CONTEMPORARY BALLET | ARTIST FACULTY

Julia Erickson, a Seattle native, is a former Principal Dancer with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and is now a freelance teaching artist, dancer, and choreographer. She has danced with Barak Ballet in Los Angeles, served as Rehearsal Director and dancer for Chamber Dance Project in Washington, D.C. and has most recently danced as a guest artist with San Francisco-based Alonzo King LINES Ballet immediately preceding the pandemic. Since that time Julia has been back in Pittsburgh teaching as a faculty member with Point Park University and exploring new ways to create and share art. 

Julia received her training on scholarship at Pacific Northwest Ballet School and San Francisco Ballet School. She started her career at Texas Ballet Theater prior to joining Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in 2001. Promoted to Principal Dancer in 2009, some of Julia’s roles have included Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Waltz Girl in Balanchine’s Serenade, and the lead in William Forsythe’s In The Middle, Somewhat Elevated.  

Julia is the recipient of the 2014 BRAZZY Award for outstanding female dancer and is an entrepreneur and writer.

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THE DUNHAM LEGACY REVISITED PROGRAM | ARTIST FACULTY

April Berry, dance director, master teacher, dance educator, and former internationally acclaimed principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, was born and raised in New York. Ms. Berry began her professional training in ballet at the National Academy of Ballet and Theatre Arts in New York City under the founding direction of Thalia Mara, also founder of the prestigious International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. As a young dance student Ms. Berry was a scholarship student and a company apprentice with the Dance Theatre of Harlem under directors Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook. Ms. Berry’s professional dance career began in ballet at the age of 17 and she has danced with ballet companies in Switzerland, Italy, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, and Long Island. Berry studied modern dance techniques and jazz dance at the Ailey School in New York, and trained in African Caribbean folkloric and popular dance forms at the Escuela Nacional des Arts (National School of the Arts) in Havana, Cuba.

Ms. Berry has worked closely with many of the most celebrated choreographers and dance artists of the 20th century. She has danced the signature works of Alvin Ailey, Katherine Dunham, Lester Horton, George Balanchine, Todd Bolender, Choo San Goh, Hans Van Manen, Billy Wilson, John Butler, Talley Beatty, and Donald McKayle, as well as in works by other renowned choreographers from the world of ballet, modern/contemporary, and jazz dance.

As a former principal dance artist with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Ms. Berry travelled the world working under Founding Artistic Director Alvin Ailey and Artistic Emerita Judith Jamison. Ms. Berry has represented the Ailey Company on two Ailey season posters, been featured in several Ailey Company videos and has performed on various television specials including two Kennedy Center Honors programs attended by two American Presidents and has been a guest artist with several dance companies, including the Teatro La Scala Ballet in Milan, Italy. Berry is featured in several notable dance books and publications including Ailey Spirit: The Journey of an American Dance Company by Robert Tracy, Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance by former The New York Times dance critic Jennifer Dunning, Dancing Revelations by Thomas DeFrantz and The Black Tradition in American Dance by African American historian Richard A. Long, among others.

Ms. Berry has been actively involved in the field of dance education and community engagement since 1992. Ms. Berry is a certified master instructor in Dunham Technique, having successfully completed all certification requirements after extensive work with American dance pioneer Katherine Dunham. Berry has taught at Dance Theatre of Harlem, Charlotte Ballet and BalletMet, and has created award-winning dance scholarship programs and served as an artist-in-residence, guest lecturer, and adjunct faculty member at some of the most prestigious universities around the United States. She has presented at various dance conferences including the 2013 Dance/USA Conference in Philadelphia, two National Dance Education (NDEO) Conferences, several International Association for Blacks in Dance (IABD) Conferences and presented at the 2016 Collegium for African American Dance (CADD) Conference at Duke University and has written for Dance/USA’s online journal From the Green Room, and for The Society of Dance History Scholars publication, Conversations in Dance. April Berry is currently Director of Community Engagement and Education at Kansas City Ballet and on the dance faculty in the Kansas City Ballet School.

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THE DUNHAM LEGACY REVISITED PROGRAM | LEGACY ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

Known for bringing social dances to the concert stage and coining the term Street Dance Theater Harris has broken new ground as one of the first Hip-Hop choreographers to set works on ballet-based companies such as Ballet Memphis, Colorado Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco), Giordano Dance Chicago, Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Cleo Parker Robinson, Dallas Black Dance Theater, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC), Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and more. The first street dancer commissioned to create an evening length work on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and to serve as a resident artist at the Alvin Ailey School for Dance. He’s received three Bessie Awards, five Black Theater Alvin Ailey Awards, Herb Alpert Award, and nominated for a Lawrence Oliver Award (UK). He’s also received a Life-Time Achievement Award in choreography (McCullum Theater 2019). Harris was also voted one of the most influential people in the last one hundred years of Philadelphia’s history (City Paper), he’s been compared to Basquiat, Alvin Ailey, and Bob Fosse.

In addition, he’s received a Guggenheim Fellowship, PEW Fellowship, a USA Artist of the Year Fellowship, a Governors Artist of the Year Award, and is noted as the first street dancer to receive two honorary doctorate degrees from both Bates College (Lewiston, Maine) and Columbia College (Chicago, Illinois). He’s served as cultural ambassadors for former President Ronald Reagan’s US Embassy Tour in 1986 and invited to the White HOuse by the President Clinton Administration to share in the recognition of Afrian American artist making a difference in the world (2001) and received a medal in choreography from the Kennedy Center. Rennie Harris Puremovement has performed for such dignitaries as the Queen of England and the Princess of Monaco and was chosen as one of four US companies to serve as Hip-Hop cultural ambassadors for President Obama’s Dance Motion USA and toured Israel, Jordan, Ramaluah, Egypt, Palestine, and surrounding countries – as well as Japan, China, Gambia, and Kazakhstan to name a few. Recently, Rennie Harris became a recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award (2020) and The Andrew W. Mellon Grant (1,000,000) “Building A Legacy of Street Dance” (2022). Lorenzo “Rennie” Harris is atop the Hip-Hip heap, its leading ambassador.

