris; the City of Kharkiv, Ukraine; and the Beseda Dance Theatre in Prague. Publications include Waltzing: A Manual for Dancing and Living, Redowa Press; Dancing Makes You Smarter, published in Australian Dance Review; and Guidelines for Dance Research, CDSS Journal.

RONNIE REDDICK | Lecturer

  RREDDICK@STANFORD.EDU  ROBLE GYM ROOM 147

 

Ronnie ReddickLecturer, Hip-Hop. Ronnie Reddick is one of the Bay Area’s most dynamic and multi-talented choreographers with an edge of what’s happening in the world of dance and fashion today. This multi-faceted San Francisco based Choreographer/Dancer made his mark by combining Hip Hop, Jazz, Fashion and Theatrics to create one of the most explosive and dynamic styles to hit the dance scene recently, making him one of the most sought after Hip Hop/Contemporary choreographers in the Bay Area and beyond. Along with his busy career, Reddick is also the Choreographer/Show Director at Asia SF. This unique restaurant/dining experience is taking the world by storm and features one of the most beautiful gender illusionists in the world.

 

In the entertainment world, Reddick has worked with such artists as Michael & Janet Jackson, Deborah Cox, Paula Abdul, Kristine W., Tony, Toni, Tone, Jody Watley, Santana, Kelly Price, RuPaul, Robin Thicke, Snoop Dogg, Overtone Band and M.C. Hammer along with many corporations like Sony, Sony PlayStation, Intuit, Prudential, Gap, Macy’s, MAC Cosmetics, Nordstrom, Starbucks, API, Apple Computer, Google, Yahoo, Xilinx, Sun Micro Systems, BEBE, Univision Television, E*Trade, Coca Cola, and Microsoft.

 

In addition to teaching at Stanford, Reddick teaches at Santa Clara University and has taught master classes around the world, including Princeton University, Japan, South Korea, Mexico and Canada. He continues to work with, train, and inspire dancers that are now dancing around the world. Reddick also teaches dancers about the business of dance and how to work in today’s world as a professional commercial dancer.

 

“Technique is only the beginning of what makes a memorable dancer, and we don’t start dancing to end up doing chorus,” says Reddick. “You have got to have that extra something.” It is through his experience and selfless devotion that Ronnie Reddick is inspiring a new generation of talent.

LISA ROWLAND | Lecturer

  LROWLAND@STANFORD.EDU  MEMORIAL HALL ROOM 201

 

Lisa Rowland

Lecturer, Improv. Lisa Rowland is a San Francisco-based improviser, teacher and trainer. A mainstage company member at BATS Improv and a founding member of Improv Playhouse of San Francisco, she has performed and taught improvisation on stages throughout the Bay Area, and worldwide. She has headlined at improv festivals from Georgia to Germany, and has been a guest coach in improv communities as far away as Saudi Arabia and New Zealand.

 

Lisa graduated from Stanford in 2005 where she was a member of the Stanford Improvisors. She was lucky enough to study under professor emerita Patricia Ryan Madson, author of Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up (which Lisa highly recommends you procure and read right away). Lisa joyfully joined the Stanford faculty teaching TAPS 103 – Introduction to Improvisation – in 2014. 

 

In addition to teaching theatrical improvisation, she also leads improv-based trainings for professional teams focusing on communication, collaboration and creativity. She is a communication skills trainer with the SF-based company Speechskills, and is also the co-host of a podcast entitled Monster Baby: A Curious Romp Through The Worlds of Mindfulness and Improvisation.

RAISSA SIMPSON | Core Lecturer

  RAIISAS@STANFORD.EDU  ROBLE GYM ROOM 111

 

Raissa Simpson

Core Lecturer, Dance and Dance Studies. Raissa Simpson is a scholar and artistic director of the San Francisco-based PUSH Dance Company. She is nationally recognized for creating post-disciplinary dances that are at the intersection of complex racial and cultural identities and centers around discourse on the complex experiences of racialized bodies. 

