James Clotfelter, Production Manager & Resident Lighting Designer

Dana Lynn Dlugosz, Dancer
Dana Lynn Dlugosz, born and raised in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, began her formal dance training with Deanna Schubert and Lisa Wasserman, followed by a scholarship to Princeton Ballet School, where she was invited by Graham Lustig of American Repertory Ballet to perform in the company’s Nutcracker. She attended summer programs at American Repertory Ballet, Houston Ballet, and ABT New York. In May 2006, Dana graduated from SUNY Purchase in New York, cum laude, with a B.F.A. degree in dance performance. While at Purchase, she danced in numerous solo roles in the Purchase Dance Corps including Marzipan, Les Noces, and Stephanie Tooman’s Lullabye Gone. After graduation, Dana danced with New Jersey’s Terra Firma Dance Theatre. While there, she danced in works by Stuart Loungway and Septime Webre. Other roles include Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Terpsichore and Polyhimnia in Apollo, Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, and Dawn in Coppelia. Dana joined Miro in March 2007 for the premiere of Amanda Miller’s Pitch Black and has performed with the Opera Company of Philadelphia in their productions of Rigoletto, and L’enfant et les sortileges.

Joy Havens, Dancer
Joy Havens began her career performing with Dance Kaleidoscope under the direction of David Hochoy and with the Gregory Hancock Dance Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana. She continued her training at The Ohio State University and attended workshops at Jacob’s Pillow and the American Dance Festival on a merit scholarship. Joy’s professional credits include: New York Baroque Dance Company, TEA under the direction of Ella Ben-Aharon and Sahar Javedani, High Jinx Stilt Dance Theater, Sarah Edgar/Dance, Lorena Egan Dance and the Bronx Opera among others. She toured India for two months with Thresh under the direction of Preeti Vasudevan, performing in nine cities. She has performed with the Metropolitain Opera in Orfeo ed Euridice, directed by Mark Morris and has been recognized with an Award of Merit for Performance from the National Society of Arts and Letters.

Viji Rao, Collaborator, Dancer
Viji Rao is a professional dance artist based in Philadelphia where she has an active career as performer and teacher of bharatanatyam. She has trained under noted gurus K.Shivarao, Dr. Alakananda and Anuradha and Sridhar. Viji has performed as a guest artist with several international dance and theatre companies such as the England based Shobana Jeyasingh Company, Chitraleka Dance Company, SAMPAD and Moby Duck, India based Arangham as well as with SAMPRADAYA Dance Creations since 2002. She has extensive experience with arts education having conducted workshops in England, United States and Canada. She is the founder of Treaksha School of Dance in Philadelphia.

Paul Struck, Dancer
Paul Struck is a native of Pensacola Florida, where he began his dance training studying tap, jazz and theatre-dance, performing with many regional dance and theatre companies. Mr. Struck started his modern dance training at Pensacola Junior College studying the techniques of Doris Humphrey and Jose Limon. In 1984 he moved to Philadelphia to work with Danceteller, under the direction of Trina Collins, where he created numerous roles in original works combining modern dance and traditional theatre techniques. He performed and toured extensively with the company for 13 years. Since that time, Mr. Struck has worked with several companies including Group Motion, Melanie Stewart Dance, SCRAP, Jeanne Ruddy Dance, and many local independent choreographers. Paul is a certified Movement Analyst using the theories of Rudolf Von Laban to create and enhance new work. 1999 saw the first collaboration between Mr. Struck and Amanda Miller, a duet inspired by Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings for The Philadelphia Fringe Festival. In 2001 he and Tobin Rothlein, after working together at Group Motion, were commissioned by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to create a series of video and live performance vignettes for the internationally acclaimed Philadelphia Flower Show. The success of that performance garnered a second invitation for Mr. Struck to appear in the 2007 Flower show. Mr. Struck has been praised by local press as being among the best of Philadelphia’s modern character dancers. In recent years his attention has turned to creating floral fantasy costumes, which have been shown at Art in City Hall, and debuted annually at Henri David’s Halloween Ball. When not dancing, Mr. Struck works at his partner Henri David’s jewelry store,Halloween, where he and Mr. David bring sparkle to everyday life.

