Program 1
Friday, June 27 @ 4pm
Performances by:
• Parisa Khobdeh Dance, NY
• Zehnder Dance, MA
• Dimitri Peskov, UT
• Alyssa Mitchel, CA
• Olivares Dance Company, CA
• Angad Kalsi, NY
• Melody in Motion, NY
• Fearless Young Artists Studios, NY
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Traces
Parisa Khobdeh Dance is a contemporary dance project grounded in collaboration, musicality, and human connection. Led by choreographer Parisa Khobdeh, the work draws from over two decades of experience spanning performance, education, and interdisciplinary creation. The company’s projects often bring together dancers, composers, and designers to create immersive environments where movement and live music coexist in dynamic dialogue. Rooted in both formal rigor and emotional resonance, Parisa Khobdeh Dance explores themes of memory, resilience, and collective experience.
Traces was premiered in October 2016, performed by Parisa Khobdeh and Robert Kleinendorst. It celebrates its 10 year anniversary and was created in the Paul Taylor East studios. We have been presented in both academic and professional settings, engaging diverse communities through performance, education, and outreach.
Parisa Khobdeh Dance
© Jesse Scroggins
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Zehnder Dance
RESPAIR (excerpt)
ZEHNDER DANCE is a MA-and-NY-based dance company directed by Sarah Zehnder. Her choreographic research, rooted in feminism, aims to challenge, question, and empower, investigating the dynamics of power and relationship that evoke emotion and attention to women’s experiences and stories. Zehnder’s choreographic work has been produced internationally, including Jacob’s Pillow, Reverb International Dance Festival, Florence Summer Dance, Pasadena Dance Festival, the American Dance Guild Festival, and the Women in Dance Leadership Conference. Her work has been presented at Dixon Place, Ailey Citigroup Theater, MMAC, Gowanus Arts, Triskelion Arts, 92nd Y, Greenspace, and CPR.
RESPAIR tells stories of both despair/hope, and of collective/individual identity, as it redefines notions of beauty and empowerment. Through the use of touch and potent imagery the dancers break down and reimagine the social and power constructs placed upon women’s bodies, creating intentional images that are complex, truthful, and continuously shifting between power/strength and tenderness/vulnerability.
© Paris Preston
Classic
Collection
Now on Sale
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Dmitri Peskov
Now/Then
Dmitri Peskov serves as Associate Professor of Dance, Dance Program Director and Department Co-Chair of Theatre and Dance at Snow College in Ephraim, UT. Highlights of his recent creative research include presentations of live and video dance works at Dance Now Festival in NYC, at Repertory Dance Theatre’s Link Series in Salt Lake City, at Montrose International Screendance Festival in Chicago, at Festival Videodanza de Puerto Rico, and at Cuadro por Danza Festival in Venezuela. Dmitri is also an award-winning Russian language poet/short story writer and a co-founder and a co-editor of the independent Russian literary journal Clover.
His choreography is influenced by his ongoing studies in theatre, literature, martial arts, taichi, qigong, capoeira, as well as by his practice of Taoism and Zen Buddhism. While he is usually drawn to the theatrical and the surreal, this time he is looking forward to presenting a new dance that is more formal in nature. In Now/Then he examines the relationship between spontaneity and premeditation, between aging and hunger, and between repetition and newness. He is grateful to WHITE WAIVE and Young Soon Kim for this incredible opportunity.
© Sarah Madison
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Alyssa Mitchel
Training Status (Excerpt from Endure
Alyssa Eve Mitchel is an award-winning San Francisco based choreographer. In October 2025 she premiered Endure at Dance Mission Theater. This multimedia dance production featured six dancers, six marathon runners, a graphic designer, a lighting designer and two cinematographers. She partnered with the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) and Carolina Ballet for the Southeastern USA premiere of Regard (2023) at the NCMA in November 2024. Mitchel's work Regard (2023), in partnership with The Contemporary Jewish Museum won the 2024 Inspired Dance Film Festival's "Best Live Performance Capture" award in Sydney, Australia. In partnership with San Francisco’s Exploratorium, she premiered her first site specific outdoor work, Here. Now. (2021). She’s been an artist in residence at Smuin Ballet, Zaccho Dance Theatre, Berkeley Ballet Theatre, T2 Dance and more. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Education and a minor in mathematics from the Dominican University of California.
