About the 2007 Sugar Salon Participants:

Hailed by Ms. Magazine’s end of the century issue as “a choreographer making great leaps forward into the 21st century” Donna Uchizono is the Artistic Director of Donna Uchizono Company, a New York-based company established in 1990. Since her choreographic debut in 1988, Uchizono rapidly emerged from the “downtown scene” as a choreographer known for her spicy movement, wit and rich invention.

In addition to being a Guggenheim Fellow and a “Bessie” award winner, Uchizono has been recognized by many awards, most recently with a 2005 Alpert Award in Dance. Uchizono’s work has been supported by the Rockefeller MAP Fund, the National Dance Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, the New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, Altria Group, Inc., the Jerome Foundation, the Dance Magazine Seed Grant, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Arts International, Metropolitan Life Foundation/ADF Commission, the National Performance Network, the Suitcase Fund, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Greenwall Foundation, Meet the Composer, and the Bossak Heilbron Charitable Foundation.

Uchizono’s work is characterized by its numerous collaborative projects including quietly goes a giant jane, made in collaboration with Visual Artist David Hammons, Composers "Butch" Morris and James Lo, and Lighting Designer Stan Pressner. Uchizono recently created a new work for Mikhail Baryshnikov, commissioned by the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation. Her project Low, a collaboration with Composer Guy Yarden, received a “Bessie” (New York Dance and Performance Award) for both Uchizono and Yarden. Uchizono’s interest in original and live music for performance is evidenced by her collaborations with composers and her former role as co-director and -curator of “Bread to the Bone”, a live music/dance series at The Knitting Factory in New York. Uchizono was the choreographer for Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home for the Trinity Repertory Company and the Long Wharf Theater. She was commissioned by COBAI, a coalition of independent choreographers and dancers in Argentina, to create a piece for COBAI and Donna Uchizono Company in collaboration with the musicians of the Tobas Indians, the indigenous people of Argentina.

Since 1980 she has regularly taught workshops and classes in the U.S., Europe, and South America. She has participated in festivals and teaching institutions in Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Portugal, Belgium, Slovenia, Argentina and Romania. In the U.S., Uchizono has been a guest choreographer at various universities and colleges, including Temple University, Barnard College, Bryn Mawr, Sarah Lawrence College, Weslyan University, California Institute of the Arts, UCLA, and the University of Minnesota, and currently teaches at Long Island University. Uchizono is a member of the Artist Advisory Board at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, where she was a founding member and Chair from 1990-1995, setting up a forum for artists to discuss issues.

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luciana achugar is a Brooklyn based Uruguayan choreographer. After moving to New York upon graduation from Cal Arts in 1995, Achugar danced with several choreographers, including Chameckilerner and John Jasperse Company.  From 1999 to 2003, she worked in a close collaborative relationship with choreographer Levi Gonzalez. Their work was presented in New York by Dixon Place, Movement Research at Judson Church, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Dance-in-Progress at The Kitchen, and at Dance Theater.  Achugar has also worked collaboratively with visual artists Marcos Rosales and Michael Mahalchick. 

Since 2002 Achugar has created five independent works: SUPERella (2002), New Flesh Order (2003), A Super Natural Return to Love (2004), Exhausting Love at Danspace Project (2006), and Franny and Zooey (2007).  Her work has been presented in NY at Movement Research’s MELT Festival; the Ensemble Studio Theatre; The Latino American Dance: Not Festival Project; CANADA Gallery; Danspace Project and Dance Theatre Workshop; and in Uruguay at the Festival Iberoamericano de Danza and the Centro Cultural de España.

Achugar was a 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, a program funded by the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of the New York Community Trust. She was an Artist-in-Residency at Bennington College and the LEX-Dance Summer Residency in 2002 and 2006.  Her work has received support from the Meet the Composer Fund; the Puffin Foundation; The Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund; and with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She is the recipient of a 2007 Bessie Award for her work Exhausting Love at Danspace Project (2006).

