About The Artists
Shana Bloomstein is originally from Freedom, ME, this Wabanaki territory. She began moving in nursery school with the love and guidance of her life-long teacher Lisa Newcomb. Her playful exploration of dance continued with Lisa throughout her upbringing in Maine, with a clear focus beginning by the age of 13 in creative movement and modern dance; inspired deeply by the offerings of dance teachers from West Africa and beyond. She began choreographing her own work around the age of 10 and performing in any local variety show she could drag her parents to. She studied with the African diaspora Richard Gonzales, Abdoulaye Sylla , and Arthur Hall as well as exploring briefly the idioms of ballet, tap and jazz. Shana danced professionally as a teenager with Arthur Hall in Ile Ife Philadelphia Maine Co., with Sara Yarborough former Alvin Ailey member and in a small Modern Dance Co. Stella Dance Theatre with Karen Tvarian and Joan Proadman. She continued her studies of dance/edu. at Hampshire College in ’98, where she met her mentor and “dance mother”; artist and educator Nia Love (Fulbright Fellow). Shana moved to NYU in ’99 and performed as an original member of Loves' then Blacksmith's Daughter Dance Theatre Co. for 4 yrs. Shana has performed and collaborated across the country with Jesse Phillips-Fein and Sarah Sibley. Her explorations in dance have taken her abroad, including studies in Senegal, West Africa with Babacar M'Baye. Shana currently works as a Pediatric PTA and runs a private practice cycles of life therapeutic massage as a LMT. She facilitates dance and yoga with both children and adults throughout the state of Maine and primarily at The Belfast Dance Studio. Shana is a certified Yoga instructor and lover of the human body and all it is capable of. She facilitates residencies throughout mid coast Maine and enjoys any opportunity to work with children and adults to integrate dance as a healing art. Shana performs as a solo improv/modern dance based artist throughout New England and has been producing, directing, dancing and offering this work called Women's Works for the past 16 years. Shana's greatest creative inspiration is being a mother to her two children Dawud and Nnenaya.
Dawud Bloomstein is a recent graduate Honor Society of Maine Arts Academy in Sidney, ME where he was Piano major and member of the Chamber Singers and Civil Rights Team. Dawud is off to his final summer at New England Music Camp at Snow Pond Arts Institution. Dawud will be attending Berklee College of Music in the Fall with plans to study Music Therapy and Concert Piano. Dawud has a deep love for music, family and the natural world. He is currently working at Village Side Farm in Freedom. Dawud was in his first dance performance nestle in a sling on his Mama’s back in NYC when he was 10 months old!
Nnenaya Bloomstein just completed her Sophomore in HS at Mount View in Thorndike, ME where she is a member of the MV Chamber Singers, Civil Rights Team, Equity and Cultural Responsiveness team, and the Gay Straight Alliance. Nnenaya has been dancing and performing with her Mom and the Collective Women's Works since she was a 2 years old. Women's Works began when she was a baby and is celebrating it's 16th year along with Nnenaya this year! Nnenaya is currently in an apprenticeship program with Jean Appolon Expressions Haitian dance Company in Boston, MA that meets weekly via Zoom for rehearsals with an upcoming performance in August.
Jenny Cobuzzi is a Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, a ME Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and a NY Licensed Creative Arts Therapist. Jenny's professional performance background includes dancing for Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruise Lines, Princess Cruise Lines, original cast member in "Adrian Zmed in Concert" (Adrian Zmed of Grease fame) featured dancer in Sandcastle Saipan's magic show at the Hyatt Regency (Saipan, CNMI), dancer and manager of "Mystique" at CanobieLake Park (NH) under the direction of the "God of Magic", Paul Osborne. Jenny's national tours include: The magic of David Copperfield and Dance Olympus VIP tour. Jenny has served at the Jeannette Neill dance studio in Boston as a substitute teacher and personal assistant to Jeannette Neill, and forTommy Tune, and Baayork Lee (of A Chorus Line fame) during Swellegance. Jenny has performed in productions for Granite State Ballet, Northeast Youth Ballet and New England Civic Ballet. Jenny has undergraduate degrees in Dance and Business Management from Marymount Manhattan College in New York and was also chosen to train at Jacobs Pillow. Jenny currently dances for Party Excitement and and loves dancing with the company of Women's Works! Jenny also teaches at Belfast Dance Studio as well as Thomas School of Dance and enjoys teaching people who are eager to learn the technique and artistic expression of dance!
