Daina Block
Daina is an Australian born artist who’s personal professional development towards the relationship of movement and body have been greatly influenced by faculty guidance at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia. Here she studied and nurtured her interests of kinesthetic relationship with movement to the dance craft of choreographic design. Her dedication and contribution as a dancer during her college years later paved her way to receive support from the Australian Arts Council in the category recognizing young and emerging artists. She worked with Australian dance company Dance Works for the duration of this grant and then continued for an additional two years under the artistic direction of Sandra Parker. Currently Daina can be found working with the San Carlos Children’s Theatre as a teaching artist and choreographer and is a founding member of SoShe’s Performance Collective.

Rachel Costello
Rachel began dancing when she suffered a serious gymnastic injury in her adolescence. The artistic element that had been missing in her gymnastic career suddenly revealed itself in dance and she threw herself into daily dance classes. Before graduating high school, Rachel became a part of Eisenhower Dance Ensemble's Youth Company and when she moved to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan, she studied under Ruth Leney-Midkiff and Peter Sparling, a former principal dancer with Martha Graham. Before graduating, Rachel studied abroad in Aix-en-Provence, France for a year and during that time joined the company of Brigitte Faragou, a delightful jazz and modern choreographer who was also the founder and director of a prestigious circus company in the region. Rachel graduated from UofM with a degree in both literature and psychology and recently moved to the Bay Area where she is currently dancing with the group Dance/Theater Shannon. She is realizing more and more that dance is a way of life and is constantly working to be present in her movement and her body and to teach others to do the same.

Artist Mentor: Matthew Clark Davison
Matthew landed in San Francisco in the late 80s as a teen-aged runaway and high school dropout. With no formal education, he began writing in response to the AIDS crisis, the context in which he came of age. After enrolling in Poetry for the People at Glide Church, he was encouraged by poets June Jordan and Janice Mirikitani to pursue a degree in writing. He eventually earned a BA and MFA from SF State's Creative Writing Program, where he is now a lecturer. His short fiction has appeared in Lodestar Quarterly, The Pacific Review, 580-Split, and The Atlantic Monthly's Unbound, and has been recognized with a Clark/Gross Novel-in-Progress Award and a Stonewall Alumnae Association Award. His current project, a novel called LETTERS TO THE DEAD, was awarded a 2007 SF Cultural Equities Grant. You can learn more about him at blog.matthewclarkdavison.com.

Ken Doumbia
Mr. Doumbia is a professional West African performer and is one of the few artists who has had the opportunity to travel the globe as a master drummer and dancer with every prominent ballet company in his region, including the internationally renowned Ballet du Senegal and Afrique Noire. He has since made his home in the Bay Area as a respected member of the drum and dance community. He has extensive experience working with numerous schools and dance companies, teaching students of all ages the music, dance and traditions of West Africa. Mr. Doumbia has traveled to many parts of West Africa and has also lived in several European and Asian countries and American cities, where he has had the opportunity to integrate and contrast his knowledge with other cultures. Mr. Doumbia has practiced yoga for the last twenty years in collaboration with his dance activities. He received his formal training and certification in Bihar yoga in Kerala, South India. Mr. Doumbia is fluent in Wolof, Bamana, French, Spanish and English.

Tara Fagan
Tara Fagan is a Bay Area movement educator, performer and collaborator. She has a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from California Institute of the Arts and a Yoga Alliance Teacher Certification from Its Yoga San Francisco. She teaches preschool and elementary school Creative Movement, Yoga, and Gymnastics. Fagan believes that all children are capable of growing, responding, investigating and forming their own ideas when given the appropriate space and conditions. She sees dance and movement as an important vehicle for this expression. Her classroom environment is fun and lighthearted, causing her students to look forward to moving and learning. Besides Performing Arts Workshop, she is an instructor for Rythym & Motion/ ODC School and Fitness In Transit. Fagan is also a professional Modern Dancer currently working with peck peck Dance Ensemble, kelly kemp & company, Liz Roman & Dancers and most recently, Scott Wells & Dancers. She is happiest when dancing and sees teaching as an important way to share her love of movement and creativity.

