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Colleen Bialas, Eduardo Cueto, Aimee Lopez, and Ellen O'Connell
Photo: ©2006 David Bazemore |
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Ballet Santa Barbara Dancers
Carlos Fittante, Artistic Associate and Guest Artist
Robin Gilbert Campos, Guest Artist
Juliana Bertelsen, Guest Artist
Christina Sanchez
Colleen Bialas
Eduardo Cueto
David Eck
Felicia Guzman
Rachel Mann
Ellen O'Connell
Denise Woods
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CARLOS FITTANTE
Artistic Associate and Guest Artist
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Carlos Fittante is a dance artist of remarkable diversity who specializes in Balinese and Baroque dance. He is a graduate of the School of American Ballet and has a BA in Dance from Empire State College (SUNY). He studied with ballet master Benjamin Harkarvy who created two ballets on him while dancing with the New American Ballet Ensemble. Other ballet credits include New York Theatre Ballet, Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and the Universal Ballet Company in Seoul, Korea. Since 1990, he has been the artistic director of BALAM Dance Theatre, a contemporary dance company inspired by Balinese theatre and founded by Islene Pinder. He has performed internationally and studied extensively in Bali and Indonesia. As a Baroque dance specialist he has been featured in a number of Baroque operas including soloist roles for New York City Opera’s production of Rinaldo, and the Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Thesée. He danced principal roles with the New York Baroque Dance Company during the period of 1989-2002 and also served as rehearsal director. His choreographic work in East/West fusion, contemporary, and baroque styles has been presented at a number of New York festivals and venues including DUMBO Dance Festival, COOL Festival, and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. He teaches Mask & Gesture at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and Balinese and Baroque dance at Peridance Center in New York.
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ROBIN GILBERT CAMPOS
Guest Artist
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Robin Gilbert Campos began her dance training in Cleveland, Ohio and later graduated from North Carolina School of the Arts. Her career includes the ballet companies Connecticut Ballet Theatre, Dallas Ballet, Dance Theatre of Westchester, and Anglo-American Ballet where she was featured in the roles of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, and the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. She has also danced in musical theatre, industrial shows, opera, commercials, videos, and has worked with Peter Pucci Plus Dancers, and choreographers Ann Reinking, Lila York, Arthur Faria. In 1991, she danced with Carrie Diamond’s New American Ballet Ensemble, and shortly after became a company member of BALAM where she pioneered the role, Raka Froggy in Animal Wedding in which she danced in a wooden Balinese mask en pointe! In her non-dance life Robin is married to her wonderful husband Manny, and is a drummer/vocalist in his Rock band, The Generators.
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JULIANA BERTELSEN
Guest Artist
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A native of Santa Barbara, Juliana Bertelsen began her studies at the Santa Barbara Ballet Center. She also studied at the School of American Ballet in New York, the Houston Ballet Academy in Texas, and the Hartford Ballet summer program in Connecticut, finishing her training on full scholarship at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington D.C. Professionally, Juliana has danced with the Hartford Ballet, Ballet Iowa, Ballet Memphis, the State Street Ballet, Festival Ballet of Rhode Island, and the Universal Ballet in South Korea. She has danced with the Kirov Ballet on a national and international tour and with the Universal Ballet to numerous countries in Europe, as well as Korea, and the USA and Canada, and most recently with the American National Ballet. An emerging choreographer, she recently created a new summer production entitled "Over the Top" incorporating the artists of the American National Ballet and Minnesota Ballet.
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CHRISTINA SANCHEZ
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Christina Sanchez has relocated to Santa Barbara this past year after sixteen years in New York City. She attended the San Francisco School of the Arts and later decided to continue her dance education in NYC, where she received training on scholarship at the Alvin Ailey School. She has had the privilege of being a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as well as Ailey II. It was there that she performed the works of such noted choreographers such as Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison, Ron Brown, Donald Byrd, Bill T. Jones, Lar Lubovitch, Barry Martin, Earl Mosley, Kevin Wynn, and Shapiro and Smith among others. She has also danced with Ballet Hispanico, Buglisi/Foreman Dance, and most recently with Complexions Contemporary Ballet under the direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson.
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COLLEEN BIALAS
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Colleen Bialas is originally from Muskegon, MI where she trained with Julie Powell and Jefferson Baum. She graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy and continued dancing in Virginia with the Richmond Ballet as a trainee for two years. Locally she has performed with SonneBlauma Danscz Theatre and the State Street Ballet in such productions as The Nutcracker, the China tour of Beauty and the Beast and Giselle. Outside of dance she enjoys theatre where she has performed with Muskegon Civic Theatre and The Cherry County Playhouse. She is also majoring in Biology at Santa Barbara City College.
