Artistic Director

Dixie FunLee Shulman graduated summa cum laude with an M.F.A. in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1994. She created new dances from 1994 – 1999 in Seattle under the name Intensely Fun Dance Theatre. Shulman then relocated to New York City and began a new company called Dixie Fun Dance Theatre. Web was the company's first full evening of dance/theatre in NYC, which was performed at the Merce Cunningham Studio in 2001 and then at BAX in 2004.

Since 2002, Shulman has performed her signature solo, "Twirl," in Dance Theater Workshop's Fresh Tracks series; PS122's Avant-Garde-Arama; the Dancenow/NYC Festival at Joe's Pub, Dance Theater Workshop and the John Jay Auditorium; WAX; University Settlement; and the Estrogenius Festival at manhattan theater source. In the Seattle area during the summer of 1998, "Twirl" was toured with the King County Performance Network, a collaboration between the King County Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and eleven local venues.

Also in 2002 Shulman premiered her one-woman show, The Thinnest Woman Wins, at Dixon Place and Sal Anthony's Movement Salon, with later performances at Teatro dell'Elfo in Milan, Teatro Annibal Caro in Civitanova Marche, Italy, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Philadelphia Fringe Festival (now Live Arts Festival), Minnesota Fringe Festival, Boulder International Fringe Festival, First Glance Festival in Atlanta, and Canopy Studio in Athens, Georgia. Excerpts were performed at Studio 303 in Montreal, New Dance Alliance's Performance Mix at HERE Arts Center, BAAD! in the Bronx, and at BRIC Studio in Brooklyn.

In 2003 the Open Meadows Foundation and the Puffin Foundation supported the NYC creation of The Thinnest Woman with the Fewest Wrinkles Wins at Joyce SoHo. This production also began in Seattle with the support of the King County Hotel/Motel Tax and the On The Boards Artist Access Program.

The company performed http://www.media-verse.com in 2002 at HERE Arts Center, a piece that had its start with the help of the Seattle Arts Commission.

“Mwah-mwah” was premiered at Dance Theater Workshop and Joe’s Pub with the Dancenow/NYC Festival in 2005. “Mwah-mwah” is inspired by Richard Conniff’s The Natural History of the Rich, a humorous, pseudo-scientific book comparing the rich to the rest of the animal kingdom.

In 2004 the initial ideas of The Money Show were premiered at Symphony Space in the Dance Sampler. The ideas were further developed for a showing at Joyce SoHo with the Performance Mix Festival. In 2006 a work-in-progress showing of The Money Show was seen at Dixon Place followed by the big premiere at Dance New Amsterdam three months later. This performance was made possible in part by the Manhattan Community Arts Fund/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

In 2007 Shulman premiered a new solo called “Friends” at DTW with the Dancenow/NYC Festival. “Friends” was also seen in ’08 at DTW again with the Dancenow/NYC Festival, in the Performance Mix at Joyce SoHo, and also at the 92nd Street Y. “Friends” is one of the solos in The Lonely, Post-Modern, Artsy-Fartsy Peep Show, which has been selected twice to receive performance space through LMCC’s Swing Space program. The project has also received funding in part by the Manhattan Community Arts Fund/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and from the Puffin Foundation.

Collaborating Guest Artists for

The Lonely, Post-Modern, Artsy-Fartsy Peep Show

Karen Bernard is an eclectic creator and solo performer whose work has appeared at the Royal Albert Hall as part of Captain Beefheart's Magical Band British tour to conceptual live performance at the Tate Gallery in London in collaboration with artist David Tremlett. In New York she produced several full-length concerts of her work between 1986 and 1998 at Dia Center for Arts and has been produced at numerous venues including BAX, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace, Dixon Place, PS122 and The Kitchen. She has performed, taught and lectured throughout the United States, Canada and abroad. She has been featured on public television through Egg, Channel 13 and New Arts Alive, Pennsylvania BCTV. In 2005 she co-published a handmade book "Removed Exposure", based on her live performance of the same name in collaboration with Montréal artist Gray Fraser/Production Gray, her daughter Alex Wixon and Newfoundland photographer Sheilagh O'Leary. She has received support through the Experimental Television Center, Meet the Composer, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Puffin Foundation, The Field's Independent Artist Challenge Program Grant and Movement Research Artist in Residence. She received a 2006 BAX10 award for the founding and development of New Dance Alliance's Performance Mix Festival. www.newdancealliance.com

Cheryl Harnest chronicles a journey from drama queen to dharma queen in her solo show, SACRED IS THE NEW PROFANE, Winner of the 2008 Midtown International Theatre Festival for Outstanding Overall Production of a Solo Show. The show was remounted in the Women@Work Festival with proceeds going to the Young Girls Scholarship Program in Niger. Harnest also wrote and performed a solo show entitled, MOTHERLOAD, produced in Los Angeles, CA. The LA Weekly said: “Harnest stripes her victims with comic skid marks.” The play was re-staged at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, and was artist-in-residence at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her full-length play, SCARED CLOUDS, has had staged readings in Ensemble Studio Theater’s Octoberfest, as well as Naked Angel’s Writers’ Forum. As a Teaching Artist, she has worked with organizations such as the Jewish Community Center and Periwinkle National Theatre. Cheryl is a Certified Radical Forgiveness Coach, ordained clergy member and founder of The Distillery, the-distillery.org, an organization devoted to using our creativity to refine our divine essence.

