CHiRP — High Tech choreography

2023-2024 Fall Mini-Residency with Gianna Diaz

Gianna Maxine Diaz is a Latinx artist and graduate of the HCST Dance/Choreography Program. Her professional career began as a teenager featured in Jennifer Lopez’s music film, Amor Amor Amor, under the direction of Nappy Tabs. In 2018, Diaz worked as a model/performer in Berlin, Germany’s fashion week, and has been a featured model in various dance catalogs. She later became a signed performer in Commercial Dance with Clear Talent Group (CTG) based in NYC. In 2020, Diaz received a BFA in Dance from Montclair State University. While studying, Diaz had the privilege to perform featured roles bicoastally (NYC & LA) in works by legendary choreographers such as Martha Graham, Brian Friedman, Bill T. Jones, Fredrick Earl Mosely, Ohad Naharin, and Abby Zbikowski. Diaz is a 2019/2020 recipient of the Outstanding Performer Award from Montclair State University where she was cast in fifteen choreographic works. Interviewed by Dance Magazine, Diaz was given prominence to discuss her early career in college in the 2020 fall article “How Commercial Dancers Transition to Concert Dance.” From 2020-2022, she served as the Artistic Director of Eastside Dance Project, North Plainfield’s leading diverse performing arts studio. She has also set works at Montclair State University and various other schools and studios across the Tri-State area. Diaz teaches numerous Technique Refinement Masterclasses and specializes in teaching ballet, modern, contemporary, commercial dance, and street jazz at Summer Intensives throughout the East Coast. Diaz works as a company member with the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company. In collaboration with the company, guest artist Juel D. Lane premiered Now, showcasing Diaz as a contemporary performing artist. She is enrolled at the University of Arizona to receive her Master of Fine Arts in Dance and Choreography.

CHiRP Residency Program, 2017-2023

The Choreographers in Residence Program (CHIRP) awarded professional choreographers use of the 407 Theater for rehearsals and performance, in exchange for serving as a resident teaching artist throughout the semester. Students had the opportunity to study with the teaching artist via technique classes, viewing open rehearsals, working behind the scenes of the professional production, mentorship, and learning repertoire. This unique program created a mutually beneficial partnership for local choreographers as well as our students. The program was designed to make professional dance available and accessible to HCST students and staff, and to connect the school and students to the Jersey City community.

"Residencies are a common practice in college dance programs. Using that as a model, and as preparation for our students who will continue their dance training, I envisioned the CHIRP program. Knowing there is a large population of professional dancers right here in Jersey City made the program even more attainable and gratifying. My students and I are very grateful to Superintendents Frank Gargiulo and Amy Lin-Rodriguez, Principal Barbara Mendolla, and everyone who was instrumental in supporting this vision." -Heather Warfel Sandler

Fall 2017 CHIRP choreographer Katelyn Halpern commented, "The Choreographers In Residence Program (CHIRP) has been a fantastic experience in all directions. From deepening my community relationships to teaching in County Prep's dance program to enjoying creative support for my dance company, it has been simply wonderful. CHIRP made it possible for my company to create a brand new, full scale dance work, and mount it in one of the best theaters in Jersey City, plus enabling me to bring that creative energy to the bright, hardworking dance students at the high school. I know I'm gushing, but it's a win-win-win-everybody-wins program, and I'm so grateful for the experience."

ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE

WE ARE THRILLED TO CONGRATULATE OUR 2021-2022 GUEST ARTIST, MICHELE BYRD-MCPHEE on her 2023 BESSIE AWARD!

Michele Byrd McPhee, Ladies of HipHop- 2021-2022 Resident

Michele Byrd-McPhee earned her BS from Temple University & an MS in Nonprofit Arts Management from Drexel University. Michele also worked many years in TV and arts production, working as a production coordinator at Brooklyn Academy of Music and then as a Senior Music Coordinator at Late Night with Seth Meyers. Michele currently is teaching Marketing for the Arts and Arts Advocacy at Texas Tech University. She also serves as a Bessie Award Committee Member. A tireless advocate for girls and women, Michele Byrd-McPhee is the founder and Executive Director of Ladies of Hip-Hop, a non-profit organization empowering girls and women through Hip-Hop culture and arts. Michele has been working for decades to re-contextualize spaces and conversations about Hip-Hop culture along gender, cultural, socio-historical, and racial lines.

Ladies of Hip-Hop Dance Collective ( LDC) is an all female intergenerational dance collective that creates dance works illuminating the strength, power and diversity of women in Hip-Hop. Ever present in the work are the freestyle, cipher, and call and response aspects of the origins of street and club dance culture, while exploring the space of proscenium performance.