© Brent LaFever
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Olivares Dance Company
Pecadores
The Olivares Dance Company is a contemporary dance company led by upcoming artist and choreographer Kevin Olivares. Olivares is known for fusing together different genres of dance including ballet, hip hop, and Latin Ballroom with contemporary and modern techniques to fulfill his artistic vision. Kevin’s ultimate artistic vision is to see his dancers as an extension of
his imagination and set work that values beauty, artistry, and entertainment while drawing from his personal experiences. His piece titled “Pecadores” was heavily inspired by the Garden of Eden. This piece explores guilt, shame, and sin while our protagonists discover lust, thrill, and temptation.
© Luke Ullman
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Angad Kalsi
5 | organization
Lauren Ashley Mortimer, from Butler, Pennsylvania, is a versatile dancer skilled in ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, modern, pointe, heels, hip hop, lyrical, musical theater, and Bharatanatyam. She was featured as the lead dancer in Ashley Marina’s "Clouds Across the Sun" music video (AGT15). Her performance credits include the White Wave SoloDuo Festival, Harlem Globetrotters half-time show, and collaborations with Bodiography Dance Company, Traces by Irishia Romaine, and Rove by Ryan McMullen. Lauren is pursuing her BFA in Dance at Slippery Rock University while training in Pittsburgh, New York City, and Las Vegas.
Whispers of Existence is a reflection on the fleeting nature of life, inviting the audience to pause and cherish each moment, understanding that everything—both the beautiful and the painful—will inevitably pass. Our time is ephemeral, and as the dance weaves through sorrow, joy, and introspection, it reveals the delicate interplay between memory and reality. We ask: Did we ever truly have it? Was it ever really there?
© Ben Viatori
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Melody in Motion
Harmonic Fusion
Kayla Laufer is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, and technologist whose work explores the intersection of movement, sound, and code. Blending physicality with digital systems, she creates performance environments that examine tension and connection between human and machine. She holds a BFA in Dance from the Peabody Conservatory and an M.S. in Computer Science from Fordham University.
In 2024, she was selected for the Jacob’s Pillow ChoreoTech Lab, where she integrated AI into her choreographic practice. As co-founder of Melody in Motion, she has presented work integrating live music and dance at venues including the Martha Graham Studio Theater and 14th Street Y, as well as festivals such as Young Choreographers Festival and Koresh Artist Showcase. Her piece Harmonic Fusion explores the relationship between humanity and artificial intelligence, revealing a shifting balance where precision meets vulnerability within a shared, dynamic system.
© Emily Seabourne
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Fearless Young Artists Studios
The Art of Becoming
LaQuet Sharnell Pringle is a Harlem-based choreographer, director, and educator whose work centers embodied storytelling, musicality, and the architecture of human experience. A Broadway veteran with over two decades of professional performance experience, they create movement-driven works that bridge classical structure with contemporary sensibility.
LaQuet is the founder of Fearless Young Artists Studios (FYA Studios), a creative
production company dedicated to developing sustainable artistic careers through performance, education, and media. Their choreographic practice is rooted in The Onset Technique, a methodology emphasizing ease, flow, and connectivity as pathways to expressive clarity and longevity.
Recent works include The Art of Becoming, a multidisciplinary performance
presented at Paul Taylor Dance Studios, and Agreement (Still) presented at Interim Spring Dance Concert. Through the work of FYA Studios who cultivate spaces where artists engage with rigor, play, and authorship in equal measure.
© Jean Philippe
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Contact
Email: wwyskdc@gmail.com
Tel: 718-855-8822
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Lauren Mortimer
Lauren Ashley Mortimer, from Butler, Pennsylvania, is a versatile dancer skilled in ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, modern, pointe, heels, hip hop, lyrical, musical theater, and Bharatanatyam. She was featured as the lead dancer in Ashley Marina’s "Clouds Across the Sun" music video (AGT15). Her performance credits include the White Wave SoloDuo Festival, Harlem Globetrotters half-time show, and collaborations with Bodiography Dance Company, Traces by Irishia Romaine, and Rove by Ryan McMullen. Lauren is pursuing her BFA in Dance at Slippery Rock University while training in Pittsburgh, New York City, and Las Vegas.
Whispers of Existence is a reflection on the fleeting nature of life, inviting the audience to pause and cherish each moment, understanding that everything—both the beautiful and the painful—will inevitably pass. Our time is ephemeral, and as the dance weaves through sorrow, joy, and introspection, it reveals the delicate interplay between memory and reality. We ask: Did we ever truly have it? Was it ever really there?