Faculty
Allison D. Orr
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Darla Johnson
Darla Johnson is an independent choreographer and a teacher living in Austin, Texas.
She was the co-artistic director of Johnson/Long Dance Company for 15 years.
J/LDC performed nationally and internationally in such cities as Los Angeles, Honolulu,
Little Rock, Albuquerque and Hamburg, Germany. She has written for many of Johnson/Long Dance
Company’s productions and is a published poet. The company received numerous awards and
grants and has been commissioned by the Austin Symphony, the
University of Texas and
Winona State University.
She founded the dance department at Austin Community College and has twice received the Teachers
Excellence Award. She teaches Improvisation, Choreography, and a Performance Workshop class
where she choreographs on students. In the fall of ’07 she set Falling Into Push on
Spelman Dance Theater, which was performed in Austin at the Black Arts Movement Festival.
In April she was commissioned to set a collaborative dance theater work with both
Spelman College
students and Austin Community College students that was performed in Atlanta. In the summer of ’08 her
duet Map Making will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.
Darla is an avid gardener happiest when she is outside puttering about.
Jose Bustamante
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Kathy Dunn Hamrick
Kathy Dunn Hamrick received her B.A. in Modern Dance from the
University of Texas and her M.F.A. in Performance and Choreography from
Florida State University. She then taught
at FSU,
Stephen F. Austin State University and
UT, free-lanced as a guest teacher and choreographer,
and produced her own annual dance concerts in Austin for five years
before forming KDH Dance Company
in 1998. Since that time, she has accumulated
numerous awards and recognitions including Outstanding Dance Concert by the Austin
Critics Table, several nominations for Best Dancer, Best Choreographer and Best Dance
Concert, and invitations to perform and teach at dance festivals, conferences and other
events. Her choreography has received critical acclaim from the Dallas Morning News, the
Toronto Globe and Mail and the New York Times among others. Kathy teaches
ballet, modern, anatomy and choreography at Austin Community College. She also teaches
beginning through professional levels of modern dance
at Café Dance, a
professional modern dance studio. Kathy has taught creative movement to scores of underserved
elementary grade students and worked with foster teens through New Art Kinnections, the company’s
arts outreach program. She reaches hundreds of students each year by teaching master classes
and artist residencies in modern dance, improvisation and choreography at Austin Dance Camp
and for high school and university dance departments and companies. Kathy and her husband,
Dave, have two children. Jacob is a studio art major at the University of Texas.
Hannah will be a senior at Austin High next year.
Jessica Lindberg
Jessica Lindberg earned her BFA in Dance Performance with a minor in English
Literature from Southern Methodist University in
Dallas, Texas in 1998. She then went to New York City to pursue her dance
career at the Martha Graham School,
the Oona Haaranen Dance Company and teaching at CHILDANCE. A growing curiosity
about Labanotation led her to Ohio State’s
graduate program where she completed her MFA in Directing from Score and became certified to teach Labanotation.
In 2003 she presented a reconstruction of dance pioneer Loïe Fuller’s Fire Dance;
the result of three years of historical research. This reconstruction, including
lighting design by Megan Slayter, been seen in Columbus, OH, Chicago, IL, Austin, TX
and Kalamazoo, MI. Fire Dance, along with a lecture by Ms. Lindberg, was one of
the highlights of the Art Institute of Chicago’s
2005 exhibition of works by Toulouse Lautrec. In 2004 Ms. Lindberg was commissioned to reconstruct, set and perform
a second Loïe Fuller work, Night Dance, for MOMENTA Dance Company.
The third and final dance, Lily of the Nile, from Fuller’s original
1896 concert was reconstructed and presented in August of 2007. Ms.
Lindberg currently resides near Austin, TX where she teaches choreography
and dance technique at Austin Community College and continues to pursue
projects related to Labanotation and dance scholarship.
Roxanne Gage
Roxanne Gage is a graduate
of The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor
of Arts in Dance. She performed nationally and internationally with the Sharir Dance Company and was also
the Jazz Dance instructor for the Company School. She performed in works by Yacov Sharir, Jose Luis Bustamante,
Heywood “Woody” McGriff, Sondra Lomax, Doug Varone, Ohad Naharin, Senta Driver, Llory Wilson and Carolyn Pavlik. She performed
and choreographed with the Andrea Beckham Collaborative Dance Company. She is a Jazz, Ballet and Modern Dance Instructor, a
choreographer and a Nationals Judge for Marching Auxiliaries Dance Company where she
has celebrated over 20 years. Oh… did you want her to name more names? While a Kilgore
College Rangerette Lt. she shared performances with Bob Hope, Ann Jillian, Rock Hudson, Donny Osmond and even did High Kicks
as an Honor Guard for Prince Charles of Wales. She worked with Sandra Bullock as an assistant choreographer for the pageant section
in the movie “Miss Congeniality.” In addition to teaching dance at Austin Community
College, Roxy currently dances with KDH Dance Company, a professional contemporary
dance company in Austin. Roxy is passionate about living life to its fullest with the support of her amazing friends and loving
family. She is married to Cameron Gage who is a wonderful supportive husband and together they have 2 fabulous children
Jack and Isabella.