Artist Mentor: Brooke Gessay
Brooke Gessay was born and raised in San Diego, studying dance under Janice Lee and Carol Mead. While earning her BA in Dance and English/Creative Writing from Connecticut College, she worked with Dan Wagoner, Eddie Taketa, Jeremy Nelson, and David Dorfman, and traveled to Vietnam, China, and Italy to do culture exchange through dance. After graduating Summa Cum Laude, Brooke performed with Weird Al Yankovic, Malashock Dance, and the San Diego Opera. Since 2004 she has been a devoted member of San Francisco-based LEVYdance, and is program director of LEVYdance Kids. She currently serves youth as a Senior Teaching Artist and Artist Mentor with Performing Arts Workshop, and serves adults as a Life Coach.

Charles Gushue
Born and raised in Washington, DC, Charles Gushue began his affair with dance in Creative Movement at age 3. He continued his training at Duke Ellington School for the Arts, and received his BA in Dance, with a concentration in Composition from Goucher College in Baltimore, MD. Since moving to the Bay Area last August, Charles has Performed with Kelly Kemp and Co, Paco Gomes and Dancers, Firebird Dance Theater and has recently started working with Laura Arrington. Charles' choreographic works have been presented locally at The Garage, LEVYdance's Salon, ODC's Pilot program, SanJose Choreoprojects, and the Move(men)t festival. His work has also appeared at The Walters Art Museum, in Baltimore, MD, Todd Studio Theater, The Kraushaar Theater, The Mid-Atlantic ACDFA Gala, Bates Dance Festival and Duke Ellington School for the Arts. He recently had his first season at The Garage.

Gift Harris
Gift is an actor with years of experience in film, television and local theatre productions.  Earning a degree in Arts and Humanities from Laney College in 1980, Gift went on to study acting with Jean Shelton, Ed Hooks, Glynn Turman and Eric Morris. After traveling around the U.S. and Europe doing plays with the New Shakespeare Company and Geese Theatre Company, Gift went back to school and completed studies at Cal State Hayward where he received his BA in Liberal Arts. He has worked as an Artist-in-Residence with the Oakland Ensemble Theatre and Opera Piccola and on numerous conflict resolution projects in the Oakland public schools. As a staff artist with Bay Area Arts Relief, he used theatre and dance games to help students who lost their homes in the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm. Since 1989, Gift has worked on and off with Performing Arts Workshop through both the Artists-in-Schools and Artists-in-Communities Programs.

Eric Hoffman
Experienced teaching children as a theatre instructor, entertaining them as an actor, and supervising them as a museum educator, Eric truly enjoys teaching children and is quite skilled.  He is entertained and inspired every time he is in the classroom and only wants to return the favor. Eric offers creative and enthusiastic instruction, lesson planning, program design, research and supervision skills developed as an instructor of children's theatre, museum educator, camp counselor. By teaching improv comedy, Eric has specialized knowledge of improv theatre games and other valuable techniques for teaching entertainingly and effectively. He has knowledge of diverse styles of instruction and understanding of diversity issues gained through living and working in varied educational settings.

Erica Jeffrey
Originally from Missoula, Montana, Erica Rose Jeffrey studied dance at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, graduating as valedictorian before joining Ballet Internationale. After dancing professionally for several years, she attended Indiana University on full academic and artistic scholarships as a Wells Scholar and graduated with degrees in Ballet and Mediation & Conflict Resolution. Erica studied dance and performed in India and West Africa and also created the conflict resolution education program through dance, Moving Toward Peace. She is currently teaching, choreographing and performing in the Bay area and is the resident choreographer for the dance company Counterpointe. Since moving to San Francisco she has performed with groups such as the Marin Theatre Company, American Musical Theatre of San Jose, and Robert Moses "Drafts." She has choreographed new works for: the Retail Dance Festival, Women on the Way Festival, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, Collaborate! Dance and Music, Counterpointe's annual "Works in Motion" at the ODC Theatre, the Sausalito Art Festival, the Monterey Choreographer's Festival, San Jose Danceworks, the Marin Choreographers' Collective, Marin Dance Theatre, Belvedere Recreation Center, and Roco Dance and Fitness.

Erica also teaches for the San Francisco Ballet Dance in Schools and Communities program in the public schools. Most recently she has been a guest teacher for the Stern Grove Kids' Day Program and has toured to China as part of a cultural exchange for the Olympics.

Artist Mentor: Suraya Keating
Suraya Keating is an actress, teacher and therapist with an interest in the interplay between the creative arts and learning.  In addition to her work as an Artist-in-Residence for Performing Arts Workshop, she has also performed regularly with the cast of Tony-n-Tina’s Wedding and taught part-time at Santa Rosa Community College.  She completed her M.A. in Expressive Arts Therapy at the California Institute of Integral Studies and spends time at San Quentin State Prison leading theatre productions and working with inmates.