 

A graduate of the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase with an MFA from UC Davis, Simpson had an extensive performance career with Robert Moses Kin and Joanna Haigood’s Zaccho Dance Theatre. Her choreography honors include Magrit Mondavi Award, San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, California Arts Council, San Francisco Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Grants for the Arts, and the City of San Francisco’s Dream Keeper Initiative.

 

Simpson has held positions at UC Davis, San Francisco State University, Santa Clara University, Sacramento State University (visiting scholar), and San Jose State University’s Communication Studies Dept. She founded the Sanctuary, a dance space to help individuals and cultural institutions identify their connection and relevance to Access, Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Access (DEJA). She is the author of Writings On Dance: Artistic Reframing for Celestial Black Bodies (Palgrave Macmillan), which illustrates how to stage Afrofuturism in contemporary theater.

EMERITUS SENIOR LECTURERS

PATRICIA RYAN MADSON | Senior Lecturer Emerita

  PATRYAN@STANFORD.EDU

 

Patricia Madson Ryan

Senior Lecturer Emerita, Improvisation. Patricia Ryan Madson was the 1998 winner of the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Outstanding Innovation in Undergraduate Education. She was on the faculty in the Drama Department at Stanford University from 1977 until 2005. She has served as the head of the Undergraduate Acting Program. Founder and coach of the Stanford Improvisors, she taught beginning and advanced level courses in improvisation for undergraduates as well as adults in Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program. In 1996 she founded the Creativity Initiative at Stanford, an interdisciplinary alliance of faculty who shared the belief that creativity can be taught.

 

Ryan Madson has taught “Design Improv” for the School of Engineering and was a Guest Lecturer for Engineering 145, Stanford Technology Ventures Program. She taught regularly for the Esalen Institute, and has given workshops for Sun Microsystems Japan Division, the California Institute for Integral Studies, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, the National Association of Drama Therapists, the Western Psychological Association, Duke University East Asian Studies Center, and the Meaningful Life Therapy Association in Japan. Ryan Madson combines her work in improvisation with work as a counselor using an Eastern approach to problem solving known as Constructive Living. Dr. David K. Reynolds certified her as a Constructive Living Instructor in 1987 at the Health Center Pacific on Maui. Additionally, she has been the American Coordinator of the Oomoto School of Traditional Japanese Arts in Kameoka, Japan. There she has studied tea ceremony and calligraphy.

 

Ryan Madson’s published writings include a chapter on constructive living in the 1995 anthology Mindfulness and Meaningful Work, edited by Claude Whitmyer (Parallex Press), as well as chapters in the SUNY Press books Plunging Through the Clouds and Flowing Bridges, Quiet Waters. Her first book, Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up was published by Random House (Bell Tower) in 2005, and named “One of the Best Spiritual Books of 2005” by Spirituality and Health. Improv Wisdom is also published as an Ebook and as an Audiobook read by the author. It has been translated and published into nine languages.

CONNIE STRAYER | Senior Lecturer Emerita

 

Connie Strayer

Connie Strayer was a Senior Lecturer Emerita at Stanford where she worked and taught in the areas of theatrical costume. In addition to courses in costume design, she also taught History of Fashion, Makeup Design, Textile Design and co-taught Introduction to Theatrical Design. In addition to teaching, she designed costumes for Main stage and Second stage productions for more than 30 years. Connie also designed costumes for local companies such as Opera San Jose, TheatreWorks, Menlowe Ballet, Oakland Ballet, and her designs have traveled to New York, Atlanta, and Greece. She also used her expertise as a textile designer in collaboration with other designers for companies such as San Francisco Ballet, American Conservatory Theatre, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, San Diego Opera and Guthrie Theatre. She worked as a principal makeup artist at San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet and involved with other individual projects including a photo essay of HIV positive women of the Bay Area photographed by Annie Liebowitz. She presented talks for the Textile Arts Council Lecture Series of the De Young Museums; PQ Scenofest at the Prague Quadrennial in Prague, Czech Republic; Scythia Textile Conference in Kerson, Ukraine; Izmir Economic University in Izmir Turkey, and for local costume related groups and organizations. Three of her publications appear in SURFACE, journal of the Surface Design Association. She was on the board of the Textile Arts Council from 2014-2018 and is a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829, and Make up and Hair Stylists Union Local 706.