ANTONIO RAMOS & THE GANGBANGERS – DANCE NEW YORK
THE GANG
THE GANG
ANTONIO RAMOS
Artistic Director / Dancer
Antonio Ramos was born and raised in Puerto Rico where he trained in jazz, salsa and African dance. He later received a B.F.A. in Dance from Purchase College/SUNY. Antonio began his career performing with Ballet Theatre of Puerto Rico, Ballet Hispanico of New York, Ballet Concierto and Ballet Municipal (Puerto Rico). More recently, Antonio has performed with choreographers Mark Dendy, Neil Greenberg, Kari Hooas, Luis Lara Malvacias, Jeremy Nelson, Stephen Petronio, Merian Soto, Kevin Wynn, Ori Flomin and Donna Uchizono, among others. Antonio has taught at the University of Puerto Rico, Ballet de San Juan; Ballet Teatro de Puerto Rico; Ballet Municipal of Puerto Rico; Ballet Concierto; Danza Jazz of Puerto Rico; Dance Space Center; BAAD!/Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance; Latin Dance Festival in New York City; Princeton, Cornell, Wesleyan and Marymount Universities; Barnard College; SUNY/Purchase; The New School; NYU; The International School of Bangkok; Den Norsken Ballett Hoyskole in Oslo, Norway; and The Paluca Shule in Dresden, Germany.
Alvaro Gonzalez Dupuy
Dancer
Alvaro Gonzalez Dupuy is a Dance artist based in Santiago de Chile and New York City. He holds a graduate degree in Dance with a concentration in Performance and Pedagogy (based in Laban/Leeder Technique) from the Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano.
He is currently performing for Antonio Ramos, Not for Retail Collective Elizabeth Motley, and experiments independently in New York City as a dance artist through his own Dance Company “EstadoFlotante”
AWILDA RODRIGUEZ-LORA
Dancer
Awilda Rodríguez-Lora is a performance choreographer and cultural entrepreneur. Born in Mexico, raised in Puerto Rico, and working in-between North and South America and the Caribbean, Rodríguez Lora's performances traverse multiple geographic histories and realities. In this way, her work promotes progressive dialogues regarding hemispheric colonial legacies, and the unstable categories of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Rodríguez Lora is currently a host/coordinator at La Rosario in Santurce(Puerto Rico) where she is creating, researching, and producing her life project, La Mujer Maravilla, while developing new strategies for the sustainability of live arts in Puerto Rico. After more than ten years of work as a fully independent artist, she is committed to further studying how artistic economies can be harnessed to support alternative forms of life rooted in communality, creativity, and social justice.
SARAH WHITE-AYÓN
Dancer
Sarah White-Ayón is an artist working across the disciplines of dance and performance, poetry, video, sculpture, sound and collage. Her work has been presented through various organizations and in venues throughout the US including Roulette, Strange Loop Gallery; SVA's Visual Arts Gallery; SVA’s Gallery 136; AUNTS; The Philadelphia Fringe Festival; Fritz Haeg's Sundown Salon; Monkey Town; Movement Research Festival; Movement Research Studies Project; Dance on Camera, Kinetic Cinema; iLAND's iLAB residency; Highways Performance Space and Gallery; and Triskelion. She holds a B.F.A in dance (UMKC, 1999) an M.F.A in Photo, Video and Related Media (SVA, 2011), and is an AmSAT certified teacher of the Alexander Technique (Balance Arts Center, 2007). In addition to her own work, she has performed and/or collaborated in the work of such artists as Walter Dundervill, Isabel Lewis, robbinschilds, Felicia Ballos, Nancy Garcia, Flora Weigman, Rebecca Brooks, Jennifer Monson, Levi Gonzalez, Alex Escalante, Simone Coutu, architect, Angel Ayón, 3D photographer, Gerald Marks among others. She is currently working with Luciana Achugar as well as AR&TGB.
Saul Ulerio
Dancer
Ulerio is a dancemaker, musician and linguist from the Dominican Republic. In 2006 he moved to New York City to pursue a dance-making and performance career. In 2007 he started to study with Susan Klein, the creator of Klein Technique™, and now Ulerio is a member of the 3rd Teacher Certification Program and teaches Klein Technique™ classes through the Susan Klein School of Movement and Dance. In 2007 he initiated a 25-year exploratory process in which many of his personal researches are motors, especially through the influences of the works of filmmaker and writer Ingmar Bergman and writer Hermann Hess. Ulerio is interested in communication and voicing his most inner living thing. He uses this 25-year time frame to clarify what his creative process is and to develop his craftsmanship. In New York City his work was been presented at Dixon Place’s series: Moving Men, the Hot Festival and UnderExposed, also through DraftWork at Danspace Project, Movement Research at Judson Church, Teatro IATI, BAAD, and SLAM. He was a 2009-2010 STREB Emerging Artist grant recipient, as well as a 2010-2011 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative nominee.
Rebecca Wender
Dancer
Rebecca Wender has danced for many wonderful artists, including Alexandra Beller, Martha Clarke, Juliette Mapp, Jennifer Monson, Parker Pracjek, RoseAnne Spradlin, and others and was a featured dancer in John Turturro's film Romance and Cigarettes. In addition to working with Antonio, Rebecca currently happily works with luciana achugar and Sarah White-Ayon and is a massage therapist.
KIMBERLY MARCOTTE
Admin
Kimberly Marcotte graduated Magna Cum Laude from Point Park University in 2012, receiving her BA in dance with a dual concentration in ballet and jazz. Prior to joining Pentacle in 2018, Kimberly worked with Superbiz, a leading barter exchange company in the Tristate area, as a broker and administrative assistant. She has also maintained an active career as a professional dancer in contemporary dance and cirque companies. Kimberly is passionate about helping artists with their administrative demands, allowing them to focus more on their craft. She has recently been trained in Pentacle’s Fiscal Services Department on Quickbooks and not-for-profit accounting systems, and is excited to administer Pentacle’s Unique & Unique Plus fiscal sponsorship programs.
