August’s Guest Dance teachers. In-person & Online

Dance classes with Guest Teachers
August 2022

Guest dance Teachers:  Molly Philpott, Peter Espiritu & Madelyn Biven
Aug 1 to 8, 2022
Various times- see below

Exciting news! Join our featured guest dance teachers this month!

Molly Philpott:
Somatic Contemporary, In-person
Thur, Aug 4 @ 7:00-8:00pm

Molly Philpott is an alumni of James Madison University with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and a minor in Disability Studies. She grew up in Franklin County, VA where she trained in a studio setting at the Blue Ridge Performing Arts Academy, tucked away in the beautiful blue ridge mountains. Here she gained inspiration from the scenic lands as well as the strong community centric focus which she values and carries into her dance practices. Additionally, she danced for City Modern Ensemble – a professional adult modern dance company with goals of promoting artistic integrity, originality and equality, affiliated with the Roanoke Ballet Theater. While at JMU, she had the privilege of being in many concerts choreographed by students and guest artists, while also having her choreographic work presented as well. She was a member of the Virginia Repertory Dance Company – JMU’s pre professional company, competitively selected and modern based, touring repertoire works throughout Virginia. Through this she was able to work with and perform works by Kiki Lucas, Gregory Dolbashian, Ruben Graciani, Shane O’hara, Stephanie Lupas, Jess Burgess and many more accredited artists. She recently just designed and implemented a dance program at a middle school in South Carolina where she taught for the last year and worked with diverse demographics and gained insights on the power of art in youth. She is so excited to see all the arts Oahu has in store for her in this next chapter.

Peter Espiritu:
Begin at the Barre, In-person & Online
Wed, Aug 3 @ 5:45-7:00pm HST

Peter Rockford Espiritu is the Founder – Executive & Artistic Director of Tau Dance Theater, the only professional modern dance company founded by a native Hawaiian based in Honolulu, established in 1996. Mr. Espiritu studied classical ballet at the prestigious School of American Ballet in New York City and received scholarships at the American Dance Festival at Duke University and the Colorado Dance Festival in Boulder. Mr. Espiritu travels globally choreographing and teaching master classes in ballet, hula and modern dance. He is a Western Arts Alliance (AIP) fellow and a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts – Challenge America Grant recipient, supporting the development of a vocabulary system for Indigenous-based movement on multiple technology platforms. His company Tau Dance Theater will tour to Logan, Utah in September through a APAP ArtsForward grant supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and invited as featured artists at the Lincoln Center Fall Festival in New York City.

Madelyn Biven:
Return to the Barre, In-person & Online
Mon, Aug 1 & 8 @ 5:45-7:00pm HST

Madelyn Biven unearths language within the body to perform, teach, and research movement-based work. The decision to leave the continental U.S. and return home to Honolulu in 2017 shifted her performance focus from choreographed productions to improvisational scores in both small- and large-scale art show settings. Upon moving to Hawaiʻi, Madelyn has been a featured dancer in the Honolulu Biennial; Oahu Fringe (as a guest with electroViolet); Peiling Kao Dances Home Season; Maui Dance Festival; and Contact Hawaii, an annual exhibition exploring the notion of foreign contact as it relates to the Hawaiian Islands. Madelyn developed and performed work for Hawaiʻi-based collectives Paradise Cove and Aupuni Space. Before she returned to Hawaiʻi, Madelyn lived in the Bay Area and danced with Project Thrust, Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, and Ziru Productions. Madelyn has taught at Kailua Dance Academy, Alive Ballet Academy, Honolulu Museum of Art, Sakura Arts Collective, Infinity Movement Studio, Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and had the pleasure of teaching a master class at Beijing Normal University in China. She received a BFA from Fordham Univeristy / The Ailey School in 2009 where she was the recipient of the Ully Hirsch/Robert F. Nettleton Poetry Prize for Creative Writing.