Company/Collaborators Bios

Luis Ordaz Gutiérrez | Dancer

Luis Ordaz Gutiérrez is an award-winning theatre director, writer, dancer, producer, and visual designer based in Austin, Texas. As an immigrant artist originally born in Mexico City, his work straddles historical research and performance art in order to reconstruct Latino culture within the United States. For the past 12 years Luis has been the Artistic Director of ProyectoTEATRO, Austin’s premiere Spanish-language performing arts company and cultural organization. In 2013, through an artistic collaboration with Ballet East, Luis discovered his admiration for dance and took his first ballet class at 27; far late into his artistic career as a stage performer. Since then, Luis still trains with Ballet East under the artistic direction of Melissa Villarreal and continues to be a current company member. A year later, wanting to explore the vast expressive range of movement and dance, Luis began training with and became part of The Aztlan Dance Company under Artistic Director Roén Salinas. In 2017, Luis joined the Chamacos Cuban Contemporary Dance Company under the direction of Aurelio Planes and Inna Grudtcina and subsequently, received a scholarship in 2019 to train in Cuba with 4 internationally-renowned companies: Retazos Dance Theatre in Havana and Médula, Danza Libre, and Danza Fragmentada in Guantánamo. In early 2020, Luis was invited to join the Andrea Ariel Dance Theatre and he is beyond ecstatic to be able to perform with such talented dancers, learn and grow with the amazing director and choreographer that is Andrea Ariel, and be part of one of the most treasured dance companies in Austin.  

Ciceley Fullylove | Dancer

Ciceley Fullylove is a dancer, choreographer, and singer born and raised in Austin, TX. She gained her BA in Dance Studies from Texas Woman’s University and has since performed in dance-works by local choreographers such as Jennifer Sherburn, Spaces of Fontana, Erica Saucedo, and Venese Alcantar. She has also choreographed music videos for the Austin based, contemporary-pop artist Middlespoon. She is a member of the band CAPYAC and went on a national tour last year opening for the Magic City Hippies. This summer she will be performing in Cats with the Georgetown Palace Theatre as the character “Demeter”. Look out for more things to come!  

Anuradha Naimpally | Dancer

Being raised by art-loving Indian parents in Canada, Anuradha has had the best of many worlds. Her western upbringing along with her traditional training in India and deep-rooted spirituality, make her a unique teacher and performer of Bharata Natyam dance who connects with people from across the globe. She is founder and Artistic Director of Austin Dance India, her organization since 1989, through which she trains students, mentors young artists, and presents her work. 

She is a 2018 inductee into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame for her significant body of work and a juried artist on the touring roster of the Texas Commission on the Arts. The Austin Area Critics’ Circle has nominated and awarded her Best Dancer and Production numerous times. She has received several awards in India including Sringara Mani and Mayura Natya Tarakai. Anuradha is a recipient of the 2020 and 2017 Artistic Innovations Grant from the Mid-America Arts Alliance. Her social practice projects include work with refugee teens, social justice, gender and sexuality, and climate change. Her work with girls’ empowerment through dance was featured in the PBS series, Arts in Context.

Anuradha can be seen performing at various schools, libraries, museums, and festivals in and around Texas. She is deeply dedicated to cultural representation in arts in education and making programming available to all communities. Interested in creating and performing works that not only historically preserve artistic traditions, she engages in art for social change to build community and bring awareness to global issues.

