NCDF ARTIST BIOS
26/27 SEASON
Dance Project and the NC Dance Festival are pleased to announce the 2026-27 Season Artists. Artists featured here will be performing as part of the NC Dance Festival programming this season.
Maitri Acharya is a Durham based Flamenco and Kathak dancer and Artistic Director of Flamenco Carolina. Maitri has performed at events such as Erasing Borders Dance Festival in NYC, Family Series at Carolina Theatre of Durham, and the Flamenco Vivo competition in NYC where she received a scholarship award. Maitri has been intrigued and experimenting with the rhythmic similarities of her dance styles which were showcased in the piece ‘FlamenKatha’ presented at NCDF 2024. Maitri is looking to expand this concept as she explores the rhythmic and expressive intersections among four percussive dance forms – Flamenco, Kathak, Tap and African Dance. Through this process she hopes to create cross-cultural collaboration that promotes dialogue, inclusivity, and a deeper appreciation of the shared heritage connecting global dance traditions.
Maitri is also an Artist in Resident for the 2026 – 2027 season.
Robin Gee is a Professor of Dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), where she specializes in African and modern dance techniques, digital media, and screen dance technologies. She holds an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Sarah Lawrence College. She has performed with several prominent New York-based dance companies, including Les Ballet Bagata, under the direction of Youssouf Koumbassa, former principal dancer with Ballets Africains de Guinée, and Marie Basse Wiles’ Maimouna Keita Dance Company, with whom she toured extensively across the United States and Africa. Ms. Gee is also the founder of Sugarfoote Productions, a multidisciplinary arts organization dedicated to promoting African and African Diasporan cultural traditions through performance, education, and community engagement. Sugarfoote also co-produces the Greensboro Dance Film Festival, a boutique international event showcasing dance films from around the world. Her own dance films have been featured in over 37 film festivals globally, reflecting her commitment to blending traditional movement with contemporary media.
Jingqiu J. Guan 管竞秋, originally from Chengdu, China, is an award-winning filmmaker, choreographer, dancer and scholar. She holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA, an MFA in Dance Performance from the University of Iowa, an Ed.M from Harvard University, and a BA in Economics and French from Saint Mary’s College. She is currently Associate Professor of the Practice of Dance at Duke University. Her interdisciplinary practice that spans performance, screendance and documentary, foregrounds embodied storytelling and centers the experiences of women, immigrants, and people of color. Through her work, Guan explores diasporic experience, social and cultural memory, motherhood, and questions of racial and disability justice. Guan’s dance films and documentaries have screened at festivals worldwide. Her feature-length dance documentary Mama Dancers has won multiple awards in dance film festivals and is currently distributed on Amazon. Her live performance work has been presented at venues such as the Getty Museum, Highways Performance Space, Harvard CAMLab, the Art Center in Carrboro (NC), Shadow Box Theater, and various universities.
Kate Jewett is a dancer, choreographer, and educator with more than two decades of experience performing, teaching, and making dance. A graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, she began her professional career with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s Repertory Understudy Group before joining Shen Wei Dance Arts, where she performed internationally and later served as Education Director and Rehearsal Director.
Kate has performed, taught, and staged work throughout the U.S. and around the world. She currently teaches contemporary dance and career preparation at UNCSA, where she is also choreographing a new work for Fall Dance. She is the founder of Moving Minds, an educational program that uses dance to bring people together, encourage creativity, and explore new ways of thinking.
Carolina Quirós Otárola is a choreographer, dancer, and aerial artist who has been joyfully leaping, spinning, and flying since age six. Originally from Costa Rica, she’s performed and created work across Central America, the US, and the UK, always bringing her signature mix of curiosity, musicality, and magic.
Her choreography lives at the crossroads of contemporary dance and circus, with pieces featured by Baran Dance, Satarah Productions, Cirque du Bier, Nouveau Sud, and the Kinetic Works Choreography Residency. Whether she’s crafting a grounded duet or a sky‑high aerial sequence, Carolina builds worlds that feel alive, human, and a little bit enchanted.
She also teaches throughout Charlotte, where her classes are known for being equal parts technique, laughter, and “you can do more than you think.”
Maurice S. Watson is an Associate Professor of Dance and the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Dance at UNC Greensboro. A choreographer, educator, and performer with a rich background in jazz, contemporary, ballet, and Black American vernacular traditions, his work centers community, musicality, and storytelling through embodied rhythm. Maurice has created and restaged works nationally and internationally, including recent pieces such as Shoulder II Shoulder, Rock Steady Til You’re No Longer Misunderstood, and Chasing the One = (1). He has performed with companies such as Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jazz Antiqua Dance Ensemble (Los Angeles), and Long Beach Ballet. As an educator, he is committed to cultivating inclusive, student-centered learning environments that honor cultural lineage, foster technique, and encourage artistic curiosity.Alyah Baker is a dance artist, scholar, and choreographer working at the intersection of art and embodied activism. She is an assistant professor of dance at UNC Charlotte, where her research focuses on queer aesthetics, Black feminist praxis, and community building through dance. Baker earned her MFA in Dance(’21) and a B.A. in Sociology (’03) from Duke University. She has trained and performed professionally with companies including Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Oakland Ballet, and Carolina Ballet, dancing featured roles in works by George Balanchine, Antony Tudor, Laura Dean, José Limón, and Alonzo King. Baker has received choreographic commissions from the American Dance Festival, Queering Dance Festival, and Oakland Ballet, and has been recognized in local and national media, including Dance Teacher Magazine and the New York Times.
