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Dance Concert Selection Panel
| Dance companies participating in the Saturday night dance concert at Round House Theatre were be selected by a distinguished panel of dance professionals. The 2010 Dance Bethesda selection panel is made up of Michelle Ava, Peter DiMuro and Susie Farr. |
Michelle Ava holds a Master's Degree in Dance Education from The George Washington University. AVA is a dance educator, choreographer, bodywork therapist and spiritual teacher. With over three decades of experience in the performing arts, she has served as artistic director and choreographer for several modern, improvisation and contemporary dance companies, and has choreographed for musical theatre and educational productions. With a vision of creating "dance for everyone", Ava founded Joy of Motion Dance Center in 1976 where she served as Artistic Director until 1990. AVA is also Founder and Artistic Director of AVA Dance, an organization that provides opportunities and environments for self-learning, building connectivity and deepening community through the expression of movement. Her private practice in Dance Coaching is located in the Cleveland Park section of Washington D.C.
Peter DiMuro, Executive Director of Dance Metro DC, is a director, teacher, facilitator and arts practitioner, whose career over a thirty-year span bridges classical, post modern, social forms and jazz styles, while splicing theatre and text, image and movement into performance works that reveal extraordinary and humane aspects of the world around us. Peter was named a White House Millennial Artist in 2000, a 1995 Mayor of Boston/ProArts Public Service in the Arts Award recipient, and has received grants from the National Performance Network, the Artists’ Foundation and Cultural Council, both of Massachusetts, the National Endowment for the Arts. He received an MFA in Dance from Connecticut College under Martha Myers; a BFA in Theatre from Drake University, with continued study in New York, Boston and at the American Dance Festival.
Susie Farr, the Executive Director of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, is a nationally recognized and respected arts administrator and advocate. Prior to her current position, she served as Executive Director at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and as director of Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley. Farr has extensive experience in the development of new initiatives and has served as a panelist on numerous review panels for state arts agencies and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has served on the boards of Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS and The National Jazz Service Organization, and currently sits on the Advisory Committee of Dance/MetroDC. Farr was named by The Washingtonian magazine as “One of the Most Powerful Women in Washington” in both 2000 and 2006. Additionally, in 2002 she received the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award for Exemplary Service to the Field of Professional Presenting.
Douglas Yeuell
Douglas
Yeuell is the Executive
Director of Joy of Motion Dance Center and has been an active part
of the Washington, D.C. dance community since 1982. Whether through
directing, teaching or performing, Yeuell believes and lives the
mission of Joy of Motion that, “dance is for everyone,” and continually works to make dance accessible to all, to celebrate
dance, and to bring strength and awareness to an ever growing and
evolving Washington, D.C. dance community.
During his tenure at Joy of Motion Dance Center, the center has
grown from a small one room studio to an organization with four
center locations and a student base consisting of thousands of dancers
of all ages. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Yeuell worked
for many years in the for-profit sector prior to transitioning to
a career in nonprofit arts. In addition to his administrative work,
Yeuell is also one of Washington, D.C.’s most highly acclaimed
jazz dance instructors. Teaching since 1982, Yeuell has brought
his infectious style of jazz to thousands of students regionally,
nationally and internationally. As a dancer and artist, Yeuell has
performed and worked throughout the Washington, D.C. region as a
soloist, choreographer and also as the director of his own jazz
dance ensemble, JazzDanz.dc. In 2008, Yeuell was honored with the Metro DC Dance Award's Alan M. Kreigsman Award for his oustanding lifetime of service to the Washington, D.C. area dance community.
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