MARIELYS BURGOS MELÉNDEZ
Dancer
...artistic researcher working primarily through instant devising, ritual performance, and creative writing. She holds a B.A., double major in Psychology & Sociology from Universidad de Puerto Rico (2008) and worked as a 'Domestic Violence' Case Manager & Legal Intercessor. In 2014, obtained an M.A. in Dance Studies focusing on interdisciplinary research methodologies, dance history, and improvisation (SUNY, The College at Brockport).
Since 2014, she has been inquiring about the conditions/ circumstances/ conceptions of mobility and migration by exploring diverse experiences, its narratives and poetics; “movement", "ongoingness” and “dislocation” stand for her as ways/ strategies of knowing. Her artistic endeavors have been shared in diverse spaces/ formats in the Dominican Republic, Greece, Mexico, New York, California, Scotland, Puerto Rico, and Cyprus. She is living in NYC, where she has had the pleasure to dance with artists like Pramila Vasudevan, iele paloumpis, Jill Sigman, and Antonio Ramos & The Gang Bangers. Marielys' most recent project includes a self-published Artist's Book created in collaboration with Yarisa Colón (Taller Asiray).
ANGIE PITTMAN
Dancer
Angie Pittman is a dance artist, educator, and choreographer. She has had the pleasure of dancing in works by Ralph Lemon, Jennifer Lacey and Wally Cordona, Tere O’Connor, Jennifer Monson, C. Kemal Nance, Johanna S. Meyer, Rachel Thorne Germond and others. Angie most recently performed her solo work, Ballads, at The BlakTinX Performance Series at BAAD!, Movement Research at Judson Church, Triskelion Arts, and STooPS. She holds an MFA in Dance and Choreography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a graduate minor in African American Studies and a BA in Dance from Old Dominion University. She was a 2015 DanceWEB scholar for Impulstanz Dance Festival in Vienna, Austria and is a 2016 Artist-in-Residence with Movement Research. Angie’s work resides in a space that investigates how her body moves through ballad, groove, sparkle, spirit, spirituals, ancestry, vulnerability, and power.
Luke Miller
Dancer
Luke Miller, originally from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, studied dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He received a Bessie award in ’09 for his performance in Dark Horse/Black Forest and is currently a collaborative member of a canary torsi (Yanira Castro & Co.), The Gangbangers (Antonio Ramos Dance), and Susan Marshall & Co. He has also performed in the work of Martha Clarke, David Dorfman, Molissa Fenley, Keely Garfield, Neil Greenberg, Fiona Marcotty, Julie Atlas Muz, Neta Pulvermacher, Stephen Petronio, Christopher Williams, and Bill Young /Colleen Thomas. Luke has curated and choreographed several performance events at Location One art gallery in SOHO and collaborates often with Quinndustry Collective infusing dance within the world of David Quinn’s fashion. He is in his fourth year of teaching Movement for Actors at Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYU's Tisch School of the Art and teaches Master Classes in Performance and Improvisation throughout the country.
IVAN TALIJANČIĆ
Writer
IVAN TALIJANCIC is a director and cultural producer working at the intersection of theater, film, dance, performance, music, installation art and new media, in New York City and around the globe. Born in the former Yugoslavia and raised in Italy before immigrating to the United States, Ivan completed his university studies with a BA in Theatre (cum laude) at the University of California, San Diego and an MFA in Directing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts in New York City on a Kathryn Bache Miller Scholarship, and has assisted Robert Wilson and Julie Taymor as part of his graduate internship program. Immediately upon completion of his studies, Ivan co-founded WaxFactory, for which he has created and produced over 20 performance, installation and film/video works to date, presented on four continents. Alongside his work with the company, Ivan has maintained a dynamic career path as an educator, producer, journalist as well as a freelance director in non-profit and commercial realm.
Darrin Wright
Dancer
Darrin Wright, a Brooklyn based artist, is a native of Los Angeles, California where he started tap dancing at the age of six. His early trainings began with Ian Gary, Janet Roston and Rudy Perez. In 1997, Darrin joined The Bella Lewitzky Dance Company as part of its farewell tour. He received his BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Since graduation, Darrin has had the pleasure of working with The METopera, Susan Marshall, Terry Creach, Jane Comfort, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas, Yanira Castro, Jack Ferver, Tami Stronach, Antonio Ramos, Doug Varone, Amber Sloan and other wonderful artist. In 2009, he received a Bessie Award for his work with A Canary Torsi' Dark Horse/Black Forest.
Karlos Moore
Creative Strategy and Integration
Full-service multimedia and marketing with a big strength in creative strategy and integration. Fluent in English, Spanish, French and German. Lifetime of multicultural experience with multi-market product launch and management.
CLAIRE FLEURY
Costume Designer
Claire Fleury - Costume and Fashion Designer since 2014. With a profound history in dance and theatre, CF creates her designs with a stage in mind. She uses vibrant textiles and easy going but structural silhouettes to create appealing styles for all genders. Cf designs and makes costumes for dance, theatre and nightlife, and garments for all occasions as long as it is something truly special. She has made dance costumes for Antonio Ramos, Coco Karol, Yackez (Jon and Larissa Velez-Jackson), Tatyana Tenenbaum, Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith, and custom garments for Laurie Anderson and Susanne Bartsch, among others. Her designs have been exhibited at Gibney Dance Center (November 2017) and, in collaboration with photographer Alesia Exum, at Boston University Gallery 808 (February/March 2018). Claire Fleury was among four costume designers honored at the Bessie awards for performance and dance 2018.