Jun “Sunny” Shen | Dancer

Jun “Sunny” Shen began his formal dance training during high school, where he learned ballet, Chinese classical opera, and Chinese folk dance. He earned his bachelor’s degree in dance at Beijing Capital Normal University in 2001, and worked with Beijing Dance LDTX as a full-time dancer and choreographer from 2005 to 2009. He has performed and choreographed many works at worldwide dance festivals including Beijing Dance Festival, Grand Performances (LA), Dance Salad Festival (Houston), Busan International Dance Festival (South Korea), Culture Scapes (Switzerland), Braunschweig Dance Festival (Germany). He has also collaborated with many artists and dance companies such as Willy Tsao, Janis Claxton, Charles O. Anderson, Hugo Dalton, Yago de Quay, Wang Jianwei, Sally Jacques, as well as Ziru Production, Alonzo-King Lines Ballet Training Program, Ellen Bartel Dance Collection, Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company, and Andrea Ariel Dance Theatre. Shen earned his MFA in 2016 at the University of Texas and formed his company Shen Jun Movement Effect. He is currently an assistant professor of dance at Austin Community College, and a principal dancer and choreographer for Blue Lapis Light. in 2018 Shen was awarded Best Dancer by the Austin Critics Table for his performance in Belonging, Part One. In 2019, Shen’s work Centrifugation was selected to perform at the American College Dance Association, South Central Regional conference.  

Sadé M Jones | Dancer

Sadé M Jones is a Social Psychologist, Trauma Informed Yoga Facilitator, performing artist, choreographer|director and healer. She specializes in mind-body connectivity, cultural discourse, identity engineering and artistic advocacy. She is the Founder and CEO of the performing arts collective Ashé Arts, and has her own practice, SADEIZM movement alchemy for creative, corporate, and healing programming. Sadé curates artistic, mindful and culturally relevant ways for individuals and groups to embody innate wholeness and address otherwise ‘charged’ topics in a heartfelt yet honest way. Her work is heralded as “cathartic, genuine, provocative and beautiful.” Sadé’s work allows her to work with an array of platforms, such as: SXSW, SixSquare, UT Austin, Women’s Community Center Central Texas, Facebook, Bastrop County Cares, The Amala Foundation, University of Louisville, Colt Couer NYC, Girl Be Heard, Texas Youth Rising and more. It’s featured on PBS Arts In Context as well as in EastSIDE Magazine.  

Clay Moore | Dancer

Clay Moore grew up in Houston as a competitive dancer. After graduating, he choreographed at local Houston studios and performed as a freelance artist with J&D Entertainment and LEON Dance Arts. Before locating to Austin, Clay studied dance in Los Angeles and Musical Theater in New York City. Since moving to Austin, he has worked with ARCOS Dance, BLiPSWiTCH, Jennifer Sherburn, Blue Lapis Light, Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company, Andrea Ariel Dance Theatre and has been featured in local ATX artist music videos. Clay shares his passion for movement by teaching dance in after school clubs and working with local competitive studios.  

Ceci Proeger | Dancer

Ceci Proeger grew up in the border town of Laredo, Tx with a focus on ballet, sprinkled with whatever other dance she could get into. She spent her teenage summers training at Boston Ballet and Pennsylvania Ballet, and later spent a summer at the Alvin Ailey American Dance School. Although she did not study dance at UT, she spent all of her time in that department. Upon graduating (with a BS in psychology) she danced with Andrea Ariel Dance Theater, Spank Dance Company, Sharir+Bustamante Dance Works, and Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Co. After a 10 year hiatus, including birthing 3 kids and moving to South Africa for 4 years, she planned to make her big comeback in Andrea’s 30th-anniversary show… But Ha! Covid had other plans. Nonetheless, Ceci is thrilled to have the opportunity to dance in the studio again with other artists, and is very thankful for Andrea‘s commitment to her work and her dancers.  

Alyson Dolan | Dancer

Alyson Dolan was born and raised in Melbourne, Florida, attended school in Tallahassee where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from Florida State University; escaped to New York to pursue an internship with Monica Bill Barnes and Company; whisked away to Amsterdam for an inspiring dance and bicycle filled Fall; moved to Sarasota to work with Fuzión Dance Artists, and is currently “keeping it weird” in Austin, Texas. Alyson performs with Austin’s own Andrea Ariel Dance Theatre and Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company. She also teaches, collaborates and presents her own work throughout the community. Alyson is Fuzión Dance Artists’ Resident Choreographer, an Adjunct Instructor of Dance at Texas State University, and was a recent Guest Artist in Residence at Texas A&M University. She would like to thank Andrea for this opportunity and the entire cast for the inspiration and pure fun that has been had while working on The Bowie Project.