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The Dunham Legacy Revisited | Program Director

“Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.” -Paul Robeson

Reginald Yates, The Dunham Legacy Program Director, is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist, dancer, choreographer, community liaison, writer, curator, cultural historian, arts & education advocate, world mentor, and activist for indigenous and disenfranchised communities. His life work emphasizes the spiritual and life affirming attributes of art; and its propensity to heal, edify, and exalt our collective humanity as an agent and catalyst for progressive change and transformation. As an advocate for the unsung and displaced he has championed the work of numerous artists to assure their rightful place in history and has acted as an intercessor for the restoration of lost, fragmented, and forgotten works of art, especially regarding the sacred legacies of artists of African descent.

His academic and arts training exists in a continuum of incessant investigation. As a researcher, documentarian, and witness especially of the Griot and Djeli traditions of Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo, the Caribbean and poignant voices of the African Diaspora, respectfully espousing the inherent belief that art and life is one. Yates’ early artistic studies consisted of masterful artists from Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, Babatunde Olatunji, Charles Moore, Diane McIntyre, Martha Graham (representing the last generation taught by Ms. Graham), New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, and descendants of the Ballets Russes.  Also, with cultural scholars from East and West Africa in advanced studies, at the eminent HBCU Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and Florida State University.

Within a contemporary indium, he has worked extensively with legendary dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham, as a collaborator, facilitator, advisor, and cultural interpreter for the preservation of her work as well as notable scholars Prof. J.H. Kwabena Nketia of Ghana and the late Prof. F. Nii Yartey, who is revered as the father of Ghanaian contemporary African dance. Yates has also had enduring relationships with iconic cultural figures Joe Nash, Walter Nicks, Marie Brooks, Donald McKayle, Louis Johnson, and Baba Chuck Davis. In addition, he has held over fifty distinguished residences and appointments throughout the world with affiliations to the noted institutions of Alvin Ailey, The Juilliard School, New World School for the Arts, Barnard College, New York University, Lincoln Center, Hunter College, University of the Arts, Sarasota Ballet, The City College of New York, Radford University, University of Calabar Nigeria, The Academy of Arts Cairo Egypt, National Theater of Ghana, University of Ghana, Noyam African Dance Institute, and Ghana Dance Ensemble. He has also led significant arts and education initiatives for developing artists with major consultancy projects throughout the states of Florida, Pennsylvania, California, and Washington, D.C. Agencies he has lent his expertise to include Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, Pew Charitable Trust, the James Irvine Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, and National Initiative to Preserve American Dance. As a proponent of youth arts education, he is the Founding Chair and Visionary For the Pinellas County Center for the Arts Dance Division in St. Petersburg Florida, providing conservatory training to gifted young artists, many of whom have joined the ranks of prominent professional dance companies known and respected worldwide.

As a performer, Yates is well versed in several dance languages and as a lecturer and scholar. Mr. Yates has also presented at numerous festivals and conferences on three continents, including festivals in Africa, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. With multiple performances and workshops for Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, the Market for African Performing Arts, Abidjan Côte d’ Ivoire, Harvard University, STEPS with Contemporary Masters, Florida International University, Dance Africa Minnesota, Ballet Hispánico, Cleo Parker Robinson, Perry Mansfield, and 92nd Street.  During his tenure in West Africa, he acted as a Cultural Advisor and Assistant to the Public Affairs Office of the American Embassy in Ghana West Africa and as an international specialist in cultural policy and consultant for secondary and university education. In 2002 he conceived and directed the historic visit of celebrated artist and former Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Judith Jamison. She was the first American artist to be enstooled in Ghana as a Queenmother of the Arts in Accra and given the stool name of Naa Aquayehe Shika. The name is interpreted as “one who is a sacred treasure and held in high esteem.” A recipient of numerous distinguished honors and awards, Mr. Yates is a Fulbright Scholar, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow, and a recipient of multiple national and international fellowships, grants and awards in choreography, anthropological research, and advanced education. He is also a three-time choreography fellow through the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, a three-time fellow to the prestigious arts colony Yaddo, and a Philip Morris Residency Award Honoree. Significant commissions include The Juilliard School, the Orlando Opera, the Sarasota Ballet, Lincoln Center, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, commemorating their 40th anniversary.

Reginald Yates has been a three-time Director and performance curator for the Cultural Traditions Program at The School at Jacob’s Pillow. “The Dunham Legacy Revisited ” is the second installment dedicated to the concentrated study and examination of her masterful work led by Mr. Yates. With eternal respect and gratitude, it’s dedicated to the indelible memory of Yates’ first teachers, Hattie and Roland Johnson Yates, his first dance teacher Dr. Beverly Barber and the major artists from 2002 who are now ancestors along with Ms. Dunham, most notably, Vanoye Aikens, Marie Brooks, Donald McKayle, Joe Nash, Walter Nicks, Marceline Freeman, Theo Jamison, and Jonathan Phelps. “You have Done your Work, Now take your Rest and Rightful Place” Nyame Nwu na Mawu. Axe’.

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Contemporary | Assistant/Demonstrator to Mr. Myers

July 1 – July 21