C O M P A N Y     B I O S

Ellie Potts Barrett (Guest Choreographer) trained at Boston Conservatory and graduated with a B.A. in Dance from the University of South Florida. She is a highly sought after dancer/teacher/choreographer by National Dance Organizations, Professional Theatre Companies and Universities. She was recently selected for inclusion into the 2002-2004 Florida Artist’s Residency Directory, by the Division of Cultural Affairs in Tallahassee, as well as being selected by her students for the Who’s Who Among America’s Best Teachers publication for 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. She is on the faculties of Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Flagler College, and the School for Performing Arts in Orlando. She enjoys traveling to many different locales such as Seoul, South Korea, New York City, Boston, Minneapolis, Mexico and Canada choreographing theatre and/or dance pieces. She recently choreographed the ballroom scene for the film LONELY HEARTS, working with Salma Hayek and Jared Leto, which debuted at the Tribeca film festival in New York in the spring of 2006.

Genevieve Bernard (Artistic Director) is a founding member of Voci Dance and has performed and choreographed with the company for the past five years. She holds her Masters in Dance Education from Temple University and teaches dance in the Orange County Public School System. Ms. Bernard has received numerous awards and fellowships for her choreography.

Tara Burns (Guest Artist) graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Florida with a BFA in Dance and also holds her MA in Digital Performance. She is currently dancing with Adele Myers and Dancers, Kelley Donovan & Dancers, and White Road Dance Media in NYC. In addition, Tara works in NYC as Company Manager for Alexandra Beller/Dances, Production Coordinator for dance/technology company AMDaT, and freelance web designer and media consultant. Tara has gathered influences from Kelly Drummond Cawthon, Troika Ranch, Sarah Rubidge, Benoît Lachambre, Beatricé Kombé, and Adele Myers among many others. It is a great honor to have been asked to perform again with Voci Dance Company. http://TaraLeeBurns.com

John Carollo (Resident Visual Artist) is an award-winning artist who began studying Watercolor in college at the University of North Texas under the instruction of the internationally renowned artist Rob Erdle. John's work demonstrates an expressive, stylistic flair, meant to convey the mood, emotion, and essence of a scene rather than a literal interpretation of what the eyes might be recording. HIs loose, free-flowing style allows the water and paint to often move on their own with minor guidance, in a technique he calls “controlled chaos.” The end result showcases watercolor’s unique properties of translucency and atmospheric effect and lends itself well to interpreting the emotional movement of the Voci dancers. He has recently displayed his work at the Lowndes Shakespeare Center, Pom Pom’s Teahouse, Urban Think bookstore, the Performing Arts Alliance’s Red Chair Affair at the Bob Carr Theater Center, the Casselberry Art House and the Downtown Art and Living Expo at Lake Eola where he was awarded, “Best in Show.” John is also a proficient graphic designer, and provides that service for Voci through his company, Naked Eye Studios.

Mary Clymene (Dancer) graduated with a BFA in Dance and with an Honors Award for Distinction in Choreography from Fordham University/ The Ailey School in New York. During her time at The Ailey School she performed in The Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble and with The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She also apprenticed with the Sean Curran Dance Company in New York. She currently teaches dance at Douglas Anderson High School for the Arts in Jacksonville Florida and has a Masters degree in Mental Health Counseling from Rollins College.

Kelli A. Cummins (Executive Director) holds her BFA in Dance and is completing her Masters in Interdisciplinary Arts. She was recently appointed by the Florida Secretary of State to serve on the Arts and Education Grant Panel Review Board. She has written numerous educational programs for Voci and was awarded a grant from Arts for a Complete Education for her project integrating language arts, visual arts and dance. She is currently on staff at the Dellecave Institute of NY where she teaches K-5 educators how to incorporate movement into their classrooms.

Mark Demaio (Musician) holds his BA in Liberal Studies from the University of Central Florida. An experienced writer/editor, he has spent many years traveling and teaching in Asia. Mark has been experimenting with music and percussion since 1999. In 2004, he was invited to play a farewell performance with local music pioneers Red Shift Mantra. Today, he splits his time performing with Voci Dance, PURE (Public Urban Ritual Experiment), and the Scientist Group. Also in a time of musical growth and study, Thobos LuBamba, Martin "Greywolf" Murphy, Bhrigha Murphy, Bonnie Stone, Vanessa Howell, Omar Surillo, and Josh Bonner are continual sources of education and inspiration.

Lisa Nakayama (Dancer) hails from Denver, CO and graduated from the Denver School of the Arts with a fine arts endorsed diploma. She has danced with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance and Kim Robards Dance. Lisa has studied under many dancers and choreographers including Hannah Kahn, Leah Belliston, Jerald Vincent and Dave Rickard, in many styles ranging from modern and Egyptian, to hula and cirque aerial arts. She performed with the National Broadway Touring Company of Joseph! and can now be found dancing at Walt Disney World.

Adrienne Nichols (Founder/Dancer) has studied dance in England, France, Pennsylvania and New York City. After receiving Highly Commended ratings in advance study from the Royal Academy of Dance of England, Ms. Nichols continued to dance at Wilkes University where she obtained her BA in International Economics and French with a minor in Dance. She has performed in soloist roles in many major classical ballets and with modern dance companies in New Jersey and New York, including the Shore Ballet Company, Solstice Dance/SoHo, the American Heritage Dance Company.

Heather Rose graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Boston Conservatory where she received a B.F.A. in dance. She began her training in Durham, North Carolina where she played an active role in the Triangle Youth Ballet under the direction of Lauren Lorentz de Haas. She then went on to attend Interlochen Arts Academy to further her dance training. She has traveled to New York City, NY, Charlotte, NC, Interlochen, MI, and Boston, MA, to attend such renown programs as the Joffrey Ballet School, Joffrey Midwest Workshop, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and the American Dance Festival. She was a member of Florida Dance Theatre for their 2006-2007 season where she had the pleasure of working with such artists as Carol Erkes, Ferdinand De Jesus, Earl Mosley, Nikole LaChioma , and Daryl L. Foster. Currently Ms. Rose is working in the English department at Ridge Community High School and performing with Voci Dance, Orlando’s premiere modern dance company.

Matthew Simantov (Resident Photographer) is a Web Producer at the Orlando Sentinel and writer for the OrlandoSentinel.com pop culture blog, What the Blog?!. The rest of his time is spent as a photographer and filmmaker.


G U E S T     A R T I S T S

Christa Bell (Guest Artist) is currently the third ranked Performance Poet in the United States and Seattle’s 2005 Grand Slam Poetry Champion as well as the Northwest’s 2005 and 2006 representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam Competition (IWPS). A Seattle native, she received her BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She is the author of three collections of poetry and is currently recording a full length LP of her first Spoken Word tour entitled Yoniverses: Live. Christa recently headlined her first international, 40-city tour, World Medicine 2006 and is in the production stage of her first full length, one-woman theatrical performance.

Ryan Peavey (Lighting Designer) holds a B.S. in Theatre Arts from the University of Oregon. Focusing on technical theatre, he has built his career on design of Lighting and Sound for both theatre and live music performance. After serving as Technical Director for the Pocket Playhouse in Oregon, Ryan took the position of sound engineer at the Orlando UCF Shakespeare Festival, working on professional regional productions Arms and the Man, Julius Caesar, as well as the World Premiere of The Jungle Book. His most recent professional design credits include the Shakespeare Festival's production of Peter Rabbit, and the Young Company's production of Richard III. While working as a venue technician for the 2006 Orlando International Fringe Festival, Ryan had the opportunity to work with Voci, and looks forward to future collaborations. Currently, Ryan is a lighting designer for Universal Studios CityWalk and enjoys a good homemade pie.

Anna McCambridge (Visual Artist) is a local artist and arts activist, whose efforts include many volunteer activities. She served as the first Orlando Visual Artist League (OVAL) Community Outreach Program Director, in which she designed programs to help seniors and children in the community benefit from visual arts. She most recently served as OVAL's Entertainment Program Director for the Third Thursday events each month. Anna is the producer of the Orlando Visual Fringe, an art exhibit which is one of the gleaming facets of the gem called the Orlando International Fringe Festival. She is also on the curating committee at the Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) for the 1st Thursday Events. One of Anna's goals is to help in making Orlando culturally richer by being active in the arts community. She has been a featured artist in publications such as: National Public Radio's Arts Connection, The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Magazine, Orlando Leisure Magazine, Orlando Style Magazine, Orlando Business Journal, and Eleven Magazine. Anna has shown her work in several solo shows and dozens of group shows over the past decade, has won numerous awards, an Individual Artist Professional Development Grant from United Arts of Central Florida, and her work is in collections locally as well as worldwide. Two of her recent accomplishments have been working on Christo & Jeanne-Claude's "The Gates" project in New York City's Central Park in February 2005, and having her work displayed with artists selected from around the world in the Design Times Square: The Urban Forest Project in New York City.

Rick Jones (Visual Artist) Born Richard Eugene Jones in Winter Park, Florida in 1978, Rick lived with his parents in Orlando’s west-side neighborhood of Pine Hills and studied music in public school until attending college at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Quickly losing interest in studying music full-time in a formal music school, where he majored in composition and percussion, he soon turned to visual art as a creative outlet and possible career. After numerous solo, group and curated exhibitions he graduated with a BFA in 2001 and then returned to Orlando to make a living. Shortly after September 11, 2001 he was forced to move back to Tallahassee and then to Atlanta, Georgia, where for six months he held various office jobs and produced almost no artwork. Jones then returned to Central Florida due not only to lack of success in Atlanta but also his father’s illness. It would not be until 2005, shortly after his father’s death that Jones would fully produce an art exhibition in his hometown. He has been producing abstract paintings regularly since that time while working at Sam Flax Art and Design Supplies and helping other local artists network and exhibit work. Since 2005 Rick Jones has devoted his time and energy into Orlando and its cultural life and has no plans to leave his new favorite city.

Joulia Vitaliy (Visual Artist) Art is the greatest Illusion ever known. Any form of art expands our reality to infinity. It is up to us how far we dare go, and to which degree we are able to connect. Painting is my language of an illusion. My paintings always have many layers of meanings. My personages, tottering on the brink of illusion and reality, fantasy and grotesque, irony and drama. The boundary line dividing these two extremes is always tenuous, and you never know which side you are likely to slide off. Meanings are more or less irrelevant. What is importan, or the two important facts I should say, are emotion and then colors arising from emotion, which affects a viewer on a deep unconscious level. My art is not only about a story - it's about passion, love and enjoyment of life. Words are seductive, but they flatten out the precise dimensions, the merely visual demands of the art. I began my systematic education in art at the age of 11 in Russian traditional art school. I had a great teachers in the most respectable art colleges in St. Petersburg, Russia, and acquired skills in many media and techniques. I've learned more about what I don't want to do rather than what I want to. It is a long journey, to discover yourself in art. During my life, I experimented with many forms of art, including a conceptual avant-garde theatrical group now as Laboratory of Experimental Fashion, which I co-created along with Russian underground icon Kirill Miller. My paintings can be found in private collections in Europe and the United States.