Choreographer/Executive Artistic Director

Gerald Casel is a dance artist, administrator, and educator. He is The Carole and Dan Burack Director of the School at Jacob’s Pillow and is also a tenured full Professor in the Department of Dance at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He has been a faculty member at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, California State University Long Beach, and UC Santa Cruz where he also served as the Provost of Porter College. As director of GERALDCASELDANCE, their choreographic work complicates and provokes questions surrounding colonialism, collective cultural amnesia, and structures of power. His most recent work, Not About Race Dance was awarded an Isadora Duncan Award “Izzie” for Outstanding Direction/Choreography with support from NEFA’s National Dance Project, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, National Center for Choreography Akron, and The Bogliasco Fellowship. A graduate of The Juilliard School with an MFA from UW-Milwaukee, they received a New York Dance and Performance Award “Bessie” for sustained achievement for dancing in the companies of Stephen Petronio, Michael Clark, Stanley Love, Zvi Gotheiner, Sungsoo Ahn, and The Metropolitan Opera Ballet. Additionally, he has danced in the work of Netta Yerushalmy, Cid Pearlman, and in John Heginbotham’s Woolgathering, a collaboration with Patti Smith and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Casel is the founder of Dancing Around Race, an ongoing community engaged-participatory program that interrogates systemic racial inequities that continues to grow and transform communities through courageous conversations on systemic racism. www.geraldcasel.com

Artist Statement

I create dances that confront the invisible architectures of power, using the body as both an archive and an instrument for reimagining the world.

As a Bessie and Izzie award‑winning dance artist, antiracist educator, and equity‑driven cultural organizer, I approach dance as a transformative medium—one that not only communicates across boundaries but also reimagines entrenched systems of power. My choreographic and social practice is rooted in multi‑platform collaborations that span disciplines, geographies, and communities, expanding the definition of dance as a site of embodied inquiry and social critique.

My work is shaped by my lived experience as a queer, immigrant, first‑generation Pilipinx‑American artist and by my commitment to anticolonial methodologies. I draw from traditional Pilipino dances, street forms such as hip‑hop and vogueing, and postmodern abstraction to create hybrid movement languages that resist cultural erasure and propose alternative choreographic structures rooted in cultural specificity and embodied reimagination.

Over the past decade, I have created evening‑length performances, site‑activated work, and participatory events that center BIPOC, queer, and immigrant bodies as sites of knowledge, resistance, and transformation. These works have been presented at venues such as the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, CounterPulse, Bates Dance Festival, Kuan Du Arts Festival in Taipei and the Seoul International Improvisation Festival, and they have been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MAP Fund, and the New England Foundation for the Arts, to name a few.

In addition to my choreographic work, I co‑direct Dancing Around Race, a collaborative initiative that convenes curators, critics, scholars, grantmakers, and audiences to examine systemic inequities in dance production and presentation. Through long table discussions, workshops, and public forums, we address topics such as racial representation, colorblind ideology, and inequitable funding and curatorial practices. This work has led to policy changes at major institutions and has fostered new models of accountability and transparency across the field.

My scholarship and writing further extend my practice. I have published essays, developed community reading lists, and participated in public talks that articulate a decolonial choreographic approach, offering a theoretical framework for my practice and a resource for artists, educators, and scholars committed to equity and transformation in the arts.

As an educator, I have taught at universities and cultural institutions across the country, designing curricula that integrate embodied research, critical theory, and social practice. My teaching emphasizes dance as a tool for inquiry and activism, encouraging students to engage with their own histories and communities through movement.

Through choreography, scholarship, and community engagement, I continue to build a practice that is rigorous, intersectional, and deeply committed to social transformation. My work challenges dominant narratives, reclaims erased histories, and imagines new futures for dance—ones that are inclusive, embodied, and radically alive.

