Day of Dance I Mud Baths Choreographers
Tyrone Dancing Wolf Ellis, Jr.
Tyrone “Dancing Wolf” Ellis Jr is a Wolf Clan member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation of New Jersey. His culture is a very dominant part of the life that he lives on a daily basis. He has practiced many cultural arts, such as rattle making, drum making, singing & drumming, regalia making, beadwork, etc. These many arts have been taught to him by numerous respected elders and knowledge holders amongst the tribe, including well known people such as Chief Mark “Quiet Hawk” Gould, Co-Chief Lewis “Grey Squirrel” Sonny Pierce, late grandmother Lorraine “Rainbow Walker” Gregg, Urie Ridgeway, Will Mosley Sr., and so on.
Ty is tasked with responsibilities by his tribal community through numerous committees, and is a member of most of existing committees within the tribe’s government body. His greatest responsibility is being the tribe’s Annual Pow-Wow and Program Co-ordinator. This responsibility describes the need to demonstrate the bulk of these arts to the public, educating them and maintaining a healthy relationship between the tribe and surrounding communities while reducing stereotypes and ignorance of Native American Culture. His arts have been demonstrated and performed for a number of organizations and locations. This includes the Annual Pow-Wow at Salem County Fairgrounds, Cohansey Zoo in Bridgeton, the Wheaton Arts Center (including a Residency program at Bridgeton Middle School for children, and performances for veteran at the Folk Life Center), Camden County Fair, West Deptford Library, Gloucester County Historical Society, and so on.
He was a recipient of the New Jersey Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grant, working under the tribe’s Chief to learn the creation of both Pow-Wow Drums and Water Drums. He has since then taught and demonstrated this art to the younger generation of tribal youth and their summer camp, as well as children during the residency program hosted by Wheaton Arts. All of these arts are very important to Ty. They are traditional teaching in which have been passed down for generations, and should continue to be passed. Otherwise, he believes they would lose their already dwindling culture, and it will officially become extinct history. Educating is a crucial part of his existence
Cachet Ivy
Cachet Ivey is a Philadelphia native and principal dancer/ choreographer with Kulu Mele African Dance and Drum Ensemble. Cachet is also an adjunct professor of dance at The University of Pennsylvania, a Musicopia teaching artist and the artistic director of the newly formed Ibu Kemi Performing Arts Collective.
Yamini Kalluri
Yamini Kalluri is a world-class professional Kuchipudi dancer based in NYC, born in Cincinnati, OH, and raised in Hyderabad, India. She is a disciple of legendary guru Dr. Sobha Naidu. Yamini is a member of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s prestigious Touring Artist Program and a performer with the National Council for the Traditional Arts’ festival circuit. More at yaminikalluri.com
Maxine Steinman
Maxine Steinman a performer, teacher, and choreographer spanning over 25 years, has presented her choreography in numerous festivals and venues such as Joyce Soho, The 92ndStreet Y Harkness Dance Festival, the Westfest Dance Festival, the American Dance Guild Festival, DUMBO, the Battery Dance Festival, and Making Moves Festival, as well as others. She has traveled to Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Japan, Italy, and Cyprus to teach, choreograph, and perform her work. Jack Anderson and Jennifer Dunning of the New York Times have called her choreography “ingenious” and a “jewel” and in 2009 and 2011, she was awarded grants from the O'Donnell-Green Foundation for Music and Dance. Over the past 18 years, Maxine has created works for colleges and conservatories in the US and abroad at places like Montclair State University, Hofstra University, Marymount Manhattan College, the Ailey School, Institute del Teatre, Centro Andaluz de Danza, and University of Colima. Maxine was a soloist with the Eleo Pomare Dance Company for 12 years and has also performed with Denishawn Repertory Dancers, Mafata Dance Company, Robin Becker, Regina Larkin, Sue Bernhard, Spiritdance, Danceimprints, and in the LINKs project with the José Limón Dance Company, among others. Maxine holds a BFA in dance from Adelphi University, an MA in Dance and Dance Education from Teachers College Columbia University, and an MFA in Dance/Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts. Maxine is an Assistant Professor of Dance and Program Coordinator of the BFA Dance Division at Montclair State University. Learn more at www.maxinesteinman.com.
Hattie Mae Williams
Hattie Mae Williams is a Mother and interdisciplinary artist constantly re-remembering her wild and authentic self as a form of artistic liberation and magical manifestation, for the sake of her family’s survival. Hattie Mae was born and raised in Miami Dade and has had the pleasure of escaping the Miami swamp for fifteen years to New York City where she received her BFA from The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater /Fordham University, her Masters from Goddard University in interdisciplinary Arts, and created a site specific focused dance company The Tattooed Ballerinas 2003-2014. Her practice looks at Sites Specific Consciousness (a term she conceived & a distinction from site specific) as a component of her work’s totality. Hattie Mae has linked interrelationships between the Mind, Body, and Spirit as part of her philosophy when creating offerings. She is most interested in landscapes, disrupting the mundane, and creating community. Her work has traveled nationally and internationally to Holland, Italy, London, Los Angeles, New York, Kentucky and Miami.