Sheila & Hughes Potiker Theatre I March 14-15
Choreographed by: Juan Carlos Blanco, Daunté Fyall & holly johnston
Directed by: Bernard Brown
About the Show
WinterWorks 2025 is a timely and powerful collection of dance works celebrating difference, looking at what binds us together, and is a call to action, guided by radical love. A new work by holly johnston, “roots of loving us” is concerned with origin stories, both the biological and those born of love while centering our roots, heritage and how we choose our families. Juan Carlos Blanco’s Afro-Cuban dance entitled “Briyumba Congo” is a merger of the ancient and the modern, of the folkloric and the contemporary that illustrates a specific moment in the Caribbean nation’s colonial history. Based in Malinke traditions, Daunte Fyall’s work “The Fall of the Great Baobab” is focused on the story of Sundiata, the last king of Mali, and the loss of the majestic Baobab tree - an effect of the climate crisis that plagues our world.
Content Warning
Please be advised this production contains :
- strobe effects
- gunshot sound effects
- panicked screams following gunshot sound effect
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The Cast
Juan Carlos Blanco's Piece
Jackie Avery
Vrisika Chauhan
Abril Chimy
Italy Clark
Ricardo Espinoza
Katie Gillespie
Arianna Kricun
Qinpei Deborah Li
Yoonjin Lim
Omar Lopez
Kaiya Macleod
Natalia Morales
Alisa Myerchin
Lili Olah
Autumn Pedranti
Wanxin Peng
Trista Pradhan
Lauren Sandoval
Yael Sela
Thalia Venidis
Anni Wu
Vivian Wu
Charlotte Yu
Daunté Fyall's Piece
Yali Alsberg
Andrea Barriere
Natalia Balderas
Ebone' Brower
Kennedy Byrdsong
Celia Carton
Kelly Callejo
Valeria Corona
Alexia Demiroska
Brenda Estrada
Kaitlyn Fong
Saana Kayser
Omar Lopez
Hannah Lucas
Natalia Morales
Cassidy Morgan
Talita Myrtogiou-Olbrys
Vicky Pham
Nazia Quadir
Valeria Ruiz
Hope Sato
Mars Stern
Allen Valencia
Theresa Velasco
Shania Zhang
holly johnston's Piece
Yali Alsberg
Mark Betancourt
Catalina Bilandzijia
Ella Chan
Aanya Choksi
Nicole Constan
Jillian Curry
Kayla Hess
Makenna Holst
Ricky Lozano
Emmy Nourse
Danny Reyes
Malie Wong
Creative and Stage Management Team
Stage Manager: Karina Ortega
Assistant Stage Manager: Laura Yang
Assistant Stage Manager: Emjay Williams
Production Manager: Laura Manning
Production Assistant: Maya Canales
Production Assistant: Sadie Muzzo
Scenic Designer: Muting Fan
Scenic Designer: Roulin Zhao
Costume Designer: Natalie Barshow
Lighting Designer: Taylor Olson
Lighting Designer: Jake Olson
Sound Designer: Chloe Lias
About the Director
Bernard Brown is a performing artist, choreographer, filmmaker, educator and arts activist working at the crossroads of Blackness, Queerness and belonging. A first-generation college graduate, Brown earned an MFA in choreography from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. Most recently he taught dance at Loyola Marymount University and is currently a California Arts Council Established Artist Fellow.
As artistic director of Bernard Brown/bbmoves, a social justice dance theater company, he choreographs for stage, specific sites, film and opera. Brown also conducts workshops, lectures, presentations and master classes in the U.S. and internationally, from Israel and Panama to Africa and Brazil. He is a core member of Street Dance Activism and an ongoing collaborator with Dancing Through Prison Walls, an abolitionist project.
Brown’s work has been presented across the globe, including the Centre de Développement Choregraphique La Termitière, The Saint Louis Black Repertory Company, Dance Camera Istanbul, the Japanese American National Museum, among others. He was also recently invited to be part of a U.S. State Department sponsored two-city tour to Burkina Faso, West Africa in 2023.
For nearly three decades, Brown has toured with and performed in the choreography of leaders of the dance field, including Lula Washington Dance Theatre, David Rousseve/REALITY, Donald McKayle, Rennie Harris, Rudy Perez, Pat Taylor, Doug Elkins, Dwight Rhoden, Janessa Clark, Shapiro and Smith Dance, TU Dance and Lucinda Childs, to name a few.
More career highlights include restaging Donald McKayle’s canonical “Games” for the Kennedy Center’s “Masters of African American Choreography,” performing on the Daytime Emmy’s, Penumbra Theater’s “Black Nativity” and Donald Byrd’s “Harlem Nutcracker,” and being the titular principal dancer in Nike’s “12 Miles North: The Nick Gabaldon Story,” the first documented Afro-Mexican American surfer. Brown is also a proud member of the American Guild of Musical Artists.
Brown’s wide-ranging commissions have included the City of Los Angeles, Santa Monica Symphony, South Chicago Dance Theater, the Fowler Museum and a host of universities and community organizations. Brown has also developed work in residencies with The Music Center, Johns Hopkins University, Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, B Street Theater, Loyola Marymount University, Theatre Soleil (Burkina Faso) and Dance Italia.
Additionally, Brown is published in the peer-reviewed dance journal, Dancer-Citizen, and in The Activist History Review. He conceived of and curates Rooted Rhythmic Futures, a dance series and festival that brings Blackness, Indigeneity and Queerness squarely to the center of our consciousness. His activism has been featured in Dance Magazine, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.