DELLA DAVIDSON
DELLA DAVIDSON (Artistic Director) Della Davidson joined the UCD Theatre and Dance
faculty in fall 2001 as an associate professor. She is the MFA Program advisor and
the director of the professional performance ensemble residing in the UC Davis Department
of Theatre and Dance. She has been Artistic Director of the San Francisco-based
Della Davidson Dance Company since 1986, and is the creator of some 30 choreographic
and theatrical works. Her work includes Tongues (1988) and Angels and Clay (1988),
for which she received an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography,
The Ten P.M. Dream (1992), for which she received a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation
New Choreography Award, and FIERCE/PINK/HOUSE (1994), which the Company was invited
to perform as part of the Springloaded Dance Festival at the Place Theatre in London,
England. Her Night Stories was named best dance/theatre work of 1996 by The Salt
Lake City Tribune and was filmed for presentation on public television. Davidson
is the recipient of the 1990 North American Award for Choreography, a Meet the Composer
Grant, and consistent support from the National Endowment of the Arts. In 1989 she
participated in the Sundance Institute's Dance/Film Lab. The work begun at the lab,
Nadine and the Pleasure Company (1989), was subsequently filmed. Her most recent
work, The Eva Luna Project, was selected for development at the 1997 Sundance Institute
Theatre Lab. Davidson's work has been commissioned by dance companies in the US
and abroad, including the London-based Transitions Dance Company, Ririe/Woodbury
Dance Company, Repertory Dance Theater of Salt Lake City, Danceworks Northwest in
Seattle and Frank Shawl in San Francisco. Davidson is a graduate of the University
of Utah's Dance program and holds a Master's degree in Dance and Theatre from the
University of Arizona. She also studied at the Alvin Ailey School, Finis Jhung and
the Graham School, and with the American Dance Festival performing in repertory
with Twyla Tharp, Jose Limon and Rudy Perez.
JOHN FLAX
JOHN FLAX (Co-Director and Creator on A Dream Inside Another) John Flax has been
creating and performing original theater for over twenty years. He joined the French/American
Theatre de la Jeune Lune in 1979, performing in Moliere!, a dramatic history of
Moliere's company and A French Christmas, staged French folk tales. Along with the
Jeune Lune ensemble he co-created and performed in Ubu for President and 1929: The
American Dream. Both won Kudo Awards for Best Production in Minneapolis. In 1983,
Flax founded Theater Grottesco with Frenchman Didier Maucort. Their first production,
Crusoe, an economic unraveling of Defoe's novel, written by Maucort, won first prize
at the Festival du Carreau de Temple in Paris and a Drama Critic's Award in San
Diego in 1984. Theater Grottesco moved to the United States in 1985 and began work
on The American Trilogy Project. In 1994, Grottesco premiered The Angels' Cradle,
co-authored and directed by Flax. The Angels' Cradle, seen Off-Broadway in 1999,
is the story of a group of deformed outcasts living beneath our city streets, and
the homeless man who finds them.
RICHARD MARRIOTT
Richard Marriott, Composer Mr. Marriott is the principal composer of The Clubfoot
Orchestra, which he founded in 1983. Marriott’s compositions include new soundtracks
for several classic silent films, including The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari and Nosferatu,
and collaborative scores for Metropolis, Sherlock Jr., Pandora’s Box and Hands of
Orlac. These scores have been performed live by the Clubfoot Orchestra at various
theaters and venues throughout the country, including the Mill Valley Film Festival,
the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.,
and the Walter Read Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City, and are available
on both CD and laserdisc. Marriott is also the composer of the Clubfoot Orchestra’s
Wild Beasts, released by Ralph Records in 1986, and the principal composer of Kidnapped,
released in 1987. He received an additional music credit on the 1993 film Rising
Sun, directed by Phil Kaufman, and was the principal composer for the film Silver
Into Gold, which was an Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary in 1986.
SANDRA WOODALL
Sandra Woodall, Costume Design Working in collaboration with diverse figures in
the performing arts world, Sandra Woodall has been designing costumes for numerous
ballet, modern dance, theatre, music, and performance art groups since 1970. Among
them are the San Francisco Ballet, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Della Davidson
Dance Theater, ODC/San Francisco, Oakland Ballet, American Conservatory Theater,
Eureka Theater, California Shakespeare Company, Magic Theater, and the Kronos Quartet.
Nationally and internationally, Woodall has designed costumes for the Joffrey Ballet,
Ballet Metropolitan, Hartford Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem, Nashville Ballet,
Washington D.C. Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet and Hong Kong Ballet. She has designed
sets and costumes for the National Theater of Norway, Den Norske Opera’s 1996 production
of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She has worked with designer Robert Israel in realizing
the costumes for Philip Glass’s Akhenaten and for Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare
Festival’s presentation of Miracolo d’Amore by Martha Clark. Her designs have also
been featured as part of PBS programming.
Ms. Woodall received DANCE/Bay Area Isadora Duncan Awards in 1997 for Costume Design
for Michael Smuin Ballet’s Frankie and Johnny, in 1996 for San Francisco Ballet’s
Lambarena, in 1991 for Visual Design for Margaret Jenkins Dance Company’s Age of
Unrest, and in 1989 for Sustained Achievement in Design. She received Bay Area Theatre
Critics Circle Award for Costume Design in 1995 for the American Conservatory Theater
production of Light Up the Sky and in 1989 for the ACT production of St. Joan.
JANE SCHNORRENBERG
Jane Schnorrenberg, Performer Jane has performed with Della Davidson for the past
15 years and is a main collaborator in the making of work. She has performed with
HT Chen, Dance Art Company, Lily Cai, Nancy Karp and Randee Paufve and numerous
other choreographers.
ERIC KUPERS
Eric Kupers, Performer Eric has performed with numerous companies in the Bay area
including Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Nancy Karp and Dancers, amd Stephen Pelton.
He founded Dandelion Dancetheater in 1997 with co-director Kimi Gurthrie for an
outlet for his own choreographic visions.
KERRY MEHLING
Kerry Mehling, Performer Kerry graduated from The University of Utah with her BFA
in 1993 and spent the next three years performing with the Ririe Woodbury Dance
Company, working with such renown choreographers as Doug Varone, Ann Carlson and
Creach and Koester. Kerry has been working with Della Davidson since 1997. She is
also a member of Deborah Slater Dance Theater of San Francisco.
KEGAN MARLING
Kegan Marling, Performer Kegan is a graduate of the UC Davis undergraduate dance
program and the winner of the Jere Curry Award for Achievement in Dance. Kegan danced
with the Nexus Dance Collective and worked with Choreographers Bill T. Jones, Nigel
Charnock, Lea Anderson and Ray Tadio.