National Choreographers Initiative

Home About NCI Showing information Choreographer and dancer information Latest news How to contact us

2010 Choreographers and Dancers


Ann Marie DeAngelo
Ann Marie DeAngelo, former principal dancer with the Joffrey Ballet, was featured in Backstage as a “multiple-career artist”. She founded her own experimental dance troupe called Ballet D’Angelo, was the founding Artistic Director of Ballet de Monterrey, and Associate Director of the Joffrey Ballet. She has also been the producer, director and contributing choreographer of six Gala benefits, raising over $1 Million for Career Transition for Dancers. She is director of the new show Thank You, Gregory - A Tribute to Tap Legends - this fall, 2009. She has created over 40 works. Choreography for ballet companies include the Joffrey Ballet, National Ballet of Cuba; Ohio Ballet; Pittsburgh Ballet Theater; Oregon Ballet Theater; Ballet Pacifica; Nevada Ballet Theater; BalletNY, and ABT Studio Company. She has created works for various universities including Goucher College and Marymount Manhattan College. In 2003, Ms. DeAngelo created a one-act ghost story based on The Bell Witch that was nominated for a “Benois de la Danse” Award and in 2004, a segment was performed at the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow. She has recently choreographed a musical for the Shanghai Expo 2010. Ms. DeAngelo has taught, for numerous dance companies, universities and summer courses; and continues to teach workshops to non-dancers “Bringing Performance to Life’. Ms. DeAngelo also has a certificate in Arts Administration from New York University. www.annmariedeangelo.com
Helen Heineman was a soloist with Nederlands Dans Theatre and the National Ballet of Washington and a principal with the Harkness Ballet and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. She trained at the School of American Ballet and with Maria Swoboda and Sybil Shearer. After retirement as a dancer, she pursued degrees from Fordham University at Lincoln Center and Yale Law School. Ms. Heineman practiced Corporate Law in New York City for a number of years and recently resumed her work as a choreographer. She has choreographed for the Harkness Ballet, the Boston Ballet’s Choreographers Series, and Richmond Ballet. Her works have been performed at the Joyce and the Miller Theatres by Fugate/Bahiri Ballet NY. In 2007, three of her ballets were presented at the Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out series and her work will be presented again this coming summer as part of the 2010 Series. In 2008 her work was presented for a week at Joyce SoHo. She has presented work as part of the New Choreographers On Point’s Previews and Ballet Builders programs and for Thang Dao’s Contemporary Dance Festival. She is the artistic director of Viewpointe, a chamber dance group made up of dancers trained in the classical idiom, who also excel at contemporary movement. Over the past few years, Viewpointe has presented performances, showcases and workshops in the New York City area. www.helenheineman.com
Helen Heineman

Viktor Kabaniaev

Viktor Kabaniaev was trained at the famed Vaganova School in St. Petersburg, Russia. During the years following he worked as a principal and soloist dancer in various ballet companies in the former Soviet Union, Germany and United States including the Leningrad State Ballet Theater, Rusian Ballet, Komische Oper Berlin, Dortmund Ballet, Hannover Ballet and Diablo Ballet. Viktor choreographed his first ballet “Transfigured Night” in 1997 for Hannover Ballet Workshop. In July 1997 he was awarded a Special Prize for his second piece “Adagietto” at the 29th Annual Ballet Festival of Japan, held in Tokyo. In 2004 he won the First Laureate for Choreography with his “White Light” at the 3rd International Serge Diaghilev Competition for Choreographers in Gdynia, Poland. In 2005 he received the Grand Prize for his work “Duet” at the 8th Annual Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival in Palm Desert, CA. And in 2008 he was planed 1st in the 2nd New American Talent/Dance in Austin, Texas. He has created over forty works for ballet companies such as Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet Austin, Diablo Ballet, Moving Dance Arts, Smuin Ballet, and others. Since 2005 Viktor has served as the Director of Diablo Ballet Apprentice Program. www.kabaniaev.com