Collaborators

TIM RUSSELL (he/him) lives at the confluence of the aural and the visual. He currently serves as Music Director for the University of Wisconsin’s Dance Department. In 2019, Tim was selected as one of the Cowles Visiting Artists at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, a first for a Musician in the field of Dance. He has a vast catalogue of works specifically for choreography, most of which exist live, in collaboration with movement. His commitment to the nowness in performance led him to co-create/curate, along with choreographer Maria Gillespie, Hyperlocal MKE, a Music and Dance improvisation series that exists to this day in Milwaukee. His current curatorial project: Common Sage Arts, promotes multidisciplinary artists through carefully curated performances. Along with Tim’s long time collaboration with the Gerald Casel Dance Company, his audio shares the stage with choreographic artists such as: Kate Corby, Abby Crain, Danceworks Maria Gillespie, Holly Johnston, Stephan Sara Shelton Mann, Li Chiao Ping, Liz Sexe, Marlene Skog, Wildspace Dance and Jin Wen Yu, bringing Tim and his music across the world from Dock 11 in Berlin to YBCA in San Francisco. He holds an MFA in Music Improvisation from Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied improvisation, electronic music and composition with the likes of Fred Frith, Roscoe Mitchell and Zeena Parkins. His 2020 album: “Junct”, a collection of improvisational duets with bassist Ari Smith, was included in Tone Madison’s top 20 records of 2020. www.avoidancepolicy.com

STYLES ALEXANDER (they/them) is an emerging choreographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Styles Graduated from the Boston Conservatory, where they graduated with a B.F.A. in contemporary performance and choreography. While attending the  Boston Conservatory, Styles performed and collaborated in creative processes with choreographers such as Andrea Miller, Robert Moses, Dwight Rhoden, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Doug Varone, and more. Styles has also had the honor of performing repertory by Ohad Naharin, Idan Sharabi, Robin Aren, and William Forsythe  Styles is currently in collaboration with Kristin Damrow & Company, located in San Francisco.

Styles' choreographic work is centered in the continuing practice of examining and healing trauma that resides in the body, as a product of survivors of  both chattel slavery and the continued genocide of indigenous people on what is now known as The United States.  Styles's work has been featured in Urbanity NeXt Emerging choreographers series, DougVarone's DEVICES, and most recently Jess Curtis' Gravity Pop Up Performance  project. Their creative practice is moved by the development of emotional and conceptual statehood through a practice focused on corporal ferocity, and improvisation as a tool for physical and spiritual liberation.

ARON ALTMARK (he/him) is a lighting and media artist based in Santa Cruz, CA. He utilizes light, projection, and interactive technologies to create conversations between performers and audiences, or between a viewer and digital media. Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, he first found his passion for theatre and dance lighting in Alabama School of Fine Arts before graduating from the California Institute of the Arts with a degree in Lighting Design and Digital Media. Since 2014, he has helmed Visual Endeavors -- a design and creative solutions company operating across genres, from live concerts to broadcast to art installations. He has worked with Gerald Casel since 2016, and really enjoys finding the balance of art and technology that supports Gerald’s works. www.visualendeavors.com

REBECCA CHALEFF (she/they) is a dance scholar, performer, and dramaturg. Her current book project analyzes how reperformance and legacy building projects shape and are shaped by the politics of race and sexuality. In particular, the manuscript engages with the affective attachments of queer and racialized histories to question how choreographic claims to artistic afterlives reinforce and/or contest sociocultural hierarchies that uphold white supremacy. Rebecca’s writing has appeared in numerous scholarly journals and edited volumes, including Dance Research Journal, TDR/The Drama Review, and Futures of Dance Studies. As a dancer, she has had the pleasure of performing with Pat Catterson, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company Repertory Understudy Group, Douglas Dunn and Dancers, Molissa Fenley and Company, and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, among others. She has been working with Gerald Casel as a dancer since 2013 and as a dramaturg since 2018.

AUDREY JOHNSON (she/her) is a queer Black mixed-race movement artist with roots from Detroit and Plymouth Michigan, currently rooting in Oakland, CA. She is a performer, teacher, writer, and farmer. Audrey’s work is in deep nonlinear relationship to a lineage of queer Black feminist praxis and is committed to creating space for Black healing and liberation. Her performance work has been presented at FRESH Festival (San Francisco), The Arab American National Museum via Daring Dances (Dearborn, MI), Sidewalk Arts Festival (Detroit, MI), FROLIC Queering Dance Festival and 2727 California Street (Berkeley, CA); she has collaborated and performed with artists such as Jennifer Harge (Detroit), Biba Bell (Detroit), Gerald Casel (San Francisco), and Stephanie Hewett (Oakland). She is a co-founding member of Collective Sweat Detroit, an organization holding spaces for dance in Detroit, and holds a BFA in Dance with Honors from Wayne State University. www.audreyjohnson.space

KARLA QUINTERO is a performing artist, arts administrator, and is HMD’s Director of Marketing and Development. She graduated from Barnard College with a BA degree in Urban Studies and earned a BFA from the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance. For five years she worked for leading pedestrian and bicycle advocacy group Transportation Alternatives (NYC) as their Outreach Coordinator and Deputy Director of Planning, supporting pedestrian safety and community health efforts in Latino and immigrant communities. In San Francisco, Karla has worked with PUSH Dance Company coordinating PUSH’s annual mixed-genre dance festival, PUSHfest and as the Production Manager for the Festival for Latin American Contemporary Choreographers. She currently serves as HMD's Director of Marketing and Development and is on the Advisory Board for the Festival for Latin American Contemporary Choreographers. Karla has been recognized for her work as an advocate as well as her work as a dance artist. In 2008, she was awarded the Mujeres Destacadas award from El Diario/La Prensa for her work to improve pedestrian safety in NYC communities. In 2017, Karla received an Isadora Duncan Award for her performance in Jo Kreiter’s Grace and Delia are Gone. karlajohannaquintero.tumblr.com

CAUVERI SURESH (he/she/they) is an artist from the Bay Area. They graduated cum laude from Barnard College in 2018 with a B.A. in dance, and have studied with Joanna Kotze, Jodi Melnick, David Parker, Okwui Okpokwasili, Christina Robson, and Doug Varone among others. Currently, they work with Emma Lanier, GERALDCASELDANCE, Ky Frances, and Risa Jaroslow & Dancers. Cauveri is also a childcare worker and visual artist. They are a consultant with Curating Brave Spaces founded by Vibhuti Arya Amirfar where they are interested in processes of dissent and holding boundaries as a worker, as well as interpersonally, the every day choices that comprise accountability, and the many pathways toward liberation.

Recent Collaborators

Originally from Northern California, Arletta Anderson received her degree in dance from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Upon graduating, she worked with various choreographers including Holly Johnston/Ledges and Bones, Kevin Williamson, Kate Hutter/LACDC, Kindra Windish and Rebecca Pappas/Pappas and Dancers. Arletta spent three years in New York where she danced with Esme Boyce, Molly Heller and was a part of Willi Dorner’s Bodies in Urban Spaces project. Since relocating to the Bay Area in summer 2013, Arletta has had the opportunity to work with GERALDCASELDANCE and continues to teach yoga throughout the city.

Kristen Bell, a native of New Jersey, received her early dance training at the School of American Ballet and later at Princeton University while earning her BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Kristen continued her studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, from which she received her MFA in Dance. In New York, she has performed with TAKE Dance, American Repertory Ballet, Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theater, Dishman + Co., and Riedel Dance Theater. Since relocating to the Bay Area, Kristen continues to collaborate with JenEd Productions and Skybetter & Associates, where she is the rehearsal director. She enjoys teaching, making dances, and facilitating stress/reactivity training workshops. Kristen is grateful to be working with GERALDCASELDANCE.