Steve Ochoa | Dancer

Steve Ochoa returned to Texas after spending 18 years in Manhattan. He was trained in dance and music at West Texas State University for 3 years and spent 2 summers training at the School of American Ballet, (the school for the New York City Ballet). He danced with a few ballet companies in the New York City area and Ballet Du Nord in northern France before getting his first Broadway show.  His Broadway credits include Jerome Robbins’ Broadway (Original Cast), Cats (Mistoffelees), Carousel (Lincoln Center), Twelfth Night (Lincoln Center), and Sweet Smell of Success (Original Cast). Off-Broadway: The Wild Party (Manhattan Theater Club). Broadway Tours: Fosse, Chess and JRB. Featured with: Dendy Dance and Theater, Feld Ballet, Nixon in China (Emmy Honoree) and with Zvi Gothiener Dance. Film: Object of My Affection, The Crucible. In Austin he’s worked with Ariel Dance Theater and Ballet East and thankful to have been a part of Andrew Hinderaker’s “Colossal” at UT this past year. He’s choreographed for Ballet East, Big Range Dance Festival and AADT. He’s also works as an Emergence Care healing artist.

Leese Walker | Co-Director/The Bowie Project, Soundpainter, Actor

Leese is the founder and Artistic Director of NYC’s Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble. The company is comprised of jazz musicians, modern dancers and actors. She established the company in 1997 to create politically-charged, original works. Leese figures strongly in the history of Soundpainting. She was the first actress to be soundpainted and was instrumental in helping inventor Walter Thompson to adapt the Soundpainting language for theater. The language has since evolved to include all performance disciplines and is now practiced in 35 countries world-wide. Leese has been a core member of the Walter Thompson Orchestra since 1997 and is one of three theater artists in the United States certified to teach the Soundpainting language. Leese has soundpainted at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, American Airlines Theater, the Irondale Center, Bard College, and internationally in Paris, London, Tours, Bordeaux and in Bali, Indonesia. Her work has been featured on Radio France, NPR, German Public Radio and U.S. television. Leese is the recipient of the 2011 BAX Arts Educator Award, the 2010 Arts Presenters Emerging Leaders Scholarship, and the 2004 APPEX Fellowship in Ubud, Bali. Leese freelances as a teaching-artist with B.A.M. and Roundabout Theatre. She served on the board of directors for the Network of Ensemble Theatres from 2003-2008. www.strikeanywhere.info

Nolan Kennedy | Actor/Vocals

Nolan Kennedy is an actor, writer, musician, improviser and director. He is a co-founder and artistic director of Letter of Marque Theater Co., an ensemble member of Strike Anywhere, a freelance lighting designer and teaching artist. Hailing from Chicago, IL, Nolan received his B.F.A. in Acting from Illinois Wesleyan University. NYC acting credits: Color Between the Lines, Julius Caesar, Peter Pan, London Cries, Macbeth Variations II, Same River; in Chicago: Private Lies, The Closeness of You, and Genius. His playwriting credits include Prepared Fresh (Off-Broadway and The Portland Fringe Festival), This Little Piece (Zoo Theater, Chicago) and Gifts (Fifth Estate, Brooklyn).