Winner of the 2019 NYCA Worldwide Debut Audition and a laureate of the 2016 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition, Larry Weng has been described in The New York Times as playing with “steely power and incisive rhythm.” Of his 2014 New York debut at Weill Hall, the New York Concert Review described him as “an extremely sensitive musician and mature interpreter,” and “mature beyond his years.” Mr. Weng has been featured in concert in France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, China, Japan, Brazil, and Venezuela, and has performed in many of the world’s renowned concert halls, including Boston’s Symphony Hall, New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Stern Auditorium, Merkin Hall, SubCulture, the Salle Cortot, and the Sala Sao Paolo.
An avid chamber musician and collaborator, Mr. Weng has participated in the Ravinia Steans Institute and the Verbier Academy and has worked with renowned musicians such as Claude and Pamela Frank, Gabor Takacs, David Shifrin, David Soyer, among others. Mr. Weng is a member of the award winning two piano, two percussion ensemble, icarus Quartet, which recently released its debut album, Big Things, to critical acclaim.
A graduate of the Columbia-Juilliard exchange program and the Yale School of music, Mr. Weng currently serves on the faculty of the Wake Forest University Department of Music.
Tamara Williams is a choreographer, educator, and movement practitioner originally from Augusta, Georgia and currently based in Charlotte, North Carolina. She earned a BFA in Dance from Florida State University and an MFA in Dance from Hollins University in collaboration with the American Dance Festival, The Forsythe Company, and Frankfurt University in Germany. Tamara is a certified GYROTONIC® Trainer, Reiki Practitioner, and Capoeirista.
Her choreography has been presented nationally and internationally, and her training includes extensive study in Bahia, Brazil, focusing on Silvestre Technique, samba roots, and African-Brazilian dance. As an educator, she has taught master classes throughout the United States and abroad and is committed to expanding access to dance through community engagement and arts education initiatives. Tamara currently serves as Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Jiwon Ha, born and raised in Busan, South Korea, is a dancer, educator, and choreographer with expertise in contemporary, modern technique, ballet, and Korean folk dance. Her passion for dance has driven her to perform, teach, choreograph, and organize events across the U.S., Canada, and South Korea for over 20 years. She currently teaches in the UNC School of the Arts Preparatory Dance Program and at Elon University, along with teaching Modern III/IV at Dance Project. Jiwon has been a recipient of the ACGG grant, served as an Artist in Residence with the North Carolina Dance Festival, and her work has been featured in numerous festivals in North Carolina and abroad.
Kylie Venticinque is a movement artist from Raleigh, NC who recently earned her B.A. in Dance and is completing her minor in Apparel at Appalachian State University. She creates immersive, multidisciplinary work that blends contemporary/modern dance with physical theater. Her 2024 premiere stage piece, Frayed, was reimagined into a dance film by Kylie in collaboration with her partner and videographer Jackson Keys—deepening her interest in cinematic storytelling. Kylie was a 2025 American Dance Festival Merit Scholarship recipient and performed in a Footprints piece under Ravid Abarbanel. Aside from ADF, she has attended many other professional intensives that have shaped her artistry. She hopes to pursue an MFA in Choreography and continue growing through creative work, teaching, and collaboration.
Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen are the founding directors of Asheville’s Stewart/Owen Dance. As choreographers and performers, they create intimate, dynamic contemporary work shaped by curiosity and craft. Since 2014, the husband-and-wife choreographic duo has toured nationally and internationally, earning commissions from the American Dance Festival and the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, and collaborating with artists like Moses Sumney and Sylvan Esso. The pair leads ongoing community classes in Asheville and hosts two annual intensive programs. In 2024 they were featured in Dance Magazine’s “Homegrown Heroes’. Through movement, Stewart and Owen continue to explore how dance can foster connection and reflect the nuance of shared human experience.
Tara Zaffuto Mullins is a Teaching Professor in the NC State Department of Performing Arts and Technology, where she choreographs for and directs the State Dance Company, and teaches a variety of courses. During her time at NC State, she created Operation Breadbasket, a mixed media dance that tells the story of this MLK initiative, Against the Railing, a digital platform and mixed media dance that tells the immigration stories of the NC State community, as well as Resume Normal Activities, a look at gun violence in schools. She has presented research at IADMS, NDEO, recently completed her service as a Faculty Senator, and serves on the Council on Athletics. Tara has an MFA in dance from Arizona State University.
Many alumni of the State Dance Company, and the other NC State dance companies, continue to work as a collective after graduation – performing, teaching, and choreographing in the community and beyond.