Born and raised in South Korea, Kyung-sun is originally trained in Korea’s prestigious Korean National University of the Arts as a dancer and choreographer. Kyung-sun lived in the Netherlands from 2001-2011 where she studied at the School for New Dance Development, was regularly in demand by a diverse range of european choreographers and was a member of the Magpie Music Dance Company (2004-2006) in Amsterdam (NL)—one of the world’s leading improvisation-based dance groups.
Kyung-sun’s career as a modern dancer in Korea and the Netherlands gives her a rich background for what’s evolved into a deeply rewarding second phase of her professional life: working with women to help them feel fit, free and empowered by working synergistically with both body & mind. She works with individuals and groups to help them gain more energy, flow, strength and personal freedom. Kyung-sun is currently certified in Both Gyrotonic Expansion System and The UZAZU Embodied Life Coaching method. She started the Freeport Mind-body Fitness Studio out of her home in Freeport Maine where she lives with her husband Dylan Newcomb and their very active and 'embodied' six year old daughter Kiana.
After a more than 7-year break from dancing on stage, Kyung-sun feels very grateful to be involved in Women’s Work. "Feeling, listening, sharing this space with these people… Creating rich new experiences through movement… It’s so deeply rewarding for me!"
Molly Gawler finds great joy in dancing. She grew up in Belgrade Maine, and as a high schooler studied ballet with Andrei Bossov in Pittsfield, Maine. She furthered her dance training with contemporary and modern at the conservatory of dance at SUNY Purchase in NY. Molly toured the world with Pilobolus Dance Theater and stared in the lead role of the 'dog-girl' in the show Shadowland. With Pilobolus she had the honor of performing at the Oscar Academy Awards, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, for the Queen of England, and the Golden Globes. The experience of traveling the world with art to share has been rewarding and some of the most memorable moments have been in Japan, South Africa, Greece, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, and France. Curiosity of other movement led her to study circus at New England Center for Circus Arts in Brattleboro Vermont where she learned Cyr Wheel, Aerial Arts and Acrobatics. Molly came full circle, back home to Maine where she started Droplet Dance in 2014 and to this day choreographs solo works for the celebration of water in our world, telling stories through performance art. Music permeates through all aspects of her life ~ rowing on the water, sings worksongs on farms in the Belfast, mothering her kids, devotional chants of Kirtan, as well as on stage with the Gawler Family Band. She is passionate about healing work and offers Thai Massage which feels akin to the dance work in life. Currently Molly resides in Monroe on a small homestead on woodland hill with her husband Lao, dog Acadia, angel baby Holman and 2 year old Caspian.
Caleb Anthony Green is a dance and theater practitioner from Brooklyn. They are currently finishing their BFA at Middlebury College in Vermont, where they met their collaborator, Matea. They are graduating early next year with a joint focus in Dance and Theater. At Middlebury, they has been mentored by Christal Brown, Michole Biancosino, Lida Winfield, their peers and countless other performers who have passed through the space. They have spent the past year producing two original works autobiography of red // decreation and alone abides in the house of heaven. After graduating, they are planning to move west with their partner and continue to study dance, join liberatory organizing efforts in their community and make art.