Paul Pinto - 2021 Spring Resident

Paul Pinto is glad to be making sounds and imagery for people. He's a composer, writer and multi-disciplinary performer who founded the music collectives thingNY, Varispeed and LoveLoveLove, with whom he creates immersive, durational and dramatic chamber and electronic music. His last few releases include Just Love, Patriots with Jeffrey Young, Empty Words with Varispeed, and Robert Ashley's Improvement. As a vocalist, Paul works on a diverse array of new projects, including performing Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, originating the role of Balaga in Dave Malloy's Broadway musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, and in his own work, including the opera Thomas Paine in Violence with Joan La Barbara, and the Resonant Bodies Festival commission of 15 Photos. During COVID times, Paul has written music for Antigone (Colgate University), Mad Forest (Fisher Center at Bard), and Tartuffe (Moliere in the Park), and co-created the online shows SubtracTTTTTTTTT, A Series of Landscapes, and Motivators with thingNY. Coming in 2021: commissions for The Prototype Festival, Quince, The Rhythm Method, and Shepherdess, guest artistic curator for the Look+Listen Festival, and (to account for our uncertain existence) as many music videos as he can without burning out.

SpaceJunk Dance - 2020 Spring Resident

spacejunk dance is a Jersey City, NJ based performance project founded in 2016 by Ashley Yehoda and Lillian Joergensen. The spacejunk aesthetic is rooted in the use of exhaustion, athleticism, and improvisation to create works that are raw in physicality and present the performing body as the unvarnished human machine. Since the company’s founding in 2016, spacejunk dance has had the privilege of performing across the country (NY, NJ, MA, PA, WI, and CA)- most notably at Peridance Capezio Center APEX Showcase, Center for Performance Research, New Dance Alliance Performance Mix Festival at University Settlement, the New Masculinities Festival at the LGBT Center NYC, The Craft at Threes Brewing, Boston Contemporary Dance Festival, SMUSH Gallery, Iron Factory SHARE, Kun-Yang Lin/ Dancers InHale/ExHale Series, the Bethlehem Steel Stacks, Painted Bride Arts Center, and the Milwaukee Fringe Festival.

Robert Mark Burke - 2019 Fall Resident

Deemed the “hottest young talent on the New Jersey dance scene today”, Robert Mark Burke finds himself a dancer, choreographer and teaching artist. Performing both nationally and internationally, Robert is a company member of Lucinda Childs Dance Company, 10 Hairy Legs, and Megan Williams Dance Projects. He also performs regularly with Meagan Woods and Company, has worked with Bryn Cohn and Artists and has apprenticed with Doug Elkins. Having a passion for dance education, Robert Mark Burke has been a guest artist at Rutgers University and Rider University. He has been a guest lecturer at Montclair State University and has been commissioned to create work for high schools throughout the tri-state area. As a choreographer, Burke has shown his work throughout the United States including the wild project, Dixon Place, Paramount Theater (Boston), Hofstra University, Rutgers University, Rider University, Dance New Amsterdam, Jersey City Theater Center and New Jersey Performing Arts Center. He has received numerous awards, including the 2015 Dance on the Lawn Emerging Choreographer Grant under the direction of Charmaine Warren, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Jersey (New) Moves Fellowship in both 2015 and 2017, The 2016 CoLab Arts Space Grant, and The 2017 Eryc Taylor Emerging Choreography Grant. In 2015, Robert launched Robert Mark Dance as a way to create invigorating new works that push, reflect upon and unveil the human experience through the use of performance and education.

Stephen Galberth - 2019 Spring Resident

Stephen Galberth is a dancer and choreographer based in Jersey City, NJ. He presented his work Ten Cents on the Dollar at the Memorial Theatre in Montclair, NJ and was the second runner up in the American College Dance Association to perform his piece "M-a-rgin" at the Kennedy Center. In 2015, Stephen danced with Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, performing at venues such as Kaatsbaan International Dance Center and The Alvin Ailey School. He has recently performed works by Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Antonio Brown, Maxine Steinman and has participated in a site specific work by the Windmill Factory at the Panorama Music Festival. Stephen trained at The Ailey School and Dance Theatre of Harlem and attended the International Association of Blacks in Dance Conferences in Denver and Philadelphia. He graduated with a BFA in Dance from Montclair State University in 2016 and completed his early dance training at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C. To view more of Stephen’s work, visit his website at https://vimeo.com/sgalberth

Kyle Marshall - 2018 Fall Resident, 2023 Spring Resident

Kyle Marshall Choreography (KMC) was organized 2014 by director Kyle Marshall to support his dance making. KMC has been presented throughout the NY/NJ area including: Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out (MA), DanceNow Joe’s Pub (NYC), Jersey (New) Moves at NJPAC, NYC Summerstage, Montclair Dance Festival (NJ), Movement Research at Judson Church (NYC), Jersey City Theater Center, Conduit Dance (PDX), Wassaic Arts Project (NY), Triskelion Arts (BK) and Dance at Socrates Park (Queens). KMC has also participated in residencies at DanceNow at Silo, Jamaica Performing Arts Center, CoLab Arts and received the 2016 Montclair Dance Festival Emerging Choreographer Commission. KMC engages in annual education outreaches at Bayonne High School and Trenton Central High School. Kyle Marshall is the recipient of the prestigious 2018 Juried Bessie Award. To view more of Kyle's work, visit his website at https://www.kmchoreography.com