Nicole Klaymoon
Nicole received a Bachelors of Arts in dance from UCLA.  Her one-woman show, The Sixth Vowel, premiered at Miami Project Hip-Hop. Her other solo show Ms. Spellings of Be, was performed at the Illadelph Legends of Hip–Hop Festival in Philadelphia and the Electric Lodge in Los Angeles. She has performed spoken word integrated with dance in the La Pena Cultural Center Hip-Hop Theatre Festival, Hybrid Project, and the show Poejazzy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. Her choreography has been showcased at the Bootleg Theatre, Fruede, and was selected by the American College Dance Festival 2004 to be in the Carpenter Center Gala Concert.  She has collaborated with d. Sabela Grimes and performed in works directed by Rennie Harris, Marc Bamuthi-Joseph, David Dorfman, Maria Gillespie, and Meridith Monk.  In addition to her work at Performing Arts Workshop, she currently teaches dance and theater to adults and youth at Roco Dance and Fitness and Destiny Arts Center.

Artist Mentor: Tata Salah Kongo
As both a sacred and secular drummer, Tata is often sought to preside over religious ceremonies  as well as to facilitate community exhibitions, workshops and classes for both children and adults. Former musical director of Ayoluwa African Dance Company, Atlanta, Tata Salah Kongo has performed with professional West African Dance companies as both a solo and accompanist percussionist for the past fourteen years including: Barefoot Ballet of Atlanta, Spelman College Dance Department of Atlanta, Jeh Kelu African Dance Company of Burlington, M'Baiye Djiane of Buffalo, and Naby Bangoura of Oakland. Still using the first Djembe drum given to him by his father, Tata approaches his work with children in school communities using his pedagogical philosophy of fundamental listening. In leading youth to eagerly seek other environments that affirm critical thinking, Tata’s methodology demonstrates the capacity of human senses to discover beautyy in a given moment. Tata Salah Kongo has been privileged to have the opportunity to work with hundreds of youth from Pre K to Grade 12. Merging Kikongo, Kiswahili, Spanish and English words to create lyrics that beautifully accompany music created by students in his residencies and workshops, Tata Salah Kongo works with diverse youth in an effort to help each one recognize their own personal creative power as a source of renewable energy to fuel their work as agents of change within their families and communities. 

Suzanne Lappas
SSuzanne Lappas is a professional dance performer and teacher enthusiastically engaged in learning diverse approaches to movement and the means of inspiring it. She has taught all ages and levels through her experiences at Performing Arts Workshop, Sonoma State University, Roco Dance and Fitness, ODC School, and Indiana University. As a performer Suzanne can be seen on stages, screens, and outdoors with MotionLab, Scott Wells and Dancers, Limbinal, Erika Tsimbrovsky, and the Lisa Townsend Company. She is looking forward to
making her debut this fall with the companies Kunst-stoff and Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts. Additionally, Suzanne has also performed with Annie Rosenthal Parr, Bliss Kohlmyer, Robert Moses' Kin, ODC Dance, Miguel Robles, the Butler Ballet, and Dance Kaleidoscope. She holds a BA in Political Science and French from
Indiana University with Phi Beta Kappa honors and a Certificat d'Etudes Politiques from l'Institut d'Etudes Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence, France.

Risa Larsen
Risa was born three months pre maturely, and has not stopped moving since. At five years old she started riding horses with her sister in the south of Sweden. She trained and competed until she was seventeen, but soon discovered her fascination for dance while attending high school in Nevada City, California. This newfound passion presented Risa with an opportunity to leave high school a year early to dance with Pamela Hayes Classical ballet Theatre in Sacramento.

After moving back to Sweden in 2003 Risa studied dance at the National Norwegian College of Arts in Oslo, Norway. While attending school she taught Jazz at the Norwegian Ballet School and worked with Alex Magno, Subjazz, and Siv Gaustad. In 2005 Risa moved to New York City to complete her BFA at the Ailey School. Upon graduating she worked with Lanteri Productions and taught Yoga and dance workshops in between Sweden and California. In 2007 she moved to San Francisco and is currently enjoying her work with Todd Courage. This is Risa’s second year teaching with Performing Arts Workshop and she is excited for the new school year ahead.