In her 12th Women’s Works season Katenia Keller is revisiting and adding to a work that she choreographed in 1999, ‘Evolve’, from the full-length piece ‘Universal Solvent’. She has created 13 original full-length dance works that she toured and performed with her company Flying Feet Dance Theatre. She is Dance Director and Choreographer for the Maine Dance Institute, Dance Artist-in-Residence for the Maine Alliance for Arts Education, and on the Maine Arts Commission Teaching Artist Roster. Katenia is also a visual artist whose work first appeared as full stage set paintings and sculptures for dance. She is the author and artist of Pythias Sacred Geometry Tarot and her work can be seen on-line at kateniakeller.com.
Hanna DeHoff grew up in Camden and attended Camden-Rockport schools and is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, The University of Maine in Orono and the Swedish Institute of Massage in NYC. After a career of dance and theater in NYC and many hours working in restaurants she returned to Mid-Coast Maine in 2005 with her husband David Troup. She has worked locally with many groups and most recently has danced and choreographed pieces for Women’s Works with Shana Bloomstein and dancers from 2010-2017. She also choreographed a full length production of “L’Histoire du Soldat” for Everyman Repertory in 2014 and most recently John Burstein’s “Night Kitchen” for its premier in December 2016. She continues to teach Modern Dance and Yoga in the area and also has a Massage Therapy Practice in Rockland.
Matea Mills-Andruk is a Maine based choreographer, dancer, and teaching artist. She graduated from Middlebury College where she studied and danced with Laurel Jenkins, Lida Winfield, Christal Brown, Jennifer Ponder, and Julian Barnett.She is interested in radical communication and hopes to share the delights of the baby leaves in the spring and the awe towards life that comes out of intense emotions. Her creationprocess includes compositional improvisation, radical interaction exercises (drawn from performance art and theatre), and somatic experiences. She believes in dance as a medium in which to reimagine the ways we interact with each other and our environments within the world. She draws from an interest in holistic medicine and plant communication, and a background in neuroscience and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. Her work celebrates creation over production and is informed by menstruation, collective living, disruption of the nuclear family, the generative power of staying, and the moon.
Lisa Newcomb started dancing at the age of 6 with creative dance teacher Mrs. Gage. She taught her first creative dance class in the family basement at 14. It wasn't until her late 20s that she met Arthur Hall and discovered her next love, African & Caribbean dance. Dance has taken her many places including Africa,
Brazil, NYC, throughout the United States, with opportunities to study with many amazing teachers. In 1985 she founded the Belfast Dance Studio and the following year began teaching dance residencies in the public schools throughout Maine along with Drummer Jeff Densmore. She and Jeff continue to work together both in the studio & school settings.
Jesse Phillips-Fein is a dancer, choreographer, dance educator, and producer of multi-genre shows that explore the intersection of politics, power, identity, and the arts. She grew up in Brooklyn NY, where
she studied dance at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) and The Dalton School, holds a B.A. in Dance & Cultural Anthropology from Smith College, a Diploma in Dance Studies from the Laban Centre in London,
England, and completed the EMERGE program at the Hemispheric Institute for Performance & Politics. She currently teaches Middle & High School dance at the Brooklyn Friends School, and is completing a Masters program at New York University. She is writing her thesis on performances of “Neoliberal Whiteness” in contemporary dance practices that occur outside theatrical settings. www.jumpoffdance.org.
Joan Proudman trained with the Classical Ballet Academy of Connecticut. At age 16 she received a full scholarship to Boston Ballet and performed with the company at the Music Hall and as a guest artist with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In Maine Joan danced solo roles with Portland Ballet including Mercetes and Queen of the Gypsies (Don Q), Winter Fairy (Cinderella) and Arabian and Rose (Nutcracker). She was a full-time
member of Ram Island Dance Company under Daniel McCusker for six years. At Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Joan got to work with noted choreographers Ralph Lemon, Wendy Perron, Trisha Brown and Yoskiko Chuma. Joan taught Ballet and Modern Dance in Portland, Camden and Belfast before meeting Shana Bloomstein and Stella Dance Theatre was formed. Joan joined Women’s Works in 2006. A free-lance artist with a Fine Arts degree from USM, Joan is the resident graphic designer for Women’s Works.