Rolf Sturm | Co-Director/The Bowie Project, Soundpainter, Guitar

Rolf Sturm has been a full time NYC guitarist since 1984. He appears on over fifty CDs including recordings that feature David Johansen (NY Dolls/ Buster Poindexter), Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna), Ike Willis (Frank Zappa), Roswell Rudd and members of the Grateful Dead. Rolf has been a member of Walter Thompson’s Soundpainting Orchestra since the late 80‘s and he co-taught Soundpainting in the NYC public school system with Walter Thompson throughout the 90’s. He has toured the United States, Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Canada, and the UK, performing at dozens of jazz, jam band/rock, folk, and blues festivals (including the World Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany). He has performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. and on soundtracks for both film and television. His music has been featured on National Public Radio’s “All Songs Considered” and his last solo guitar recording, “Balance”, was awarded 4 stars by DownBeat magazine.

Rey Arteaga | Percussion

San Antonio-born vocalist, conguero and bongocero Rey Arteaga, has co-founded or played in some of the best Latin bands in Austin over the last twenty-three years, among them are: La Tribu, Son Yuma, Centzontle, Melecumbe, Sarah Fox and Joel Guzman, and Charanga Cakewalk.  Rey performs with Super Creeps and has also played with numerous other Latin, rock, pop, and jazz artists, and also has recorded for television, interactive entertainment, and film.

Alán De León Uribe | Bass

For years, Alán Uribe has wandered the hinterlands, overrun by highly evolved and specialized musical species living together in symbiotic balance. The black soil of Denton, Texas nurtured his curiosity as a musicologist and his prowess as a musical experimenter grew wild. He was eventually adopted by the renegade band of mutant chimeras of Sub Olso who initiated him in the black arts and life sciences of the Dub Underworld. Alán later established the Bass Liberation Front to guard this knowledge for the righteous and implant such music in our collective protoconosciousness, distorting our metacultures as it propagates itself as a byproduct of biological life, indifferent to attempts to manipulate it, cultivate it, or tame it. He has frequently been enlisted for his skill as an instrumentalist and beat maker by a host of musical compatriots including Charanga Cakewalk, Duina Del Mar, Los Bandidos Cósmicos, Gente Boa, Jackie Venson, Joanna Barbera, Night Light, OK Sweetheart, Reservations, Riders Against the Storm, Sub Oslo, Sueño All-Stars, Suns of Orpheus, Super Creeps, Tacks, Tita Lima, Tony Scalzo, Bali Yaaah, Afrofreque, UNT Ghanaian Percussion Ensemble, UT Javanese Gamelan, and 35mm.

Claude McCan aka Claude 9 | Keyboard, Vocals

Claude McCan has been involved in the Austin music scene since the late 70’s, playing and recording with many different artists from that time until now as a keyboard player and singer. He has played with Reggae acts Pressure, the Killer Bees, and Raggamassive and opened shows for many of top acts in that genre such as Peter Tosh, Steel Pulse, and Black Uhuru. As a producer working out of his own Claude 9 Studios he produced and recorded several electronic recordings released internationally in the House and Downtempo genres, as well as the well received “Via La Remix” EP with DJ Manny as Los Bandidos Cosmicos. Currently Claude records and plays with hip hop/funk act Afrofreque, Los Bandidos Cosmicos, tribute bands Supercreeps and Hail Marley, and retro 60s lounge act 35MM. A self-titled debut album from 35MM will be released in January 2014 on Ropeadope records.

John Nelson | Drums, Vocals

Being raised by musical parents in the New York neighborhoods of Crown Heights and West Harlem, el john learned piano at home and sang in church choir at an early age. By the time he was 12 el john was drumming in African drum and dance ensembles at Babatunde Olatunji’s Center for African Culture in Harlem. el john’s formal training came to include mentoring by drum set luminaries Alan Nelson and Anthony Williams. In 1982, el john began performing and recording as a session player in Honolulu, Hawaii while also pursuing formal music studies at the University of Hawaii.  Among the known artists John has worked with: Thievery Corporation, Poi Dog Pondering, Victor Krummenacher, Federico Aubele, Penelope Houston, and Benny Rietveld.