Khadija Ahmaddiya - 2018 Spring Resident

Khadija Ahmaddiya is a native of Philadelphia PA. Upon graduating from the University of the Arts, she joined DanceSpora Contemporary Ballet and NonaLee Dance Theatre, performing in several cities throughout the United States. In 2012 she toured cities in Panama with The New Freedom Theatre as a guest artist of the International Karate Tournament. Khadija has premiered choreographic work in Philadelphia, New York & New Jersey. In 2015 Khadija Co-Produced & Co-Directed ‘Smoke Lines’ a full evening of dance, film, and live music performance. Under her direction DRIGGproductions received the 2015 New Music USA Project Grant. To view more of Khadija's work, visit her website at https://www.driggproductions.com

Katelyn Halpern - 2017 Fall Resident

Katelyn Halpern is a dancemaker, teacher, and interdisciplinary collaborator from Austin, Texas. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Houston with a B.A. in English Literature and a minor in Dance before moving to the east coast in 2010. In addition to directing the freshly minted company Katelyn Halpern & Dancers, she performs with the bi-coastal piano + dance duo K A T E S, co-creates the zine Under Glass, and makes interactive labyrinths and dance installations for Do a Dance! Recent presenters include New York’s chashama, Dixon Place, Triskelion Arts, CATCH, the Flea, WestFest, Figment NYC, Firehouse Space, and WAXworks, as well as Jersey City’s Art House Productions, Omaha’s Under the Radar Festival, and San Francisco’s Switchboard Presents. She lives in Jersey City. To view more of Katelyn's work, visit her website at http://www.katelynhalpern.com

CHiRP Archives

Robert Mark Dance at County Prep!

ROBERT MARK DANCE at COUNTY PREP! Join us Friday 12/6 at 7:30pm and Saturday 12/7 at 2:30pm for the Fall 2019 Residency performance by Robert Mark Burke and his exquisite dancers. Tickets are just $5, available at the door!

STEPHEN GALBERTH presents theLAB

an EXPERIMENTAL space where CHOREOGRAPHERS of COLOR and DANCERS can openly create. It is an environment for artists and audiences to collaborate in conversation. Our mission is to be a vehicle for choreographers of color to share our stories in our own voices.

This series theLAB will present Experiment A: Color Stories, where we will be showing works by Beatrice Capote (dancer with Camille A. Brown & Dancers), Antonio Brown (former dancer with Bill T. Jones & director of Antonio Brown Dance), Shay Not-So Bland (former dancer with Ailey II) along with Scott Willits (Dancer with Earl Mosley’s Diversity of Dance), Ama Gora(director of Ma’atworks Dance Collective), and Stephen Galberth(our Artistic Director). Tickets are $17 online, $18 in person, and $10 for K-12 students to expose the youth to the arts.

This performance is made possible in part by the Choreographers in Residence Program (CHIRP) at County Prep High School.

Kyle Marshall Choreography

Join us for an evening of professional dance with CHIRP artist Kyle Marshall! Kyle Marshall is a Jersey City based dancer and choreographer, performer with the historic Trisha Brown Dance Company, 2017 NJ State Council of the Arts Fellow, and 2018 New York Juried Bessie Award Winner.

Open to the public, appropriate for all ages!

November 30 at 7:30pm & December 1 @ 2pm

$5 students/seniors, $10 general admission

Drigg Productions
County Prep High School | 525 Montgomery St. (enter on Bright St.) | Jersey City I

From February to May 2018, Khadija Ahmaddiya and her company Drigg Productions will be in residence at County Prep HS.
DRIGG Productions is developed with support from the 2018 Choreographers in Residence Program at County Prep High School.

Click Here To View The DRIGG Productions Website!

Loose Heart: Katelyn Halpern & Dancers

Beaten through with arrhythmia and percussive gesture, Loose Heart traces an inner landscape of longing. By turns solitary and unified, the trio of dancers delve into physical meditations and small, rough acts of violence before arriving at a more balanced peace.

Loose Heart features sound design by composer Elliot Cole, and is performed by Brooklyn-based artists Arianna Dunmire and Julia Galanski (Then She Fell), and Jersey City's Myssi Robinson (Kyle Marshall Choreography, Meagan Woods & Company). Loose Heart is the company's second major work.

Loose Heart is developed with support from the 2017 Choreographers in Residence Program at County Prep High School.
Click to download a press kit with a PDF press release, postcard image, and photographs