Victoria Libertore (aka Howling Vic) is performance artist, actress, playwright, and improviser. Libertore conceived and performed The Should Dream, created in collaboration with Ryan Migge. It was performed to sold- out houses as part of terraNova Collective's solo Festival at PS122. The Should Dream has also been performed at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Provincetown, MA and The West End Theatre. She has written and performed stalk(her) in collaboration with Kimberly I. Kefgen (BAX, Dixon Place , Independent Studios, Judy’s Chelsea, Six Figures Theatre Company). She also created an evening of Vaudeville, V-Ville, in collaboration with Tony nominee Rebecca Feldman (Artists of Tomorrow Series). Libertore appeared in Montreal's festival of Edgy Women, in Hysteria: A Festival of Women in Toronto and headlined in the Philly Fringe Festival. Libertore performed at Cirque du Soleil's opening party for Corteo. She appeared in Dance Theatre Etcetera's Angels, Accordians and Art as part of an interactive site-specific performance created for the Ron Mueck exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. She was chosen as one of 12 artists in New York City to perform in Naked & Twisted, a paid-per-view burlesque TV special to appear on Comedy Net. Libertore's performed her original performance art throughout New York City, Philly & Boston at dozens of venues including Joe's Pub, Joyce SoHo (New Dance Alliance) and Theatre for the New City. Her play How Crazy Joe Met His Wife was produced and published by Estrogenius and Monster and Lola was a Humana Festival Finalist. She was a founding member of the long form improv troupe Devil’s Dancebelt, who performed at Caroline's on Broadway, and Variety Underground. Her studies include Balinese mask with Per Brahe and Grotowski with Raïna von Waldenburg. She has a BFA in Theatre Performance from Otterbein College.

Susan Oetgen earned a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the Catholic University of America in 1999. In 2003 she premiered the role of Mimi in Bob Massey’s multi-media indie-rock opera The Nitrate Hymnal, under the joint auspices of Washington Performing Arts Society and Anti-Social Music, Inc. This opera marked the beginning of her involvement in new music and experimental theater. Since then, Susan has performed with outfits as diverse as Anti-Social Music, Inc., composer Andrew Shapiro, the Tony Melone Trio, the Howard Fishman Quartet, Gloria Deluxe and her own experimental pop ensemble, Likeness to Lily, whose debut record Solitude’s Dollhouse was released independently in 2006. She has also written music for and performed in choreographer Daniel Burkholder’s Horizon Light, a retelling of Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring, presented at the Kennedy Center in 2005 and Dance Place in Washington, DC, in 2006. For Washington, DC’s inaugural Capital Fringe Festival in 2006, Susan wrote and performed the premiere of her solo music/theater piece called Improvised Experimental Diva, which was selected for performance in 2006 as part of NYU’s Theatrix Festival of New Works. Recently, she has performed the role of Bambi Fern in composer/performer Cynthia Hopkins’ modern operetta Must Don’t Whip ‘Um at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, Arts at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn, the Wexner Center in Columbus, On The Boards in Seattle, the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and RedCat in Los Angeles.

David Parker is a performer and artistic director David Parker and the Bang Group. He grew up in Lynnfield, Massachusetts and began studying tap and ballet in Boston while he was a teenager. He later discovered modern dance while attending Bard College. After performing in several tap, folk and contemporary dance companies in New York City, Parker began to make his own dances. One of his first, "Bang and Suck," was awarded a finalist prize at the Fourth International Competition for Choreographers of Contemporary Dance in Groningen, The Netherlands in 1994 and was a special citation of the Kurt Jooss Award jury in Essen, Germany in 2001. Parker recently choreographed the evening-length production of "Dylan Dog" for the Verona Ballet in Italy with Jeffrey Kazin in the title role. This dance/theater work with songs featured 44 members of the Verona Ballet and was based on the adventures of an Italian comic book hero. Parker choreographed an industrial for Stolichnaya vodka which appeared simultaneously in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington DC. David Parker has recently been invited to create a new work for the Anna Sokolow Players Project in collaboration with the Paris based Impromptu Wind Quintet. He currently serves on the faculty of The Alvin Ailey School in New York where he teaches dance composition and improvisation and is a guest professor throughout the U.S. and Europe. Parker is a founding member of The Pink Ribbons Project/Dancers in Motion Against Breast Cancer and serves on the board of directors of The Field.