Ada Liu
Ada was one of the principal dancers in Lily Cai's Chinese Dance Company in San Francisco at its inception in 1988. She is also a staff member of Chinese Cultural Productions and has worked as a dance instructor at St. Mary's Elementary School through the 1993-94 Prop J Cultural Equity Project. Credits include: the San Francisco Dance Festival, the Asian Pacific Performing Arts Festival, Theater Artaud Summertime Dance Project, The International Dance Festival in Germany, the Opening Performance for the Grateful Dead at the Oakland Coliseum in 1994, and Chinese Cultural Production's annual performances. Since 1994, Ada has worked as a Performing Arts Workshop instructor in creative movement and dance. She works in Performing Arts Workshop’s pre-school program and in classes with an ESL focus. Ada is fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin.

Greg Minor
Greg began practicing capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art, as part of a social project involving youth in the impoverished suburbs of Rio de Janeiro while studying abroad in 2004. After graduating from U.C.L.A. with a B.A. in History and Latin American Studies, he returned to Brazil as Founder and Co-Director of Project Nova Olinda, an educational empowering project in Rio de Janeiro (www.novaolinda.org). Greg continues to study capoeira in the U.S. with the group Raizes do Brasil, "Roots of Brazil," under the instruction of Mestre Ralil of Brasilia, Brazil and looks forward to evolving as a student and teacher of capoeira. Greg is currently pursuing a dual law and city planning degree at the University of California Berkeley.

Stephanie Owen
Born and raised in San Francisco, Stephanie has been dancing her entire life. Dreaming of choreography since the Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul dance video days, Stephanie started her formal studies in her late teens. After graduating high school, she attended Skyline College, receiving an Associates Degree in Dance, emphasizing Modern, Jazz and Dance Education. Shortly after, she attended San Francisco State University, where she learned and studied other dance forms such as Congolese, Haitian, Ballet, and Dunham dance technique. She received a BA in Dance in 2003. Stephanie brings creativity in teaching and choreographing dance, especially within her first love, Hip Hop, in addition to performing arts work. Stephanie is a Creative Movement dance instructor at Dance Mission Theater and Hip Hop dance instructor for the Youth Program at Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. 

Teacher Coach: Kristin Papania
Ms. Papania has a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Oregon, Eugene, OR and a Teaching Credential from Holy Names University, Oakland, CA. She has numerous Master Level classes in English Language Development. Her area of expertise is literacy development through arts integration, to foster thoughtful observation and critical thinking skills. She has taught all levels from preschool through adults in Oregon and throughout the Bay Area. Kristin understands the arts are a powerful impetus for all students to develop self esteem and ways of analyzing their world, while honing critical thinking, speaking, writing and reading skills. She is currently a Senior Teaching Artist in Creative Writing and Arts, Literacy Specialist and Teacher Coach with the Performing Arts Workshop. She is also a Writing Teacher Consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project. Kristin has expertise and years of experience in literacy development and has worked with students of all ages and diverse languages, cultural backgrounds and literacy developmental levels. 

Scott P. Phillips
Scott began training in Chinese martial arts and qigong in 1977 at the age of 10.  He has been teaching students ranging in age from 5 to 75 since his early twenties and is currently on the faculty of the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM). His teachers have included: Bing Gong, one of the first Chinese 'internal' martial artists to begin teaching in the United States. Scott has also studied extensively with George Xu, Zhang Xue Xin, Ye Xiao Long, Kumar Frantzis, and in Japan.  He has a scholarly background in Chinese History, Religious Daoism, and Ethnic Dance. Scott also spent many years training as a dancer and performer studying Modern, Jazz, Ballet, Congolese, Haitian, and North Indian Classical music and dance. He loves adventure, and when he is not teaching or cooking, he can be found kayaking in Alaska or Mountaineering in the Canadian Rockies.

Tedje Rose
Tedje has been a dancer, choreographer and teacher all her life. She teaches Brazilian dance at Mills College and has been a guest choreographer/teacher at the Harker School and the Marin School for the Arts. Trained in Amsterdam with an M.A in dance, she worked as a performer for circus Riboet, a traveling circus for children, and taught at the Vladimir school of Ballet. Coming to the United States, she continued as a Brazilian dancer and has performed with Daniela Mercury and Olodum. She joined the Workshop in 2004 and is currently the artistic director of Akat Dance, a modern dance company inspired by the life and natural movements of indigenous people.