Christina Briggs holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor 2010-2014. Christina has worked with a variety of choreographers in New York, including Carrie Ahern, Pat Cremins, and Susan Osberg. In 2000 she joined Heidi Latsky Dance, performing and serving as Rehearsal Director. She has performed for children nationwide with the Hudson Vagabond Puppets, where she was also the Rehearsal Director. She has been on the faculty in the Dance Department at Hofstra University and Queens College and taught at the Joffrey Jazz & Contemporary Summer Intensive. Christina’s choreography has been performed in New York City at Clark Studio Theater at Lincoln Center, Dixon Place, Joyce SoHo, Pace University, St. Mark’s Church and University Settlement, as well as in Atlanta, Boulder, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, New Orleans and Richmond.

Peiling Kao was born in Taipei, Taiwan, graduated from Taipei National University of the Arts in 1996 with a BFA in Dance, and worked as a full-time teacher at Cloud Gate Dance School in Taiwan. In 2007, Peiling was awarded the Taiwan-England artists’ residency, hosted by the Independent Dance based at Siobhan Davis Studios in London; in 2010, Peiling finished her MFA at Mills College, receiving an E.L Wiegand Foundation Award for excellence in performance and choreography. In 2012,Peiling awarded Isadora Duncan Dance Awards in category of Outstanding Achievement in Performance for the collaborative work entitled Terra Incognita: Revisited, and her work Imprint got nominated for Izzies’s Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design in 2013. Peiling was an Artist in Residency (AIR) at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in the Fall 2012. Since moving to the US, Peiling has been teaching at Mills College, LINES Ballet BFA program at Dominican University of California, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, RoCo Dance, Taiwanese American Center, and was a guest artist at Austin Peay State University and Chinese American International School. Peiling’s work has been presented in Taipei, Oakland (CA), San Francisco (CA), Clarksville (TN), and London. www.peilingkaodances.com

Na-ye Kim was born in Seoul, Korea. She trained in the UK at The Royal Ballet School, and then received her BA (Hons) in Dance Education at Durham University. In 2006 she graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography. She has performed nationally and internationally with Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance. Na-ye has worked for Karole Armitage, Bill Young, Kyle Abraham, Bridget L. Moore and Gabriel Forestieri as a freelance dancer in New York and continuously works with GERALDCASELDANCE. She continued her studies at Seoul National University and received a PhD in 2013 in Dance education. She is currently a full-time lecturer at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, School of Dance and the Artistic Director to her project company Na-ye Kim Movement Collective/NKMC.

Kevin Lopez received a BFA in Dance from CSU Long Beach, where he has danced for Keith Johnson, Gerald Casel, and Bill T. Jones. He has performed with Joe Goode Performance Group and Intersect Dance Theatre. He recently presented his solo show, Things I’ve Been Told in San Francisco where he currently resides.

Tara McArthur  began her dance training in her hometown of Nevada City, California. She holds a BFA in Dance from California State University Long Beach, where she went on to join the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City, UT. While in Utah, she was also a part of the Alwin Nikolais Centennial Celebration, performing his works across the U.S., France, and Italy. Since moving to San Francisco she has worked with Hope Mohr Dance, Risa Jaroslow & Dancers, Gerald Casel Dance Company, Amy Foley, Rogelio Lopez Garcia, NOW I.D., and Keith Johnson Dancers.

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Rodolfo Córdova  is a composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. He graduated with a BM in composition from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and is currently pursuing his MA in composition at Mills College in Oakland, California. He has studied composition under the guidance of Carlos Carrillo, Manuel Ceide, Maggi Payne, and Zeena Parkins. As a singer he has trained under the instruction of countertenor Paul Flight and has participated in vocal advancement workshops with Meredith Monk. His music fuses diverse influences with electronic media, chance operations, gradual processes, noise, and timbral techniques of composition. His work explores intersections with literature and visual arts and engages with issues of colonialism, geopolitics and migration. He has been an active member of ensemble Álea 21 and is a founding member of Conjunto Nueva Disonancia, an ensemble that performs the works of emerging Puerto Rican and international composers.