faculty

UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures
Summer Dance - Theater Intensive

July 6 - July 13, 2008

Dance Faculty

About UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures (WAC)

This department was created in 1995 by the merger of the World Arts and Cultures program and UCLA’s Dance Department, the first university-based dance department in the country. The department is home to a diverse faculty of artists and scholars, drawn from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, folklore, dance, theater and performance studies. The department’s lively interdisciplinary curriculum is unified around a set of shared concerns: the significance of cultural and aesthetic diversity, both locally and worldwide; the meaning of tradition in contemporary societies; and the changing roles and responsibilities of artists.

World Arts and Cultures is an ideal environment for artists, scholars and activists interested in exploring the meaning of creative expression in the contemporary world and for dancers and choreographers seeking to expand and challenge the cultural, intellectual and political horizons of their own practice.

Faculty Bios

This program is being designed and led by WAC Department Chairperson, Ang elia Leung, and faculty member, Kevin Kane. The instructors for the 2008 summer program will include:

Kevin Kane -- Originally from Philadelphia, Kevin is a graduate of New York's Hofstra University with a BFA degree in Theatre Arts and Dance, and holds an MFA in dance choreography from UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures, where he has been a lecturer and dance/theater maker since 2002. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1991, he has worked extensively as a teacher, director, choreographer, and filmmaker. A former high school performing arts teacher, he has collaborated with hundreds of young artists, creating original dance theatre productions featuring large, diverse ensembles, for which has received several grants, honors and awards. He is currently teaching movement and dance for NYU's advanced acting program in Los Angeles through The Atlantic Theater Company and often facilitates workshops for both students and teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, other Los Angeles area organizations, and several international residencies (most recently at the University of Ghana, Africa), presenting his concepts of creating original dance theatre productions. Additionally, Kevin serves as the Executive Director for The Flourish Foundation, a philanthropy group dedicated to supporting arts and educational projects and programs in the Los Angeles area. Most recent WAC-related projects include directing Shelter - a short dance on film project exploring issues of displacement and homelessness, and creating and directing Flesh and Blood, a dance theater piece exploring issues of HIV/AIDS for the WAC Make Art/STOP AIDS Initiative, which was performed throughout the winter of 2007 for high school and community audiences. In addition, Kevin will once again direct the WAC Summer Dance Theater Intensive 2008 for high school students - a week of dance, theater and social action with high school participants from around the country.

Nehara Kalev is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher who most recently enjoyed teaching her Upside Down Technique course at UCLA, where she earned her MFA degree. Nehara's work is influenced by aerial arts, acrobatics, avant-garde dance and extensive world travel. As co-founder of Catch Me Bird Dance Theater, Nehara creates reality based dance theater performances. She performed featured roles while touring nationally and internationally with Diavolo Dance Theater for four years. She will be part of David Rousseve's new work, which will have a New York residency in May 2007. Nehara is currently setting choreography on dancers at Cal State University Los Angeles and is preparing for a Catch Me Bird tour of Europe.

Jackie Lopez, a Los Angeles native, graduated in June 2004 from UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures. Jackie, in collaboration with Leigh Foaad, is the Artistic Director/ Choreographer of Versa-Style, a dance theater company based in Los Angeles. She is currently the program director for The Flourish Foundation, a non-profit private philanthropic organization created as a response to lack of funding in the arts. Presently, she is working with renowned Hip-Hop Director Rennie Harris in his new work titled “100 Naked Locks.” As a cultural educator, Jackie has worked with students and artists of all ages in schools, summer camps, community organizations, theater, and arts festivals. She has a wide range of knowledge and training in dance styles such as Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia, Afro- Cuban, Nigerian, and Hip-Hop. She has been working with Kevin Kane for 12 years and owes a lot of her good fortune to their partnership.

Carolina San Juan was the first person in her family to go to college and is now a PhD student at UCLA in the Department of World Arts and Cultures. She researches American Popular Culture in the Philippines to better understand how the world understands Americans. She has performed for over ten years and taught various classes including, Filipino Folk Dance, Tinikling Hip Hop, and classes on arts and activism. Carolina continues to perform and teach about performance because she firmly believes that performances are the passages of peoples' lives.

Tittus Mendez was born in Coban, Guatemala and raised in Los Angeles, the middle child from a family of six. Tittus is the first to attend a university in his family and is a World Arts and Cultures major with an emphasis in dance (salsa). Tittus has performed at Highways (Santa Monica), The Redcat (Los Angeles), The Fringe Festival (New York), and Tecate and Mexicali (Mexico) as a member of a Los Angeles based salsa group, Contra-Tiempo. Tittus is now focusing on mastering the technique of video editing as well as other forms of dance. Having both law enforcement knowledge and street knowledge, Tittus hopes to one day create his own film based on the similarities of the Project System and the Prison System using dance and theater as a tool of expression.

Mo Marmesh is a recent graduate of UCLA, where she received a B.A. in World Arts and Cultures (dance concentration), and a B.A. in Communication Studies with an emphasis on mass media. She was born and raised in Miami, where she studied tap, jazz, and hip hop at Dance Gallery from the age of 2 to 18. In high school, she was member of the prestigious Gablettes Dance Team, earning several national and state titles. In 2003, Mo was asked to be a staff member for the American Dance Alliance, and for the past 4 years has enjoyed working with the company, doing camps and workshops for middle school, high school, and collegiate dance teams. She was Co-President of the WAC Undergraduate Society and Co-Produced the 2006 Production of WAC Smash at the Glorya Kaufman Theater. In 2006, she had the honor of working for the first ever UCLA WAC Summer Dance/Theater Intensive under the direction of her mentor Kevin Kane. Most recently, Mo returned to her alma mater at Coral Gables High School in Miami and is currently the dance teacher and director of the Gablettes.