Eileen Stevens has performed and/or worked with The Public Theater, Theater for a New Audience, Jane Comfort and Company, Meredith Monk, the Dessoff Choirs, C4 Chorus, Tigger Benford, Leah Kreutzer Dance Company, and Voice and Vision Theater. She served in the Peace Corps in St. Lucia from 1996-1998 and her one-woman show, "Tings", is based on that experience. Her voice can be heard on, “Loving Che”, a book on tape by Ana Menendez, and as the English voice for Belledandy on “Ah! My Goddess”, a Japanese anime. She holds a BFA in Performance Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Anna Venizelos has returned to New York City following a three year contract with Cirque du Soleil's Quidam. As part of the Asia/Pacific tour in 2004, she participated in the aerial hoops act as part of a women's trio. In 2006 during the North America/Canada Tour, Anna took on the featured solo, contortion in silks. Anna has also performed with Montreal based circus companies, Les Gens d'R and Cirque Eloize. Before taking on her aerial career, Anna attended NYU's School of Education as a Dance Major. She discovered her love for contortion through the practice of Astanga Yoga, which she studied and taught rigorously. These days she and her sister Emily are combining their airborne flexibility and soaring to new heights together.

Dixie Fun Dance Theatre performers

Alberto Denis (BA in Theater/Dance, Rhode Island College, summa cum laude) Alberto recently transitioned from his role as a company member with Arthur Aviles Typical Theater and has performed in projects for Dixie Fun Dance Theatre, Palissimo Dance Theater, Alethea Adsitt and Dancers, Heidi Latsky Dance, Lawrence Goldhuber, Luis Lara Malvacias, Erica Essner Performance Co-op, JoAnna Mendl Shaw’s Equus Projects, and Mei Yin Ng’s Mei-Be Whatever. His choreography has been produced at Danspace Project’s Food For Thought, Dixon Place’s Body Blend and Moving Men, and BAAD! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance). His sound designs include works for Alexandra Beller, Richard Rivera’s Physual, Nathan Trice, Arthur Aviles and Karl Anderson. Alberto has taught Arthur Aviles' Swift/Flow technique as well as Contact Improvisation, and Composition at Trinity College, Lourdes College and the Kinetics Dance Theater Summer Intensive, in Baltimore, MD where he also completed a newly commissioned work titled aWay.

Kelly Hayes loves dancing with Dixie Fun Dance Theatre because it draws on her extensive background as a jazz dancer and a cheerleader. Kelly is a dancer, actor, and singer currently working with Carrie Ahern Dance, Blessed Unrest, and the incomparable cast of Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant. Kelly’s choreography has been produced by The Performance Mix Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and Solar One among others. She was recognized with a New York Innovative Theatre Award Nomination for Outstanding Choreography for Burn, Crave, Hold: The James Wilde Project with Blessed Unrest in 2008. She has also produced three full evenings of dance with Katy Orthwein as RedShift Dance. In the daytime hours, Kelly can be found hanging out with the preschool crowd perfecting her knowledge of Hannah Montana and all things princess.

Carrie Malernee is originally from Palm Beach, Florida and received her B.S in Dance Education from the University of South Florida. Since relocating to New York Carrie has danced with KDNY and is currently a member of Maria Colaco Dance. Carrie has been performing with Dixie Fun Dance since 2002. In addition to performing, Carrie pays her bills by teaching dance at P.S 154 in the South Bronx. Fortunately, dance has provided Carrie with the opportunity to tour nationally and internationally. Carrie hopes to continue creating great art and inspiring her students to do the same.

Katy Orthwein is a choreographer and dancer based in New York City. She is the co-Artistic Director of RedShift Dance with Kelly Hayes. RedShift Dance has performed in Georgia, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Virginia and throughout New York City. RedShift is currently creating their next evening of work to be shown in the Joyce SoHo season in June 2008. Katy’s solo work Overexposed was showcased as part of Joyce SoHo Presents in NYC and will be presented at Studio 303 in Montreal in Spring 2008. Katy grew up in Amherst, WI and received her BFA at Ohio State University, where she was a member of the University Dance Company. In New York, Katy has danced for Dixie Fun Dance Theatre, jill sigman/thinkdance, Pele Bauch, Lisa Gonzales and Elizabeth Solomon. Katy currently studies dance with Christine Wright and is a licensed massage therapist.

Dixie Fun Set Design and Creation

David Dingman: Embracing an ever-wider range of materials, technologies, and techniques, David is a mechanical engineer based in Connecticut. With professional experience in carpentry, machine design, electronics, and having participated in serious projects in practically all of the arts, he has brought his facility to Shulman's projects for more than four years, and strives to allow the vision of the artist to emerge as unimpeded as possible.