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EDUARDO CUETO
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Eduardo Cueto began his dance training in 1986 with choreographer and teacher Rikki Lugo from Jazz Etc. There he trained in jazz, modern, tap, spanish, and classical ballet. He continued his studies with Lois Ellyn in Fullerton and then David Wilcox of the Long Beach Ballet, later called the Los Angeles Classical Ballet. From 1988 to 1994 he worked for the Los Angeles Classical Ballet and danced principal roles in Petruschka, Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker, David Allan’s On Occasion and Etc!, Marie D’Angelo’s The Unicorn, and Aymara by Helen Coop. He also danced with the Los Angeles Ensemble Ballet, Los Angeles City Ballet, California Ballet, Francisco Martinez Contemporary Ballet, and Ballet Pacifica in Irvine. In 1995, he danced for John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet, trainingwith Kevin Hagen and Irena Jacobson and dancing roles in John Neumeier’s Requiem, Vivaldi: Or What You Will, Odyssey, St. Mathew’s Passion, and Mats Ek’s modern version of Sleeping Beauty. In 1998, Eduardo guested with Alonzo King’s Lines Contemporary Ballet at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Then in 1999, he stopped dancing and for over six years turned his creative attention to writing, photography, and filmmaking. Ballet Santa Barbara's debut performances represented Eduardo's homecoming back to dance. In addition to BSB, he is also a member of Santa Barbara Dance Theatre.
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DAVID ECK
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David Eck, a native of Santa Barbara, began studying ballet at 10 years of age. He attended summer dance programs at San Francisco Ballet, Houston Ballet, Dance Aspen, and Ecole Superieure de Danse de Cannes with Rosella Hightower. Mr. Eck joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company in 2001 as a member of the corps and performed in Giselle, Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Norbert Vesak's The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, Mark Godden's Miroirs, the Canadian premiere of Mauricio Wainrot's Carmina Burana, and was featured in Sleeping Beauty as Puss in Boots. He performed the lead in Macbeth with North Carolina DanceTheatre. In 2005, David joined State Street Ballet and performed in Rodney Gustafson's Bolero, Cinderella, and Midsummer Night's Dream, Bill Soleau's Carmen, and was featured in a new work called Nous Sommes.
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FELICIA GUZMAN
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Felicia Guzman was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas where she trained at the Vladimir Marek Ballet Academy under Vladimir Marek and Nancy Smith. As a member of the San Antonio Ballet Junior Company, she danced roles in Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and Giselle. She also appeared in Ballet West’s local productions of The Nutcracker. After receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from MIT, Felicia relocated to Southern California where she continued her training at Anna Cheselka Dance Center and most recently at Media Dance Centre. As a Soloist with Media City Ballet, Felicia has danced the roles of Icicles and Chinese from The Nutcracker and Carmen in the Carmen Pas de Deux. Felicia has recently danced with Ballet Santa Barbara in Sueños Castellanos in Media City Ballet's Noche de Sabor.
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ELLEN O'CONNELL
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Ellen O’Connell, a senior at UCSB began her early training age six in the Royal Ballet School in London, England, where she began her Royal Academy of Dance training and grade exams. Two years later she began dancing at the Santa Barbara Ballet Center, under the guidance of Michele Hulse Pearson and Denise Rinaldi. She continued her RAD exams until Advanced 1, earning marks of distinction and highly commended on several of them. With Santa Barbara Festival Ballet she danced in ten Nutcrackers, with solos including Clara, Candy Cane, and Dew Drop. Her solos in other ballets include Paquita and Cupid in Don Quixote, as well as On the Banks of Helicon by Carrie Diamond. In Summer 2003 she attended Walnut Hill in Boston and participated in their summer intensive program. Ellen was accepted at UC Irvine’s reputable dance program with an emphasis in ballet in Fall 2004. Under UC Irvine’s program she was privileged to dance and perform with such greats as David Allen, Leslie Peck, and Donald McKayle. She transferred to UCSB for Winter 2006 where she is a double major in literature and French.
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DENISE WOODS
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Denise Woods, a native of southern California, received her B.A. in Communications and minor in Dance as an honorable mention undergraduate from Cal State University of Long Beach. Extensively studying ballet and various forms of dance for over 15 years, Denise’s training began at California Dance Theatre with Kim Masseli and Stanley Holden, then later returning as guest artist in their Pacific Festival Ballet Theatre and on to be featured in classical and contemporary work at the Cal State Long Beach Dance Department with Alaine Haubert and Sophie Monat-Gaydos, with the Long Beach Ballet Theatre under mentor and teacher David Wilcox, and as a State Street Ballet scholarship student performing Without Walls by Bill Soleau. Continuing on to NYC this past year, she danced in Peter and the Wolf in Avery Fischer Hall, as well as What is Hip? for choreographer Lonne Moretton in Ballet Builders.
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© 2006-2007 American Dance and Music, Inc.
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