SB Dance’s mission is to engage the community with performance, multi-media, and production. We aim to encourage people to think for themselves, to provoke their curiosity, and to connect with something new. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit incorporated in 1998, the company is a resident at Salt Lake County’s Rose Wagner Center for the Performing Arts. It is overseen and guided by an energetic Board of Directors. The SB Dance portfolio covers original creations, community initiatives with theatrical flair, partnerships, and learning programs.
Stephen Brown (Artistic / Executive Director)
Stephen is an artist who creates in many mediums, often at once. Like other successful art-makers, his offstage competence– in operations and management, production, and education– funds the onstage iniquities which are by far his greatest expertise and vocation.
Stephen dropped out of college to perform with various companies in Utah and New York. He eventually landed a dream job with a rising star, hated it, went back to college to graduate with a BS Summa Cum Laude from Columbia University. Instead of heading to grad school to play God with fruit flies, he went back to the art world, wandered the country as a project and pick-up performer, choreographed in dark corners, and lived out of a duffel bag. In 1996, Stephen was ready to start his own thing.
20 years later, that thing has festered into creative lab known for off-beat and earthy humor, athletic physicality, tickling taboos, and toying with form. Stephen serves on several Boards, including the Performing Arts Coalition, where he has been President since 2007. As a producer and organizer, he created different programs to activate Salt Lake during Sundance Film Festival and co-created Eat Drink SLC. He is married to a beautiful and hugely tolerant wife and has two young daughters nicknamed Evil and Beast.
CURRENT PERFORMERS
Nathan Shaw dancer, singer; skipping on stages, throwing bodies, and making everyone laugh for SBD since 2006; RDT vet; teacher o’ year at Judge High; leather-luvin’ weight-pumpin’ bear boy;
Christine Hasegawa dancer, powder princess; sorceress with SBD since 2000; RWDC soldier before that; most often quoted as saying “Stephen is going to change it anyway”
Annie Kent: dancer, actor, trainer of tone, twists and turns; changing hearts and minds for SB Dance since 2013
Ischa Bee and Raffi Shahanian: Ischa is a singer, actor, and dabbler in much and many; Raffi, guitarist extraordinaire whose calm, cool exterior barely conceals wild hilarity and fun; together they are Raffi & Ischa, an electro-pop duo with original songs, covers, films, and multi-media experiences.
John Allen: dancer, choreo, guest teacher, movement therapist, psychic traveler, and hammock rocker; RWDC alum, former Tulane faculty and NO-ite; playing with SB Dance since 2013
Juan Carlos Claudio: dancer, teacher, cheerleader, clown; with SBD since 1999; RWDC vet; past life as U of U asst prof/lecturer; entrepreneur in arts therapy; from PR but his ass is now owned by Utah
Ari Hassett: dancer, bioengineer, Gallagher-impersonator; newbie with SB Dance but is breaking in and down very quickly
DESIGN TEAM
Carolyn “Winnie” Wood (Show Fixer)
Winnie has had a long and complicated career in the performing arts which included a long association with the Repertory Dance Theatre, founding Dance Theatre Coalition, and performing and writing a monthly radio comedy show on KRCL for ten years. She has acted and danced in, directed, choreographed and produced theatrical productions for almost 30 years, received the Mayor’s Artist of the Year Award, and was instrumental in the completion of the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Head of drama program at Wasatch Academy for 15 years and now freelancing and developing projects in film and theater.
Jess Greenberg: lighting design; Theater and Design faculty at Weber State; warrior instincts with painter’s eye; teaching a corps of the best and brightest lights in tech; acclaimed for work in stages across the nation
Brad Henrie: production manager, stage MacGyver; longtime theater rat for many local artists now making saves for SB Dance
John Brandon: photographer, patron saint, alien confessor; captures what’s there and what’s not; never ask him what he’s wearing
OTHER PERFORMERS
Natosha Washington: dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of Penguin Lady Collective; fireball combo of strength, smarts, and love
Dan Larrinaga: actor, singer who’s been pounding the Utah stage for everyone from SLAC to Desert Star to SB Dance since potty training; waiting for Stephen to cast him in sky blue tights as the Nutcracker Prince
Kimberly Campa: ballroom, leaper before looker in the best of ways; ballroom instructor and competitor in ballroom
Rick Santizo: dancer, gymnastics coach, and hottie acrobat; sassy when provoked especially by stage moms; spunky spinner of many things
Florian Alberge: dancer, actor, sexy French homme who enjoys being rolled in sushi; classified background in theater espionage and subversion
Payden “Pay Pay” Adams: actor, chanteuse, danseuse, and lamb chop; Disney detective; taller than his car is long and more persuasive than a silver bullet