Collaborators
& Funders

Cellist and Composer Michelle Kinney is a lifelong improviser inspired by collaborative, cross-genre and non-traditional contexts for the cello.

Laurie Van Wieren and Michelle have been great friends and art partners for a long time and continue to inspire each other. Other notable dance collaborations include working with Ananya Chatterjea, Carl Flink, Cyrus Khambatta (Seattle) and Sarah Berges (San Francisco). Michelle’s current bands performing her compositions are Maithree, led by South Indian Veena virtuoso Nirmala Rajasekar. And a new venture, Herbaceous, with pianist Joe Strachan and saxophonist Brandon Wozniak, which recently played Ice House to a very enthusiastic audience.The short list of TC music artists featuring Michelle’s cello include Dylan Hicks, Aby Wolf & Eric Mason’s Champaign Confetti, Zeitgeist projects, Chastity Brown, Mary Ellen Childs, George Cartwright, Noah Ophoven Baldwin and Charles Gorczynski’s Kingfield Tango. Michelle’s work has been recognized by McKnight Foundation, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Bush Foundation, Jerome Foundation, MN State Arts Board, NEA/Rockefeller, and American Composers Forum.

Alys Ayumi Ogura is a storyteller through her movements, voice, and quirky humor. Growing up an only child in Japan gave her enough room to develop a strong imagination. After trading Japanese rice fields for Iowa corn fields, Ogura saw that dance and movement would the best outlets for her to share her ever-percolating stories from her life experiences. Ogura’s movement and choreography are most influenced by her first two mentors, the late Mika Kurosawa, godmother of Japanese contemporary dance, and Rob Scoggins, her former college dance professor, who each offered boundless encouragement.

Ogura has worked in the Twin Cities since 2010 with more than 30 artists—near and far—including Hauser Dance, Emily Johnson/Catalyst, Emily Gastineau, Sandrine Harris, Kata Juhasz, Pam Gleason, Pramila Vasudevan, and Laurie Van Wieren. She has toured with April Sellers’ ASDC and with Sarah LaRose-Holland’s KEDC, and she has performed her choreography at various Twin Cities venues, including the Southern Theater, Walker Art Center, and the Cedar Cultural Center. She has created more than 10 works and she has shown her improvisations in various spaces, including the St. Paul skyway and the Mississippi riverbank.

Ogura is a former Arts Organizing Institute Fellow (2017-18) and a Naked Stages Fellow (2021). She recently received support to show her new work as a part of Isolated Acts, 2023 New Works 4 Weeks Festival at the Red Eye Theater. She serves on the DanceMN steering committee, and she supports MN Artist Coalition efforts.

jules bither (they/them) is a dance artist living in south Minneapolis. They love 2 collaborate w/ claire king & perform with HIJACK, Anna Marie Shogren, Chris Schlichting & always, LVW.

Charles Campbell (he/him) is a performer and creator. He co-founded the experimental performance organization, Skewed Visions in 1996, and the alternative performance/studio space, Fresh Oysters Performance Research in 2015.

Lauren Coleman (she/her) is an independent multidisciplinary artist, performer and graphic designer based in Minneapolis. In her visual and performance work, Coleman explores the complexities and intersections of blackness and womanhood through modes of spatiality, desire and belonging. Lauren’s work has been featured at the American Swedish Institute, Walker Art Center, Bryant Lake Bowl Theater, and the Soo Visual Arts Center.

Non Edwards (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and Gyrokinesis Method trainer. In June, Non received a 2020 McKnight Dancer Fellowship. She has enjoyed working with Laurie Van Wieren in different capacities since 2010.

Dana K. Kassel (she/her) has been dancing under the Minnesota stars for over three decades. She is Program Associate for the McKnight Fellowship Programs in Dance and Choreography, and Company Manager for Threads Dance Project.

Megan Mayer is an artist working with choreography, dance, experimental video and photography. She obsesses over minimalism, mimicry, tenderness, wry humor, loneliness, fake bad timing and exacting musicality, and feels most like herself when she is onstage being with other people. Her work received a 2016 McKnight Fellowship for Choreographers and a 2015 Sage Dance Award for Outstanding Design. Her piece Tenacious C, a pap smear for the stage, a response to the current and hostile attack on women’s bodies and access to healthcare, was featured in the 2016 Walker Art Center's Choreographer's Evening. www.meganmayer.com

Anna Marie Shogren is a dance artist connected to caregiving, grief, social dance, touch; researching this work recently for an exhibition at the Rochester Art Center in fall of 2022 and as an Art and Health Resident at the Weisman Art Museum, working in collaboration with the School of Nursing, 2018-2019. She makes experiential and dance-based installations for public, visual art, and private spaces. She has presented work largely in Minneapolis and New York, and performed in the work of Emily Gastineau, Goshka Macuga, Emilie Pitoiset, Body Cartography Project, Yanira Castro, Kaz Sherman, Hijack, Morgan Thorson, Faye Driscoll, and Laurie Van Wieren. She is invested in care work and health justice as a hospice CNA, a single mother, and a fledgling death doula, and a pre-nursing student. Her practice is extended as a writer with MNartists, NY Arts Magazine and artist-run publications.

Pramila Vasudevan is the Artistic Director of Aniccha Arts (since 2004) an interdisciplinary performing arts group that primarily sources dance and digital media perspectives to create site specific performances. Influences include Dr. Bala Nandakumar, Roshan Vajifdar Ghosh, Ranee Ramaswamy, Dr. Ananya Chatterjea, Piotr Szyhalski, & Steve Dietz. Recently, she has been studying somatic practices with Olive Bieringa & Otto Ramstad, and Doushin Butoh with Gadu. She is a 2016 Mcknight fellow for choreography, the Director of Naked Stages (since 2016), a resident artist with Pillsbury House Theatre (2010-2017), and a teaching artist with Upstream Arts (since 2014).