Company Mission Statement

GERALDCASELDANCE creates and presents dances that ask questions about human beings – who they are, what they do and how their actions affect the world in which they live. Each dance provokes reflection and implants its imagery into the viewer’s psyche by combining movement and spatial composition with metaphor. The dancers move through emotionally charged landscapes with precise agility using their muscles, bones and intuition to reveal their subconscious selves. Dropping hints of narrative while inviting space for contemplation, the dances deliver multiple levels of interpretation and meaning.

The company’s creative process strives for inventing new movements and structures that seek explanations to what humans fear, love and hate. GERALDCASELDANCE supports collaboration between dance, music, costume design and technology – mixing performance with recorded and live video projections to enhance the experience of seeing and feeling dance. Dedicated to continuing and disseminating the tradition of dance as an art form, the company teaches technique classes to dancers as a daily practice as well as master classes and workshops to communities from all socio-economic and political strata. Because of this the company strives to advance dance as a conduit for communication, expression and personal growth.

Artistic Vision

“I live and work with the reality and memory of two worlds – that of my family who came from the Philippines and the place where I currently live, New York City. I carry the rich cultural legacy and spiritual heritage of my ancestors. My family showed me how to respect my elders. In fact, Tagalog, my native tongue even has a tense when speaking to someone older as a sign of respect. Filipinos are taught that affluence is much more than acquiring material possessions. We are taught that there is more to life than what we see and that the future is determined by how we live in the present with the past connecting us to who we are. I am amazed by the mysteries of the East and continue to feel my connection to it in every aspect of my life. In making dances, I am guided by my profound embodiment of these lessons as well as the illusion, promise, modernity and impropriety of the West.”
   – Gerald Casel

Company Biographies

Philippine-born Gerald Casel received a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School and an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with assisted by a fellowship from the Advanced Opportunity Program. He has danced in the companies of Michael Clark, Stanley Love, Zvi Gotheiner, Lar Lubovitch, The Metropolitan Opera, Sungsoo Ahn and Stephen Petronio where he was a member from 1991-1998 and 2001-2005 and served as the Stephen Petronio Company’s Assistant Director and Director of Education. He continues to assist, re-stage and coach Petronio repertory on major companies including Ballet National de Marseille, Sydney Dance Company and The Scottish Ballet. In 1997 he was honored to receive a New York Dance and Performance Award “Bessie” for sustained achievement. As a teacher, Casel has taught at Movement Research, Dance New Amsterdam, Impuls Tanz Vienna, the School for Modern Dance in Denmark, Sarah Lawrence College and as a faculty member at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. This year, as in 1999, he is a Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. Gerald began making choreography for his company, GERALDCASELDANCE, in 1998. He has also been commissioned by NYU Second Avenue Dance Company (Kinship Descent, 2007) and this fall by The Barnard Project, Barnard College at Dance Theater Workshop.

GERALDCASELDANCE has been presented by Movement Research at Judson Church, Dance Theater Workshop’s Fresh Tracks (Two Feats Left, 1999, Triangle, 2000) and SplitStream (Foible, 2002), Joyce SoHo 1999 and 2001, dancenOw NYC, The Yard, Dixon Place, Aaron Davis Hall, La MaMa Moves and Symphony Space Dance Sampler. The Company has also been seen in Ed Montgomery’s independent feature film The Singing Biologist. GERALDCASELDANCE launched its first national tour this summer performing at Danceworks in Milwaukee, WI, Conduit in Portland, OR, and ODC Theater in San Francisco, CA as part of Casel’s final thesis project at UWM. A special project is being planned in collaboration with X Factor Dance Company of Edinburgh, Scotland in 2009 following the company’s 2008 New York Season at Joyce SoHo, May 15-18.

Dancers

Lindsay Mackay Ashmun is a dancer, performer and educator. She grew up in Virginia where she occupied her time on pointe shoes, explored abandoned barns and searched for old treasures on the seemingly endless acres of farmland she grew up on. She has since spent her adult years discovering the most valuable treasures of all under the tutelage of Barbara Dilley, Richard Freeman, Irene Dowde and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Lindsay studied Somatic Movement Therapy at Moving on Center in Oakland, CA and received a BFA in Dance and Contemplative Arts from Naropoa Univeristy in Boulder, CO. In Colorado, Lindsay performed in the companies of Kim Olson and Cara Reeser as well as creating her own site-specific work. Lindsay moved to New York City in 2004 and has danced for Wil Swanson and performed under the direction of Francios Girard. She delightedly dances in the companies of David Dorfman Dance, BlueprintViloation and since 2006, GERALDCASELDANCE.