Joseph Schine
Joseph was born in Germany and spent his first few years there. Then his parents carried him to New York, and spent a few years there. Then, Vermont. Twenty-two years later, he decided to move to a city... San Francisco. During this time, he led a number of canoe trips for teenagers in Maine and Quebec, created films with his camp buddy Dan, majored in Studio Art at Middlebury College, farmed for a couple summers in Burlington, and worked at two wonderful Preschools in Addison County. His dance experience are closely connected with experiencial explorations of anatomy, through workshops and private lessons and the martial art, aikido. He attended the Bates Dance Festival in the summer of 2008 and recently appeared in a choreographed piece at Middlebury College. His love for art and children has lead him to enter the field of early childhood education, and teaching movement to this age-group is one of his dreams come true.

Joti Singh
Joti Singh is the founder of Duniya Dance Company (DDC). Formed in April 2007, DDC creates dance that is a unique blend of Bhangra (a harvest dance from Punjab, India), Guinean dance from West Africa, and neither Bhangra nor Guinean dance. The company has performed throughout the Bay Area, including a performance for the Asian American Film Festival and the APAture Festival. Joti was one of four invited panelists for Dance Discourse, a project of Dancers' Group, CounterPULSE and Mary Armentrout. She wrote her Master's thesis on Bhangra in the South Asian Studies program at UC Berkeley and has traveled to Guinea, West Africa three times to study with master dancer Moustapha Bangoura, and other members of Les Ballets Africains. She was awarded an Apprenticeship with Alseny Soumah from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and will be an Artist-in-Residence at CounterPULSE during the summer of 2008. Please visit www.duniyadance.com for more information on Joti and Duniya Dance Company.

Mia Tagano
Mia received her B.A. in Drama from the Ohio State University and her M.F.A. in Theatre Arts through the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program.  A member of Actor’s Equity Union and Screen Actor’s Guild, Mia has been working as a professional actor since 1997.  Highlights of her career include performing 203 shows of Far East at the Lincoln Center in NYC and performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 10 hour play Tantalus directed by Sir Peter Hall which began in Denver, toured around England and ended in London.  Mia has also performed the solo show CININNATI here in SF, in Seattle and in London.  Most recently, Mia was seen in Washington, DC as Zenocrate in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Tamburlaine.
Along with her passion for acting, Mia has a great love of teaching and working with youth.  She believes that every individual is gifted in some way and sees teaching as a way of facilitating and witnessing this light. 

Liz Tenuto
Liz Tenuto began teaching children dance as an assistant in San Diego at the age of 14. Since then, she has taught in a variety of non profit organizations, after school programs, studios and clubs. Liz received a BA in Spanish Literature and Psychology from UCSB. While in college, she studied with the UCSB Dance Department and lived and danced in Granada, Spain for a year with 4x4, participating in various festivals and impromptu street performances. Since her arrival in San Francisco, Liz has had the pleasure of dancing with Laura Arrington and Scott Wells and Dancers. She has been with Performing Arts Workshop since fall of 2008.

Amy Torgeson
Amy received her B.A. in English from Santa Clara University and her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Saint Mary's College of California. Before becoming a teaching artist, she taught English Composition and creative writing to college students in the East Bay and Chicago and worked as a writing tutor to ESL and community college students. Interested in moving into arts education, she completed the Teaching Artist Training and Internship Program (TATIP) with The Community Word Project, a New York City based arts-in-education organization, which offers artists an opportunity to turn their creative skills into practical teaching tools. In addition to her training with TATIP, Amy worked with the Guggenheim Museum's Learning Through Art (LTA), a program that teaches critical thinking and literacy skills through conversations about art and art making. It was her experience with LTA that showed her how art can be a powerful way for students to think critically and make connections to other texts, themselves, and the world. Now back in the Bay Area, Amy was drawn to Performing Arts Workshop because of its belief that engaging with art can improve a student's literacy skills as well as their self-expression and confidence. She joined the staff in 2007.

Taylor Ullery
Taylor is a dancer and teacher originally from the San Diego area. She moved up to the Bay area a year ago after earning her B.A. in Dance from UC Irvine in 2007. There she performed works by Molly Lynch and Douglas Becker, and performed with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Through a grant from UCI, Taylor was able to travel to Africa where she choreographed and taught a dance to a group of young girls in a remote village there. Her project received the Chancellor’s Award and her dream is to continue teaching dance and help establish an arts program there. She currently teaches ballet at Westlake School for the Performing Arts and teaches creative movement through the ODC and The Nueva School partnership. This is her second year with Performing Arts Workshop.

Hector Zavala
Hector has a Major in Children's Theater and has worked with children of all ages since 1999. He recently worked with the State Universtiy of Baja California in Mexico, the New Conservatory Theatre Center and the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco.