TREVOR CARLSON, Executive Director, is a graduate of the Juilliard School in New York City where he received a BFA in Dance. He has performed with the Stanley Love Performance Group and was co-founder of the organization. Throughout his extensive career as an arts administrator, he has served as Fiscal Associate for Pentacle/DanceWorks, Managing Director of the Stephen Petronio Company, Tour Manager for P.S. 122 Field Trios, Company Manager at the Joyce Theater, and Company Manager, Director of Communications, and General Manager of MCDC. He assumed the position of Executive Director of the Cunningham Dance Foundation in 2005. During his tenure at MCDC, he has helped to increase the number of visual artist collaborations by developing the possibility for Merce to create Events in repertory theater houses that use different decors each evening. A total of 25 additional collaborations have been staged in this manner. He also helped stimulate the vision for MCDC's 2003 collaboration with the bands Radiohead and Sigor Rós and artists Robert Heishman and Catherine Yass. Most recently, in continuation of this collaborative philosophy, Trevor has helped to expand the role of MCDC as a community-wide residency partner. These partnerships provide historical context to Merce's work, as well as stimulate new local collaboration and creation across multiple artistic fields. The Company has experienced great success with this formula at several residencies including the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2007. Also during his tenure, Trevor helped initiate the ground-breaking Mondays with Merce program, to capture Merce's Monday company class and other aspects of the studio life of the Company. Each mini "webisode" gives dancers around the world the opportunity to take class with Merce himself. Trevor has given lectures at numerous institutions including the College of St. Benedict, Johnson County Community College, The Juilliard School, Stanford University, the University of Florida at Gainesville, University of Illinois, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, and in various locations throughout Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Norway. He has also served as a panelist for the Jerome Foundation. In 2001, Trevor performed in John Cage's theater piece, James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet.

trevor@merce.org
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TAMBRA DILLON, Director of Institutional Advancement, has been a member of CDF's Development Committee since 2003 and joined the Cunningham Dance Foundation as full-time staff in November 2008. She served as the Executive Director of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College for four years, and was responsible for producing a large-scale summer festival and developing the organization's fundraising and marketing capacity. From 1999-2003, Tambra lived in Dublin, Ireland, where she was Chief Executive of Temple Bar Properties in Dublin, a semi-state agency charged with the continued redevelopment of Temple Bar as Dublin's cultural district. In this role, she oversaw the completion of large-scale property development, the management of 18 cultural buildings, and year-round cultural programs and outdoor summer arts festivals to promote tourism and encourage local partnerships. Tambra began her career in the arts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where she worked for twelve years, first as the Director of Special Events and Sponsorship from 1987-1993, and subsequently as the Vice President for Marketing and Promotion from 1994-1999.

tambra@merce.org

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EMMY CARTER, Development and Marketing Coordinator, graduated from the University of South Carolina Upstate with a BA in Nonprofit Administration in 2006, and from Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy with an MS in Nonprofit Management in 2010.  Prior to joining the Cunningham Dance Foundation, Emmy has served in fundraising capacities for established and emerging arts organizations in New York, including Brooklyn Academy of Music; The Arctic Circle, an artist and scientist-led annual expeditionary residency program; and the Contemporary Artists Center, Woodside in Troy.  Before moving to New York, Emmy spent six months as a volunteer at the Centro-Cultural, Costarricese-Norteamericano in San Jose, Costa Rica, where she created and led gallery tours and cultural activities for English language students.  

emmy@merce.org

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To book the company contact:

julie-george@wanadoo.fr for Europe
david@dlartists.com for the Americas & Asia

KEVIN TAYLOR, Company Manager, graduated from Texas Christian University with a BFA in ballet and Modern dance. In addition to his work with MCDC, Kevin dances with the VonHoward Project, an up-and-coming modern troupe based out of NY/NJ.

kevin@merce.org
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JEFF DONALDSON-FORBES, Contracts and Touring Administrator, is an avid dance and music lover. He is a playwright, performer, and director and has produced theater in New York City; Provincetown, MA; and Bozeman, Montana. Jeff is a past President of both the Provincetown Theater Company and Back Street Arts (NY), and a former Event Director of the magazines Field & Stream and O.

jeff@merce.org
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CAROL TEITELBAUM, Faculty Chair, joined the faculty in 1985 and was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1986-1993. She has served as Faculty Chair since 1998. In addition to teaching technique classes at the Studio, she conducts the Summer Intensive Workshops - introducing new students to Cunningham technique from the ground up and teaching selections from the repertory. Ms. Teitelbaum has collaborated with Carolyn Brown on several revivals of Mr. Cunningham's early works and has staged dances at SUNY Purchase, Barnard College, Ballet de Lorraine, the Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. She has taught master classes and held guest teaching positions at many institutions, including La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts and the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program. Ms. Teitelbaum holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan. She danced in the Lucinda Childs Dance Company and the Manuel Alum Dance Company.

For a complete studio faculty list click here.

ROBERT SWINSTON, Director of Choreography, was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and attended Middlebury College and the Juilliard School, where he received a BFA in Dance. He danced with the Martha Graham Apprentice Company, the José Limón Dance Company, and with Kazuko Hirabayashi Dance Theatre. He joined MCDC in August 1980 and became Assistant to the Choreographer in July 1992. Since Merce Cunningham's death in 2009, Swinston has been the Director of Choreography, overseeing the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the Repertory Understudy Group, and the RUGs work with the Cunningham Educational Outreach Program. Since 1998 Swinston has assisted in various Cunningham archival reconstructions, including Suite for Five (1956-1958), Summerspace (1958), How to Pass, Kick, Fall, and Run (1965), RainForest (1968), CRWDSPCR (1993), Ocean (1994), and the recent revivals of Squaregame (1976), Duets (1980), and Roaratorio (1983) for the Legacy Tour. He has assisted in the staging of Cunningham works on other companies, including the Boston Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, Rambert Dance Company, and the New York City Ballet. In 2003, Swinston received a "Bessie" Award for his performance in the revival of Cunningham's How to Pass, Kick, Fall, and Run. In 2009, Swinston was named a Trustee for the Merce Cunningham Trust.

robert@merce.org

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CHRISTINE SHALLENBERG, Lighting Director, is a resident of Brooklyn and a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University with a degree in Theater Arts and Dance. Her primary focus is creating contemporary dance performance, as well as lighting design for the New York dance community. In New York City, Shallenberg has collaborated with choreographers Nicholas Leichter, Clare Byrne, Laura Pawel, Beth Soll, and Michael Helland. She has had the pleasure of working as Technical Director at Danspace Project, as well as touring Lighting Director for Hell's Kitchen Dance with Mikhail Baryshnikov.

christine@merce.org
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JESSE STILES, Sound Engineer and Music Coordinator, is a new media artist, musician, and designer of electronic systems. Through the adaptive misuse of emerging digital technologies, Stiles creates works that are simultaneously entertaining, disorienting, immersive, and transcendental. Stiles' performances and generative installation work engage with and deconstruct a number of populist formats, including electronic dance music, narrative cinema, and the "light show" - pushing these mediums into realms both sublime and subliminal. Stiles holds an MFA in Electronic Arts (RPI) and a BA in Cognitive Science (Vassar College). Before joining MCDC, he has worked as a sound designer and composer on a wide variety of IMAX films, feature films, museum installations, touring exhibitions, and experimental video works.

jesse@merce.org