Andy Nolte | Guitar, Piano, and Vocals

Andy Nolte is a self-taught singer/songwriter/composer from Corpus Christi, Texas. He plays the piano, guitar, bass, drums, harmonica, & ukulele. His influences include artists such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Brian Wilson, Frank Black, Frank Zappa, The Beatles, Tom Waits, George Gershwin and Jon Brion. Born into a family full of musicians, Andy began playing around 1994, when he bought his first bass guitar. The next year he formed a band with his brother and starting performing. He continued to play in Corpus Christi until 2005, when he relocated to Austin, Texas and founded the experimental rock group Mostly Dead.  Andy can also be seen playing in a wide variety of other bands around Austin. He is currently the guitarist/keyboardist for the David Bowie tribute group Super Creeps,  keyboardist for the cabaret act Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat (since 2007), and guitarist for the rock group Genius Mistake. He also performs as a solo artist with his own backing trio, and has worked as accompanist to other solo artist such as Miles Zuniga, Stephanie Stephens, and Sam Arnold.

Adam Sultan | Guitar, Vocals

Adam Sultan has performed, written, composed or moved in some capacity or another for a variety of theater and arts organizations, including Physical Plant Theater, Fusebox Festival, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Golden Arm Trio, Spank Dance Company, Glass Half Full Theater, and Bedpost Confessions. He starred in the Physical Plant production, Adam Sultan, which was an Austin Critics Pick for 2013. He has provided guitar work for composer Graham Reynolds in the Richard Linklater films Bernie and Before Midnight. Along with performing with Super Creeps, he is also a member of the Queen tribute band, Magnifico, and is co-conspirator of the sado-vaudevillian act, Mistress Stephanie and Her Melodic Cat.

Colin Lowry | Associate Producer, The Bowie Project

Colin Lowry produces, manages, consults and edits large media projects.  Recent work includes the installation of 54 video oral histories for the World War II Museum in New Orleans and the integration of 69 math help videos for a mobile test prep product for Austin tech start-up, Querium.  Some historical theatrical projection design credits include One Night with Janis Joplin (ZACH Theatre/San Jose Repertory Theatre,) Gyre, Flush and Everything Between (Andrea Ariel Dance Theatre,) Requiem for Tesla and How Late It Was How Late (Rude Mechs.)

Stephen Pruitt | Production Design

Stephen Pruitt has been working in theater and the arts as a designer, writer, director and performer for nearly twenty years. He is currently splitting his time between Austin, Texas and Cincinnati, Ohio, where he is the resident technical consultant and production designer for the Requiem Project – an effort to restore the historic Emery Theater. In Austin, Stephen has collaborated with many of the city’s most creative theater and dance groups, as the resident production designer for Forklift Danceworks, Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance, and Tapestry Dance Company; resident lighting designer for Trouble Puppet Theater; a company member with the Rude Mechanicals; and in various design and creative roles for many others. He has designed and produced events of all sizes, including Austin Film Society’s Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards, the Mayor’s party at City Hall for First Night, and opening night galas for Cirque du Soleil. In addition to his work in live events, he is also a photographer and recently created 100yr.org – a nonprofit with the mission of creating public art projects that last 100 years. Stephen can be found at www.fluxiondesigns.com.

Kari Perkins | Costume Design

A costume designer for theater, dance, opera, film and television, Kari Perkins’ work has received national and international acclaim. She is passionate for design and loves to work with directors and performers to capture their vision and create lively characters. Ms. Perkins has worked with choreographers Steven Mills (Torso, Wall of Names, Women and Light), Sally Jacques and Blue lapis Light (Blue Pearl Trilogy), Kathy Dunn Hamrick (Spin). Her work has also been seen on the big screen in feature films Dazed and Confused, A Scanner Darkly and most recently Mud. She has also been featured on the DIY network, Southern Living Magazine, Tribeza and Rare Magazines as well as a podcast on Spoiler alert Radio. Visit her website at www.kariperkins.com.