CalArts Winter Dance Festival

Brigette Dunn-Korpela is a transdisciplinary dance artist, choreographer, educator, and arts leader working at the intersection of contemporary movement, African diasporic traditions, immersive tech, and social justice. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Matter + Light (formerly B. Dunn Movement), where she directs ECHO Immersion, a multi-sensory performance installation interrogating the “Middle Passage Data Gap” through choreography, wearable technology, and generative AI retrained to honor Black diasporic aesthetics and histories. Her practice is anchored in her pioneering methodologies of geotemporal echolocation and ancestral algorithms, which treat the physical body as an alternative archive of cultural memory. Her creative research draws from Black feminist thought, somatic practice, and performance theory, engaging practices of wake work and Black geographies inspired by scholars and theorists like Christina Sharpe, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Brenda Dixon Gottschild. Dunn-Korpela’s choreography has been presented at venues including REDCAT, MOCA Geffen, the Center for New Performance, and South Coast Repertory. Her extensive 35-year performance history includes serving as Dance Captain for Disney’s The Lion King First National Tour and dancing with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble and PHILADANCO II, performing works by seminal icons such as Katherine Dunham, Eleo Pomare, Donald McKayle, and Ronald K. Brown. A 2025 Dance/USA Artist Fellowship Finalist, she has presented her research on choreographic AI globally at the Beijing Dance Academy, the UCLA AI + Live Arts Summit, and the University of Malta. She holds an MFA in Choreography from CalArts, where she serves as Associate Dean and faculty at The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance, championing decolonial, anti-racist models for emerging movement artists.

Crystal Jackson Singletary is a movement artist, choreographer, and DJ from Tampa, FL. Her work spans commercial stages and the street dance scene. Since moving to LA, she has worked with brands including Nike,Red Bull, Foot Locker and Target. Via concert stages and music videos she’s been able to showcase her talents alongside artists including Doechii, Tinashe, Snoop Dogg, Camila Cabello and YG, to name a few. One of her proudest street dance accomplishments is winning Ladies of Hip Hop 2024. Her main goal is to show young dancers that they don’t have to be rigid about the lane that they pick. Jackson Singletary is Special Faculty in The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts. 

Rosanna Tavarez received an MFA in Choreography from The Ohio State University as a University Fellow and a Teaching Fellow and a BFA in Choreography from University of Michigan. She has a diverse background as a performer/entertainer and has had the honor of working with Marina Abramović, Ryan Heffington, Travis Payne, Tony Michaels, and Rosanna Gamson/Worldwide. She also toured with *NSYNC and Jessica Simpson as one-fifth of the girl group Eden’s Crush and covered the Emmys, Grammys and Oscars in addition to hosting her own shows as a television personality for FOX, E!, TVGuide Network, and Telemundo/NBC. Tavarez is one of eleven certified American Countertechnique teachers. In 2023, after co-leading her first One Body One Career Intensive with Founder Anouk Van Dijk at Gibney in New York City, she became a Senior Teacher. Tavarez has had the pleasure of teaching Countertechnique nationally and internationally. Tavarez’s work has been presented at The Broad Museum, ODC Theater, REDCAT, Dance Camera West, The Odyssey, Breaking Ground Dance Festival, LA Department of Cultural Affairs’ LA Dance Platform, Sarasota Contemporary Dance, and Highways Performance Space, and has been supported by Cal State LA’s Research, Scholarship and Creativity Awards, CalArts, ARC grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, UCLA Hothouse Residency, and Show Box LA. As a dance educator, Tavarez has taught as faculty and guest artist at numerous institutions including USC Kaufman School of Dance, University of Michigan, Loyola Marymount University, Scripps College, CalState Long Beach, Studio School, University of Southern Mississippi, Texas State University, and Cal State LA. Currently she serves as the BFA Program Director at The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts.

Odessa Mae Uno is a movement based Filipino American artist currently working in Southern California. She received her BFA in Dance from California Institute of the Arts where she studied performance, choreography, and pedagogy. She has most recently performed with DISCO RIOT, Fresh Congress Dance, Maraya Performing Arts. She has also performed in works by Dimitri Chamblas, Gerard & Kelly, Solange, Jay Carlon, and Nina Flagg. Her choreographic commissions include Malashock Dance, San Diego Dance Theater, Canyon Crest Academy, Coronado School of the Arts, and San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. She was the 2021 winner of San Diego Dance Theater’s Emerging Choreographers Showcase and Prize. Uno’s practice is centered on the belief that through movement we have the power to create crucial social connections by sharing our stories and providing support for others to cultivate and strengthen communities. The foundation of Uno’s work endlessly references her belief in the importance of community, connection, and integrity.

Photo by Josh Rose.