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Renée Archibald grew up in Maryland and studied ballet and contemporary dance at North Carolina School of the Arts.  She has had the pleasure of dancing for many choreographers, including Rebecca Lazier, Christopher Williams, and Ann Liv Young.  Archibald's works have been presented in DTW’s Fresh Tracks Series, Danspace Project's Food For Thought and Draftworks Series', at Dancenow/NYC, Dixon Place, AUNTS, Galapagos, and Movement Research at the Judson Church.  She was a space grant recipient at BAX in 2004 for a collaborative project with longtime friend Daryl Owens.  In 2006, Archibald created a work on a group of college students at White Mountain Summer Dance Festival and spent two weeks in residence at Yaddo. 

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Heather McArdle is a native Californian whom began her movement career with 8 years of gymnastics. She then graduated from Cal State Uvinversity Long Beach with a BFA in dance. Upon discovering modern dance in college, Heather trained extensively in release techniques, yoga, contact improvisation, and capoeira. Her mentors include Susan McLain (Martha Graham), Keith Johnson (Doug Varone), Giovanni Luquini, Jacques Heim (Diavolo/Cirque du Soiel), & most notably Bela Lewitzky. She also found inspiration to move through other eclectic means such as Phish concerts, visual arts, and especially fashion. She is certified in hatha vinyasa yoga from Cyndi Lee's Om school. Her exposure to these elements combined with her relationships with her mentors have played a vital role in her ever-changing relationship with the quality and intentions for movement.

She joined the professional world of dance with the hyper physical daredevils of Diavolo Dance Theater (LA). There she not only performed but, choreographed the first draft of group piece "APEX" which is still part of their repertoire today. She helped create four original works with Keith Johnson; one of which was set on repertory company Ririe Woodbury. She has spent the last 5 years traveling and performing all around the world with Bill Young/Colleen Thomas and Dancers. Heather is currently performing and collaborating for David Dorfman. Heather teaches residencies around the country and will soon be traveling internationally. She is currently on faculty at New York's newest downtown modern dance studios, Dance New Amsterdam.

In addition to the performing and teaching Heather has recently formed a project based company BlueprintViolation. She has been presenting her own solo works and group choreography at loft showings and random spaces in NYC and Brooklyn. Many of the companies she works with including her own are also costumed and or styled by her. She considers herself a jack-of-all-trades and takes the, "work hard do it yourself" approach to life and art.

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2007 Sugar Salon Performance:

The performances at Abrons Arts Center featured Bessie award-winning choreographer luciana achugar in a restaging of her 2007 work Franny and Zooey. Created by achugar in collaboration with the performers and visual artist Michael Mahalchick, Franny and Zooey was born out of the challenge to be as transparent as possible about the creative process - making the work not as a representation of something but rather as the thing itself.  Franny and Zooey premiered at Dance Theater Workshop as a part of The Nothing Festival in April 2007, and was performed by Hilary Clark, Jennifer Kjos, Melanie Maar, Beatrice Wong, and Achugar.

Also on the program was Renée Archibald’s Curtain Wall (in progress). Developed during the 2007-08 residency in collaboration with performers Jennifer Lafferty and Jessica Ray, the work explores the potential of indecision through trusting the body over the brain.

Completing the program was Heather McArdle/BLUEPRINTVIOLATION in an excerpt from McArdle’s new Ballad of Arrivals & Departures, developed during the 2007-08 residency.  A multimedia ensemble work, Ballad of Arrivals & Departures examines from three varying perspectives the behaviors, rituals and/or routines involved in the process of committing. Part autobiographical, the work is based on true events that will engage shameful laughter, tears, and spark a re-evaluation of this process. Ballad of Arrivals & Departures is performed by Lindsay Ashmun, Whitney Tucker, Anne Hewlett, Steve Rekker, Doug Gillespie, Michelle Torino, Akiko Akkotomi, Sara Roerster, and Heather McArdle.

Photo Gallery Coming Soon...

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Sugar Salon 2007 Event Schedule:

June - August 2007 - Rehearsal residency at Barnard College
February 15 & 16, 2008 8pm - Sugar Salon performance at Abrons Art Center.
January - April 2008- Barnard Commission Rehearsal Period
April 2008- Spring Student Performances at Columbia University

Sugar Salon was developed in tandem with independent choreographers Tami Stronach and Kate Weare. The program is made possible in part through the support and partnership of The Barnard College Department of Dance of Columbia University under the leadership of the Department Chair, Mary Cochran.

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