Benjamin Asriel grew up in Glasgow, Kentucky where he cultivated his love of movement in his mother's dance classes, on the soccer field, and in the marching band. After receiving his BA Music in 2003 from Brown University, he matriculated to NYU Tisch, compleing his MFA Dance in 2006. Benjamin is thrilled and thankful to be part of Gerald's merry flock. As a dancer, he has also had the honor of working with Douglas Dunn and Dancers, Milka Djordjevich/Team Djordjevich, Pavel Zustiak/Palissimo, Gabriel Forestieri/ProjectLIMB, and Kyle Abraham/a.i.m. Ben also teaches dance technique and presents his own work in New York City.

Timothy Harvey is a graduate of Deakin University, Melbourne. Since 2001 he has worked as a performer, dance maker and educator in Australia and abroad. His own works include Long Distance Relationship with Natalie Cursio, a short solo, Ramona (2005); and Pause and Diversion, a new structurenarrativedance exercise with Deanne Butterworth. For six years he has continued to build an ongoing practice and series of performances with choreographer and director Shelley Lasica. These performance outcomes have included History Situation (2001), Situation Live 2/Set Up, for the Centre National de la Danse, Paris and Siobhan Davies Dance, London (2006) and the Play In A Room series; the most recent of which premiered at the Joyce SoHo, New York (2007). Timothy has also performed extensively with Philip Adams’ BalletLab, Sandra Parker Dance, Jo Lloyd and Chunky Move in Australia and abroad. In 2005/2006 he toured Adams’ work Amplification to Romania, Bulgaria and New York City and recently performed in Adams’ new work Origami, due to premiere in the U.S. in September ’07.

Na-Ye Kim was born in Seoul, Korea. She trained at The Royal Ballet School, UK and then received her BA (Hons) in Dance Education at University of Durham, UK. In 2006 she graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with an MFA in Dance. Alongside GCDC Na-Ye works with Kyle Abraham/a.i.m, Bridget L. Moore and Bill Young. She worked with Aszure Barton last summer on the tour of Hell's Kitchen Dance with Mikhail Baryshnikov and has returned to do another season.

Kai Kleinbard was born and raised in Brooklyn. In 2006, He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a concentration in pre-medical sciences and poetry. He would like to thank all his wonderful teachers. Currently, he tutors math/science in NYC and occasionally teaches dance at the Packer Collegiate Institute.

Toni Melaas is currently working on projects with Alexandra Beller/Dances, David Dorfman Dance, Faye Driscoll and the very sweet GERALDCASELDANCE. Among others, she has had the pleasure of performing with Shen Wei Dance Arts (including the State Theater), with the Aquila Theater Company with Olympia Dukakis, and in the films 'Across the Universe' (Julie Taymor) and 'The Hottest State' (Ethan Hawk). Toni shares her company Hatch NYC (www.hatchnewyork.com) with partner Lily Baldwin, bringing customized yoga and pilates to individual clients and corporations in NYC and throughout the U.S. Love to the beauties with whom I share this stage.

Omagbitse Omagbemi received her BFA in dance from Montclair State University. She has performed nationally and internationally with companies such as Sean Currran, Kevin Wynn Collection, Shapiro and Smith, Urban Bush Woman, Jeremy Nelson, Risa Jaralow, Barbara Mahler, Keely Garfield, and Christopher Williams. Omagbitse would love to thank Gerald for his beauty and grace.

Paul Singh recently earned his BFA in Dane from the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign. Directly after, he moved to NYC with intentions of dancing and choreographing until his feet fall off. With dancing being a fairly new sport to him, Paul is taking every opportunity to move as fast, small, twitchy, slow, large, crafty, carefully, convulsively, repulsively, romantically, blindly, efficiently, emotionally, stupidly as his body and mind will allow. Fortunately, he has been given the opportunity to do this for choreographers Cheng-Chieh Yu, Erica Essner, Patricia N. Nanon, Noemie Lafrance, Renee Wadleigh, Stephan Koplowitz, Douglas Dunn and now Gerald Casel. In 2004, his solo piece "Stutter," a work devoted to representing the qualitative feeling of the stuttering syndrome, was chosen to be presented at the Kennedy Center. In continuing to choose his own adventure in the years to come, Paul will continue to make work until he can visually fond a means of relating to everyone who sees it.

Isadora Wolfe is from Lowell, Massachusetts and graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts with the JS Seidman Award. She has performed with various choreographers in the States and abroad, including Mark Dendy, Fiona Marcotty, Neta Pulvermacher, Tami Stronach, Colleen Thomas, and Johannes Wieland. Isadora has also acted in several productions, and played the title role in the Berkshire Theatre Festival's "Peter Pan". She is so grateful to be working with Gerald Casel, who continues to inspire and teach her so much.