Anna Pinault.

Raised in Minnesota, Anna worked as a dance artist and educator in New York City for nearly a decade. In 2022, she landed back in the Twin Cities once again to pursue the next season of her creative work.  

Anna’s most recent performance work includes Ashwini Ramaswamy’s Invisible Cities, TU Dance Company’s The Three Women Project, and projects with Joe Chvala’s Flying Foot Forum, Rovaco Dance Company, and the Des Moines Metro Opera. Her powerful energy is unique in its ability to quickly morph from style to style, all while maintaining a supple articulation and water-like quality. 

Anna’s current choreographic creations explore the creation of imagery and architecture through transposing rhythm and other musical languages onto the body, with her most recent work Anthem for You and I premiering at the Southern Theater. The work was also chosen to be presented at the Walker Art Center’s 2023 Choreographer’s Evening, curated by Darrius Strong. 

Her work as an educator has included Dance Theatre of Harlem, The Neighborhood Playhouse, Daya Yoga Studio, the NYC Public School System, Zenon Dance School, Hothouse Minneapolis, and the TU Dance Center, among others. Anna also practices Thai Bodywork, and is studying for her MS in Human Movement Science. Her passion for bodily education spills into both her teaching and artistic work. 

Website: www.annapinault.com  Instagram: @anna_pinault 

WORK DESCRIPTION

This work will be an exploration of spontaneity and trusting our body’s desires to create material and build a world. We will work within both choreography and improvisational scores, letting instinct and curiosity be our guides.

REHEARSALS

Wednesday: 7:00 – 8:30 pm | in-person: Studio 4A at Zenon Dance School.  Starting January 17, 2024.

Roxane Wallace.

Roxane Wallace has been active in the arts as a performer, instructor, choreographer and teaching artist since graduating from UC Berkeley in 1993 where she attained a BA in Philosophy and a minor in Ethnic Studies.  She has performed in works by Meredith Monk (Quarry, Mercy), Vincent Mantsoe (Kutu), Marciano Silva Dos Santos (Motiro) and Shawn McConneloug (She Captains) as well as in numerous works by Leah Nelson, Morris Johnson and others.  She was seen nationally and internationally as a principal artist with Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater Company for 15 years and has been working with Paula Mann/Time Track Productions for over 10 years.  Mrs. Wallace was voted “Best Dancer” in the City Pages “Best of the Twin Cities”, awarded a Minnesota Sage Award for Outstanding Performer, and honored to be named as a 2008 McKnight Artist Fellow in Dance.  Currently, she creates original, socially conscious dance and dance/theater works, provides inspiration and dance instruction at Zenon Dance Studios and School and Lundstrum Performing Arts and serves and as a teaching artist for the VocalEssence WITNESS Program and the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts. 

REHEARSALS

Saturday 2:00-4:00 pm | in-person: Studio 4A at Zenon Dance School.  Starting January 27, 2024.

Mary Willmeng.

Mary is an independent choreographer, teacher, and dancer living in Minneapolis, MN. She danced professionally in Chicago, IL, with Mordine and Company Dance Theater, the 58 Group, Breakbone Dance Company, Adriana Durant Dance, and Ayako Kato before relocating to Colorado in 2009. While in Colorado, she performed with Cindy Brandle Dance Company, Mary Wohl Haan, and Rachel Oliver Young. Her work has been presented at the Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, the Colorado Conservatory of Dance, the Dance Center of Columbia College, Links Hall, the UIC Theater, Stage 773, and the Eagan Art House. She has set her work on Simantikos Dance Chicago, Trifecta Dance Collective, and the students at Zenon Dance School. Her duet, Walk With Me, was chosen as a commissioned piece by Simantikos Dance Chicago and was presented in their company show. In 2019, she was chosen as a choreographer to collaborate in the creation of a new work with flutist Hope Rogers for Trifecta Dance Collective’s Summer Engage Artist Lab. Her work, Open Field, was chosen as a commission by TDC and was set on their professional company. Most recently, she produced a show, Little Pieces, as part of the Minnesota Fringe Festival and presented a new work in the production of 16 Feet, a choreographer’s collective, at the TEK Box Theater. She is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the dancers of the Zone program!

WORK DESCRIPTION

Mary’s work will center around the idea of gratitude. Dancers can expect a collaborative experience where they will learn phrase work from Mary, as well as generating their movement material developed from writing exercises, improvisation, and manipulating material to create new phrases. That material will be used to create unison moments and smaller groupings and then woven together. The cast will explore the idea of gratitude, where we experience the feeling of gratitude in the body, and what happens when we are given or achieve what our hearts desire. 

REHEARSALS

Monday 7:00-8:30 pm | in-person: Studio 4B at Zenon Dance School.  Starting January 15, 2024.