Artists /Speaker Bios

Finances for Dance Artists

“Come chat we me as we talk about the basics of financial literacy, the  dance industry and how to make your money work for you in such a fluid  industry!”

My name is Dynasty Maitland. I am a financial coach and I teach millennials how to build wealth so they can have time & money freedom to do the things they really desire.

 As an Afro Latina and first generation college student, understanding finances is very important to me. 

I’m not sure about you guys but financial literacy was not taught in my household growing up and was seen as a taboo subject.

I’ve gained so much wisdom, peace & confidence over the years from different finance professionals and I am excited to use this hour to empower other millennials like me to feel the same peace and confidence around their financial legacy! 

    Women in Dance

Sandra Parks, Director of Arts, Choate Rosemary Hall

Sandra is a choreographer, dance educator, and an advocate for female leadership. She is the founder and Executive Director of Women in Dance, a non-profit organization that promotes female leadership in dance and related fields. She served as the Director for Drexel University Dance Program and Louisiana State University Dance Program.

Sandra holds her BFA from New York University and MFA from Smith College. Originally from Taipei, Taiwan, Sandra danced as a soloist with Four Seasons Ballet and Wu-I Dance Company. She toured nationally and internationally with a Broadway production of the King And I. While directing her own production, she danced and choreographed more than 80 live concerts. After moving to Boston, she danced with Bosoma Dance Company, Dance Collective, and Impulse Dance Company. 

Sandra has presented her work at professional venues in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Boston, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia as well as Beijing and Taipei. She also created commissioned work for Bosoma Dance Company in Boston, Cangelosi Dance Project and Of Moving Colors in Baton Rouge, LA.

Sandra was a faculty member for Boston University, Bridgewater State College, Colleges of Fenway, Drexel University, Kennesaw State University, Louisiana State University, Regis College, and Smith College, and she has taught master classes in China, France, and Taiwan.

      Looking Back on dance in LA

Jeff Slayton began his professional career performing with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and he later became a principal dancer with the Viola Farber Dance Company.  Slayton and Farber shared an award for Creativity and Expression at the 1972 International Paris Dance Festival for Farber’s duet Tendency (1970).  After moving to California in 1978, Slayton became the Artistic Director and Choreographer for Jeff Slayton & Dancers, which toured for six years.  The recipient of several National Endowment of the Arts choreography grants, he also served on the California Arts Council’s Dance Touring Panel for three years. 

Slayton’s choreography has been commissioned by several dance companies throughout the US including Lynn Dally & Dancers, Colorado Repertory Company, Vox Dance Theatre, New York Dance Collective, and the New Dance Ensemble.  He has choreographed solos for Viola Farber, Maria Cheng, Donna White, Sarah Swenson, Kerry Kreiman and others.  Slayton has taught and choreographed for numerous dance festivals, university and college dance students throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Korea.  He was on the faculty of the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC from 1988 to 1996, teaching modern dance technique and repertory. Slayton also choreographed two works for The Wooden Floor (formerly known as St. Joseph Ballet) in Santa Ana, CA., and several new works for students at the Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA).  In 1999, Slayton took early retirement from California State University, Long Beach, where he was a faculty member in the Dance Department for 21 years.  He went on to become a guest faculty member at UC Berkeley ,Mills College and the North Carolina College of the Arts. Jeff Slayton is the author of two books, The Prickly Rose: A Biography of Viola Farber (2006, AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN.) and Dancing Toward Sanity (2014, Dorrance Publishing Company, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA.).

 Jeff is the Co-founder of and writer at LA Dance Chronicle, an online dance magazine. Please visit the magazine at www.ladancechronicle.com 

Educating our Youth

Tina Banchero is the Program and Artistic Director of Everybody Dance  LA! and holds her BA in Dance & Women’s Studies from SUNY at  Buffalo. Tina toured internationally and performed professionally with  companies based in San Francisco for 15 years before relocating  to Los Angeles. She was the former Program Director of Dance Mission  Theater’s Youth Program in SF where she grew the non-profit dance school  from 40 to over 400 students and directed their award-winning youth  dance company the Grrrl Brigade. As a Teaching  Artist Tina has taught for Luna Kids Dance, the Alvin Ailey Dance Camps  in Oakland and NYC and many Elementary, Middle and High Schools in the  Bay Area and New York. Tina was also an Artist Mentor and Teaching  Artist with the Performing Arts Workshop in SF  and has judged & taught master classes for Dance Masters of  America. She has choreographed for the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival,  the Light in the Grove Benefit for the National AIDS Memorial, and  Trolley Dances SF.

Educating our Youth

Artistic Director & Founder

CITY BALLET OF LOS ANGELES

Ms. Gardenhire is the Founder and Artistic Director of City Ballet of Los Angeles. As the Artistic Director & Principal Choreographer Ms. Gardenhire has developed ballet’s that are classical as well as cutting edge bring new stories and prospective to the ballet. She has also developed a dance institution that reflects the economic and racial diversity of

Los Angeles. A scholarship school that offers the lessons of dance to all as well as the professional division that nurtures students to go on to dance professionally. 

Robyn Gardenhire is a Los Angeles native who began her dance training with former Los Angeles Ballet, with Irina Kovsmoska and Tatiana Lichine. Gardenhire continued her studies throughout her teenage years at the San Francisco Ballet School and in New York at the American Ballet Theatre School and New York City Ballet’s School of American Ballet (SAB). At age 16, Gardenhire became the youngest African-American to be offered a contract with Joffrey II where she performed at City Center and Jacobs Pillow.  She later joined Cleveland Ballet under the direction of Dennis Nahat, and had original works created on her and performed principal roles such as “Choleric” in Balanchine’s Four Temperaments, “Arabian Princess” in The Nutcracker and “Russian Girl” in Serenade.  In an effort to expand her artistry, she joined the company of avant-garde choreographer Karole Armitage, touring all over Europe. Upon returning to the United States, Ms. Gardenhire was personally invited to join American Ballet Theatre by Mikhail Baryshnikov and later performed with his White Oak Project working with choreographers Lar Lubovitch and Mark Morris. 

During her time at American Ballet Theatre, Ms. Gardenhire was the driving force behind the company’s diversity committee, which introduced minority children to classical dance through their “Build a Ballet” program. Ms. Gardenhire was instrumental in providing many scholarships that were given to minority students to study at the school. Its first student, Misty Copeland, the first African American women principal dancer at ABT, Ms. Gardenhire is also an alumni of SAB School of American Ballet (New York City Ballet) and is a founding member of its diversity committee and recipient of the New York City Ballet Fellowship Award. 

Ms. Gardenhire has developed and overseen City Ballet of Los Angeles for the last seventeen years and has created a dance institution that’s curriculum covers Classical Ballet, Modern, Theater and World Dance and over sees students ages 3yr. and up. Developing and allowing students to develop and grow in to professional dancers and to be able to cross through any cultural barriers they may encounter.

Educating our Youth

Diana  Delcambre is currently the co-chair of the Dance Academy at Ramon C  Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts in Downtown Los Angeles,  (commonly referred to as Grand Arts) Ms. Delcambre grew up in Northern  California with studio training that led  her to study at Loyola Marymount University under the direction of Judy  Scalin. Upon graduating from LMU, Ms. Delcambre pursued a professional  dancing and teaching career simultaneously, while earning her Masters  Degree in Education. Ms. Delcambre danced with  Bare Dance Company, IN/EX Dance Project, Palindrome Performance Group,  Move Dance Theatre, LA Contemporary Dance, KDub Dance and others  throughout Los Angeles. When she was not on stage she taught at multiple  studios before committing to full time public education  with LAUSD in 2008. 
 

Ms. Delcambre founded and directed the Dance program at Virgil Middle  School for three years before joining the Grand Arts Dance faculty in  2011. After five years of teaching multiple subjects, chairing the  program and directing the school's Dance Company she  spent some time away in Australia teaching her second love of surfing.  She has made her way back home to Los Angeles and Grand Arts to the  loving community that is empowering the next generation of movers and  shakers to use their voices in the world. 

Diana Delcambre
She/Her/Hers
 Dance Department Co-Chair

Team member RCG

Amina Yufanyi is a young driven dancer who is eager to bring her two worlds of dance and the world around her together. Yufanyi is native of Northern Virginia, just outside of our Nation’s Capital, and a Senior dance and sociology major at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA. She has been dancing since the age of three, taking classes in all genres of dance (ballet, tap, jazz, modern, lyrical, and hip-hop), and has attended summer intensive programs and classes at the Joffrey Ballet School, Dancemakers International Inc., Millennium Dance Complex, Paul Taylor, Jessica Lang, and LA Contemporary Dance Company. Yufanyi has studied and danced for James Gregg (Wewolf), Roz LeBlanc Loo (Bill T. Jones), Lillian Barbeito (BODYTRAFFIC), Allison Cook Beatty, Connie Dinapoli (Paul Taylor), William Isaac, Jessica Lang, Angela Stiskin, Michael Leon Thomas, and Andre Tyson (Alvin Ailey), among others.

Yufanyi wants to become an established choreographer with movement that encompasses who she is as a person and a dancer. She looks forward to being a performer in both the concert and commercial dance worlds and hopes to get more involved in the research aspect of dance as a whole, while also bringing communities together. 

Team member RCG

Juleinne Mackey  is a queer creator, educator, performer and producer based in Los Angeles. She graduated from UC Irvine and has worked with BrockusRED, The TL Collective, Madeline Hollander, Jmy Kidd, Charlie XCX, Jordan Peele, and Dorian Electra, among others. She assists producing events for dance festivals, poetry festivals, and independent galleries. She also works as a behavioral therapist for Autism Learning Partners. Her performance background includes hip hop, ballet, jazz, contemporary, partnering, improvisation, and acting.  

Team member RCG

BERNARD BROWN is a Black international performing artist, choreographer, educator, scholar and arts activist who situates his work at the intersections of blackness, belonging and memory. He has presented his scholarship on blackness, queerness and post-modern dance at conferences across the US and in Europe. Bernard has been featured in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times for his activism.