Peter Quanz knew he wanted to be a choreographer at age nine. In his first year at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School he was given the opportunity to choreograph for dancers from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company. By clearly defining his need to choreograph at a young age, Peter chose to pursue his creative development and education rather than follow a dancer's traditional career. He performed with the Stuttgart Ballet, but decided in 2002 to become a free-lance choreographer. Peter has choreographed ballets for some of the world's leading ballet companies including the Kirov Ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre, American Ballet Theatre, the Royal Ballet (Linbury Theatre), Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. He has also choreographed for dancers from the Martha Graham Dance Company. Peter is a recipient of the Clifford E. Lee Award, Canada's national award for young choreographers. He has also been supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Chalmers Foundation and the Judy and Henny Jurriens Choreographic Fellowship. www.peterquanz.com


Peter Quanz
Lighting Designer
Monique L’Heureux

Monique L’Heureux is an award winning lighting designer who has been working in the field of dance for two decades. She is delighted to be a part of NCI, her eighth collaboration with artistic director Molly Lynch. 

Ms. L’Heureux’s recent projects include lighting for: Raiford Rogers Modern Ballet, Charles Moulton’s Ball Passing piece in Fall for Dance at the Orange County Performing Arts Center; The Motion Picture and Television Fund event featuring Chita Rivera and Dick van Dyke, Shirley MacLaine, Hugh Jackman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Hudson, and many others; Festival Ballet Theatre; and Dance Peninsula. She also had her first solo photography exhibit at the Carl Broderick Gallery in Laguna Beach this year.

Her dance design credits include lighting over forty companies at the National Festival of Regional Dance America, held at the Benedum in Pittsburgh last year; a special performance at the International Ballet Competition; Dance Kaleidoscope; SOLA; Backhausdance; Anjani  Ambegaokar; Media City Ballet; Jazz Spectrum; Rhapsody in Taps; and Danza Floricanto, among  others. Her theatre design credits include lighting for the summer season at the Hollywood Bowl,  the Pasadena Playhouse (Present Laughter), the Dallas Theatre Center (All My Sons), and the Laguna Playhouse (Child’s Christmas in Wales), among others.

She was educated at Pepperdine University and received her MFA from the University of  California, Irvine, after which she apprenticed for one year at the Los Angeles Music Center’s Mark Taper Forum. She has taught for the dance departments at Loyola Marymount University and Moorpark College and the theatre department at El Camino College.
 
She is an accomplished artist and photographer whose work has been shown in galleries including the VIVA Gallery, Long Beach Arts Center, City of Brea Gallery, and The Stage Gallery in New York. She is a member of United Scenic Artists. Please see www.artanddesigns.net for further information.

2010 Dancers
Adrienne Benz - BalletMet
Andrew Brader – Los Angeles Ballet
Christian Broomhall – Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Alexandra Christian – Nevada Ballet Theatre
Greg DeArmond – North Carolina Dance Theatre
Pedro Gamino – American Repertory Ballet
Ted Keener – Smuin Ballet
Thomas Ragland - Richmond Ballet
Emily Ramirez – BalletMet
Susan Roemer – Smuin Ballet
Maggie Small – Richmond Ballet
Christopher Stuart – Nashville Ballet
Emily Tedesco – Nevada Ballet Theatre
Andrea Vierra – Nashville Ballet
Kirby Wallis – Ballet Austin
Benjamin Needham-Wood – Louisville Ballet

2009 Choreographers
Sidra Bell
Deanna Carter
Rick McCullough
Olivier Wevers
2008 Choreographers
Amy Seweirt
Edmund Stripe
Emery LeCrone
Ma Cong
2007 Choreographers
Melissa Barak
Frank Chaves
Edwaard Liang
Jerry Opdenaker
2006 Choreographers
Ron De Jesus
Graham Lustig
Charles Moulton
Gina Patterson
2005 Choreographers
Val Caniparoli
Christopher d'Amboise
William Soleau
Luca Veggetti
2004 Choreographers
Ann Marie DeAngelo
Peter Pucci
James Sewell
Lynne Taylor-Corbett

Click on links above to view archived choreographer biographies

| Home | About NCI | Showing | Choreographers/Dancers | News | Get Involved |

All photos by Robert Salas and David Friedman

                      Site design:

Copyright © 2005-2010
National Choreographers Initiative

Optimized for IE 6 & Firefox 2.0. Best viewed @ 1024 x 768
Problems with this site? Contact: