About Us

Alyce Finwall - Artistic Director

E-mail: afdancetheater@gmail.com

 

Alyce Finwall's work has been performed through out the U.S. and in Europe, and has received numerous grants and awards.  She started Alyce Finwall Dance Theater in 1999, developing a uniquely creative and theatrical style, noted for having a "fierce fluidity in performance and a brooding surrealism in the choreography" by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and an "impressive and accomplished choreographic symphony" by the SF Examiner.  Alyce's work is a visceral exploration into often surreal landscapes and time that expand upon her interest in perception and identity. She has produced over thirty-five original works in the company's twelve-year history and has had the great pleasure of collaborating with many diverse artists on works for both stage and film.  Alyce's wide ranging dance career began with the Minneapolis based avant-garde company, Ballet of the Dolls, where she performed in over 20 original ballets in her six years with the company and was it's first ever guest choreographer.  She has also worked with Rincones & Company in Washington, DC and has studied with the Cullberg Ballet in Sweden (under invitation from artistic director Lena Wennergren-Juras), the Cunniingham Dance Foundation and with many wonderful teachers of ballet and contemporary techniques in NYC, Minneapolis, DC and San Francisco.  She has also worked extensively in film, music videos and fashion, and was a co-founder of the popular burlesque group "Les Femmes Cabaret".  AFDT originated in Minneapolis, then after six years being part of the New York City dance community, Alyce Finwall Dance Theater is now located in San Francisco where she recently completed her MFA from Mills College.  AFDT has been presented at such venues as P.S. 122, The Joyce SoHo, Dance Theater Workshop, Dixon Place, 92nd Street Y on 42nd Street, Cunningham Theater, White Wave Theater, The Cowell Theater, The Southern Theater and The Garage Theater.  Alyce has also taught and choreographed for college and pre-professional programs such as the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, Radford University in VA and Cedar Crest College in PA.

Jason Hoopes - Composer

Jason is a bassist/multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and composer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was born and raised in the mountains of northern California and began his musical life as a self-taught rock musician. After completing undergraduate studies at Southern Oregon University, Jason attended Mills College where he received both a Master of Arts degree in Music Composition and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Performance and Literature. While at Mills, Jason studied with Fred Frith, Joëlle Léandre, Roscoe Mitchell, India Cooke, Zeena Parkins, John Bischoff, and Shelley Senter among many other distinguished artists. In 2008, Jason's large ensemble work "the ebb" earned the Elizabeth Mills Crothers award for Outstanding Composition. He has performed with many artists including Fred Frith, India Cooke, Gino Robair, Lesli Dalaba, Gail Brand, Johanna Borchert, and Shayna Dunkelman.  Recently, Jason has turned his attention to composing for modern dance, working with Molissa Fenley, Alyce Finwall, Sophia Leiby, Jan Jennings, Rhiannon Kirby and Lavinia Vago among others. Jason is currently the bassist in bay area bands The Atomic Bomb Audition, Jack O' The Clock, powerdove, Host Family, The Brine, and continues to perform in a wide range of ensembles. He is also a teacher, writer, painter, and loves standing in the wind.

Carson Whitley - Composer

Encephalous, absurdist, plunderphonic musician, media mangler, Oakland resident, and spatial audio enthusiast. Carson Whitley has been organizing 'fluctuations of air pressure over time' ever since collective observation collapsed the wave-functions leading to his creation. A composer/perfomer/programmer, he holds a BA in Music Synthesis from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA and is currently in the process of completing an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College. His music was once described as "never static, always evolving, while simultaneously riding the edge of madness and terror".

Andrea Williams

Andrea Williams is a video and sound artist currently living in Oakland, CA. She enjoys using site-specific elements and perceptual cues 
to reveal the unseen connections between people and their environment.  Her work has been exhibited and performed both solo and with various artists at galleries and alternative spaces, most recently at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, Diapason Gallery, NPR, Fountain Miami Art Fair, and the Mamori artist residency in the Amazon rainforest.  Andrea is a founding member of the New York Society for Acoustic Ecology and is working on completing her MFA in Electronic Music and Media at Mills College www.listeninglistening.com

Vivian Aragon - Dancer

Vivian was born in Guatemala and raised in Pacifica, CA. She holds a BFA in Dance and a BA in Art History from Purchase College, State University of New York. She also trained at Rotterdam Dance Academy in the Netherlands and Susan Hayward School of Dancing in Montara, CA. She has performed with Peninsula Ballet Theatre, Black Diamond Ballet Theatre, MenLowe Ballet, Napa Valley Ballet, Samantha Giron Dance Project, Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, Katie Faulkner/ Little Seismic Dance Company, and as a guest artist with Robert Moses Kin and ODC/Dance.

Madelyn Biven - Dancer

Madelyn began training with the School of Honolulu Dance Theater in Hawai’i under the direction of Celia Chun and Matthew Wright.  Traveling to the city of New York, she graduated with a BFA from The Ailey School and Fordham University.  While living in New York Madelyn performed in the DUMBO Dance Festival, The NY Fringe Festival, and the American Dance Guild Performance Festival.  She was also a member of ‘Avei’a, an upcoming Polynesian dance company.  Madelyn is currently a dancer with Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, Project Thrust, and Funkanometry SF’s female company, De La Femme.

Julia Hollas - Dancer

Julia currently dances with Alyce Finwall Dance Theater and Dandelion Dancetheater and is an alumna of the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance.  Julia grew up in New Mexico, where she trained with Moving People Dance Theatre, the Santa Fe Dance Foundation (School of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet), and Dance Arts Los Alamos.  While earning her degree in Mass Communications at the University of Utah, Julia also studied with the Ballet Department and Department of Modern Dance.  Since moving to San Francisco in 2006, she has performed with the SF Conservatory of Dance Performance Company, punkkiCo, and Amy Lewis's Push Up Something Hidden, and currently splits her time between teaching, performance, and administrative work with the Conservatory and Dandelion Dancetheater

Emily Jones – Dancer

Emily Jones is originally from Portland, Oregon where she studied dance at the Northwest Conservatory of Dance with Anita Mitchell. In January Emily moved to San Francisco to continue cultivating her dancing at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance under the direction of Summer Lee Rhatigan. She is also currently dancing with Project THRUST.

Peiling Kao - Dancer

Peiling Kao was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and has been a freelance dancer for 13 years. After graduating from Taipei National University of the Arts in 1996 with a BFA in Dance, Peiling also worked as a full-time teacher at Cloud Gate Dance School in Taiwan. She has studied technique training in ballet, contemporary, various forms of modern dance, Chinese Martial Art, improvisation, and contact improvisation. In 2007, Peiling was awarded the Taiwan-England artists’ residency, hosted by the Independent Dance based at Siobhan Davis Studios in London; in 2010, Peiling finished her MFA in Choreography and Performance at Mills College, receiving an E.L Wiegand Foundation Award for excellence in performance and choreography. This year she was also selected as an apprentice for ODC thearter. She is currently teaching Traditional Chinese Dance at Mills College.  Among the artists/dance professionals that she worked with are: Hwai-Min Lin (Founder of Cloud Gate Dance Theater), Mary Anthony, Molissa Fenley, Brenda Way, Sonya Delwaide, Sean Curran, Ross Parkes, Men-Fei Lo, Min-Shen Ku, Susan Van Pelt, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Nancy Lyons, Rachel Berman, Alyce Finwall and Joumana Mourad.

Malinda Lavelle – Dancer

Originally from Colorado, Malinda LaVelle began her early training with Irina Brecher and at the Academy of Colorado Ballet.  She has attended summer programs at The Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, The Kirov Academy in Washington D.C., Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, and The San Francisco Conservatory of Dance.  She graduated from the University of Arizona on an Arizona Excellence scholarship Summa Cum Laude, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and worked with various choreographers including Charles Moulton, Paul Sanasardo, and Amy Ernst.  Malinda has studied extensively at Summer Lee Rhatigan's San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and is now their first ever Artist-In-Residence.  She has served on the Conservatory's faculty as a guest choreographer for their 2009 and 2010 summer intensive programs and is one of their featured artist's for this year's Dance Maker's Forum series.  Now living in San Francisco, Malinda is a dancer with Alex Ketley's The Foundry, Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, and Manuelito Biag's Shift>>> Physical Theater.  In 2009 Malinda formed her own company, Project THRUST.  Malinda has shown her work in Ben Levy's Salon and recently completed her Resident Artist Workshop (RAW) at The Garage.  The company has recently been selected to perform in the 2011 Women on the Way Festival.   

Kaitlin Parks - Dancer

Kaitlin Parks grew up in Oklahoma where she began her dance training with Yu, Leidi. Summer study took her to the National Ballet School in Toronto, Boston Ballet, and the Kirov Academy in Washington DC. After graduating from Idyllwild Arts Academy she found a home at the SF Conservatory of Dance under the direction of Summer Lee Rhatigan. She currently trains at the Conservatory and performs with Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, The Courage Group and AVYK Productions.

Joy Prendergast - Dancer
Joy Prendergast is from Longmont Colorado and began her dance training and Longmont Dance Theater.  She then moved to Utah and spent two years in the Ballet Department at the University of Utah. While in Utah she danced in the Character Dance Ensemble and traveled to St. Petersburg Russia with the Ensemble. Joy moved to San Francisco in 2007 to train with Summer Lee Rhatigan and Alex Ketley at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance.  She currently is working with The Foundry under the direction of Alex Ketley and Christian Burns, as well as freelance dancing in Bay Area.

Maggie Stack - Dancer

Maggie was born in 1987 and is originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she began her training at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.  She received a BS in Dance from Skidmore College in 2009 and upon graduating moved to San Francisco to train with Summer Lee Rhatigan at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance.  Maggie now works as the administrative assistant for the Conservatory and is currently a dancer for Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, Christine Calie (Cali & Co.) and Project THRUST.  Maggie has also performed for Amy Foley as part of  ODC's Pilot Program and is a dancer with FACT/SF.

Emmaly Wiederholt - Dancer

Emmaly Wiederholt is originally from Albuquerque, NM.  After graduating from the University of Utah with a BFA in ballet and a BS in political science, she furthered her dance studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance under Summer Lee Rhatigan.  Still based in San Francisco, Emmaly has worked with Push Up Something Hidden and has performed in David Dorfman's choreography with AXIS Dance Company.  She currently dances for Project THRUST, Christine Cali (Cali & Co.), and Alyce Finwall Dance Theater.  Emmaly also writes about dance at danceinthebayarea.blogspot.com and has received an internship with The San Francisco Bay Guardian as a dance journalist.