Andre Zachery, Dancer
Andre Zachery studied architecture and dance at Florida A & M University and Florida State University before transferring to the Ailey/Fordham BFA program. At the Ailey School, he performed works by William Forsythe, Robert Battle, Christopher Huggins, Séan Curran, Elisa Monte, Dwight Rhoden, Nathan Trice, Paul Taylor, and Alvin Ailey. He has also trained and performed works by Ronald K. Brown and Alonzo King. Andre is an alum of Jacob’s Pillow and has danced with Nathan Trice/RITUALS Productions and the Elisa Monte Dance Company.

Zeena Parkins, Composer
Zeena Parkins, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improvisor, well-known as a pioneer of the electric harp, has also extended the language of the acoustic harp with the inventive use of unusual playing techniques, preparations, and layers of digital and analog processing. Zeena makes use of anything within reach as a possible tool with which she can enhance the sonic capabilities of her harps. She accurately describes her harp as a “sound machine of limitless capacity” and has used, household objects and hardware store finds, including: alligator clips, nails, rubber erasers, rubber tubing, felt, bows, metal candy lids, oversized metal bolts, hair clips, glass jars, discarded strings, as well as more conventional: leslie cabinets, guitar pedals, and numerous other digital processing hardware and assorted and varied software.

Praveen D. Rao, Composer
Praveen is a versatile multi-instrumentalist with an international reputation based in Bangalore. Trained by Pt. R. V. Sheshadri Gavai of Aravinda Sangeetha and tabla maestro Pandit Ravindra Yavagal, he is equally at home on a range of percussion, keyboards and electronic media. As a composer, Praveen has created a style of his own in creative music. Over the last fifteen years he has composed scores for theatre, ballet, film and television. Praveen Rao scored the music to noted film maker Sri M. S. Sathyu’s short film NAMAK KI KANKARI in the year 1996. As an arranger, he is known for his creativity in fusing Hindusthani music, Carnatic music with western techniques and has arranged background scores for various films for acclaimed music directors like Vid. Lalgudi G.Jayaraman, Vid. L.Vaidyanathan, C.Ashwath etc. He has also had the privilege to work with great theatre personalities like Sri A. S. Murthy, Sri B. V. Karanth, B. Jayashri etc Praveen has been involved in the Physical theatre scenario in various capabilities. He has been a musician, composer, actor and also directed loads of plays. He has acted in quite a few daily soaps on Television like Asare, Tulasi, Manvantara, Muktha etc. to name a few.

Pete M. Wyer, Composer
Pete M. Wyer has been described by The Independent, UK as a “pioneering, transatlantic composer”. Born and based in the UK, he is from a self-taught background. He has been a guest composer with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (2003) Opera North (2006/8) the Juilliard School (2002/5/6) and is currently developing a new opera for English National Opera based on the Moscow theatre siege for premiere in 2009. He has produced scores for concert performance, such as Chelsea-Chelseafor string quartet, two saxophones and reader, which was performed simultaneously at Jazz at Lincoln Centre, New York and the 606 Club, London, via internet link in 2005. He also has a longstanding track record in collaboration with modern dance and ballet, including Senbazurufor the Juilliard Orchestra, which was choreographed by Jessica Lang and performed at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, New York, 2006. His works for media and television have included a number of series including Roman Mysteries (2007/8) for the BBC, which continues to be shown worldwide. He has also written music for a number of TV commercials.His music theatre company SharpWire, with virtuoso cellist, singer and actor Matthew Sharp has been recognized internationally; chosen by The Guardian as ‘Pick of the week’ they were described as “…pushing the music theatre envelope… an intoxicating and intimate passion play of sound, song, movementand video.”As well as music, Pete has written a number of plays and the libretto for two of his music theatre works: Cremenville (Opera North, UK, 2006) and Johnny’s Midnight Goggles (Tete a Tete opera festival, London, 2007, Brighton and Pride of Place Festivals, UK tour 2008).He is also the creator of a series of groundbreaking projects, including an entirely new system of music writing called timecoded scoring, which has been adopted by orchestras, universities and performers internationally, as well as a worldwide installation project, which makes simultaneous recordings, giving a “God’s ear view” of the world, called Simultaneity. His ongoing recording project Stories from the city at night, combines spoken word, sound design, scored music and song. A first CD is released by Thirsty Ear Records, New York in 2008, alongside unique performances, which utilize 32 independent speaker-surround, film and a world class ensemble of actors, singers, classical and jazz musicians and electronica.

For more info visit: www.pmwmusic.com