The Aizuri Quartet joined Ballet Des Moines for the 24-25 Season, playing String Quartet No. 5 by Philip Glass for Tom Mattingly’s world premiere Strung.

AIZURI QUARTET
24-25 SEason

The Aizuri Quartet has established a unique position within today’s musical landscape, infusing its music-making with infectious energy, joy, and warmth. The ensemble cultivates curiosity in listeners and invites audiences into the concert experience through its innovative programming and the depth and fire of its performances. 

Praised by The Washington Post for “astounding” and “captivating” performances that draw from its notable “meld of intellect, technique and emotions,” the Aizuri Quartet was named the recipient of the 2022 Cleveland Quartet Award by Chamber Music America, and was awarded the Grand Prize at the 2018 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition.

The Quartet’s debut album, Blueprinting, was released by New Amsterdam Records to critical acclaim (“In a word, stunning” —I Care If You Listen), nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY Award and named one of NPR Music’s Best Classical Albums of 2018. Aizuri’s follow-up album, Earthdrawn Skies, was released in 2023 and praised by NPR as an album that “convincingly connects the dots in wildly diverse music stretching over eight centuries…arousing solemn contemplation, cosmic curiosity, folksy delight and introspective scrutiny.”

The Aizuri believes in an integrative approach to music-making, in which teaching, performing, writing, arranging, curation, and role in the community are all connected. Formed in 2012 and combining four distinctive musical personalities into a powerful collective, the Aizuri Quartet draws its name from “aizuri-e,” a style of predominantly blue Japanese woodblock printing that is noted for its vibrancy and incredible detail. www.aizuriquartet.com

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JARED OAKS, CONDUCTOR
24-25 SEASON

Jared Oaks, one of the leading young ballet conductors in the United States, is Music Director of Ballet West. Since joining the company in 2008, Jared has maintained a rigorous conducting schedule, in addition to playing for rehearsals and classes. He is a regular guest conductor for The Sarasota Ballet and has conducted performances for Houston Ballet and Ballet Des Moines. He has worked with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Sinfonietta, and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, among others.

He recently conducted the premiere of Steve Roens’ chamber opera Look Both Ways, as well as the premiere recording of a new oratorio by Deon Nielsen Price, which is available through Naxos. 

Jared’s numerous compositions include an oratorio about Joan of Arc, with poems by Suzanne Lundquist, and chamber ballets for Ballet West, Charlotte Ballet, and Mid-Columbia Ballet. Jared is a fellow of the American-Scandinavian Foundation and co-founder of the Composer Discovery Initiative.

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Mariana Oliveira joined Ballet Des Moines for the 24-25 Season and created the world premiere Songs of a Distant Land.

MARIANA OLIVEIRA, choreographer
24-25 SEASON
WORLD PREMIERE: songs of a distant land

Originally from Brazil, Mariana Oliveira has created works for several dance organizations, such as the New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute, Joffrey Ballet Winning Works, Ballet West Academy, Kansas City Ballet, Carolina Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, BalletX, Ballet Memphis, Richmond Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Dayton Ballet, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, among others. 

Oliveira is the recipient of the NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts Fellowship, as well the Kansas University Choreographic Fellowship. In 2015, Mariana was nominated for the World Choreography Awards in Los Angeles.

Oliveira is the founder of The Union Project Dance Company, and her works were presented at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, McCallum Theatre Choreography Festival, LA Dance Festival, Tribeca Performing Arts, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, among others.

Oliveira studied at the Royal Academy of Dance in Brazil and London, and was a trainee dancer with the National Dance Company of Wales and Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami. 

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JONATHAN SANFORD, COMPOSER
24-25 SEASON

Jonathan Sanford is a Los Angeles-based composer, music producer, and saxophonist scoring music for films, television, and ballet. He is known for bringing unique sounds and unexpected ideas through an analog exploration process.

Sanford scored the drama feature National Champions for STX Entertainment directed by Ric Waugh and starring J.K. Simmons, Stephan James, and Uzo Aduba. His other work includes Zach Snyder’s The Seneschal, the Amazon series As We See It from executive producer Jason Katims, the Universal / Netflix comedy feature Good On Paper starring Iliza Schlesinger and Margaret Cho and directed by Kimmy Gatewood, the Universal series Killing It starring and executive produced by Craig Robinson, the Netflix series Teenage Bounty Hunters from Tilted Productions (GLOW, Orange Is The New Black, Weeds), and the documentary Hold Your Fire which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. He is also the composer of USA’s noir television drama Dare Me, based on the novel by Megan Abbott. Most recently Jonathan scored the action romance feature Perfect Addiction for Constantin Film, the Apple drama series Dear Edward, and the comedy feature Step Aside. In 2023, he worked with choreographer Katlyn Addition on a new ballet, There Were Two, which premiered in Toronto performed by Ballet Jörgen.

Sanford’s previous work includes the PBS docs-series Hope In The Water, Netflix series Social Distance, the drama romance feature On Our Way, the comedy drama feature Welcome Matt, That Moment When for PBSNews Hour/Facebook Watch, original songs for YouTube’s Weird City, score for the EKO interactive series Timeline, and Off-Broadway stage play Tomorrow In The Battle (Stripped Scripts). Sanford has also scored documentaries for Syracuse professor Richard Breyer, tracks for Run and Jump directed by Oscar-nominated Steph Green, and the first scripted podcast from Shonda Rhimes in partnership with iHeartMedia called #Matter.

Sanford was born in Baltimore, Maryland, studying piano and violin before deciding on the saxophone at age nine. Jonathan went on to study classical saxophone, under the tutelage of Dr. Frederick Hemke at Northwestern University, where he was also a member of the 1996 Big Ten Championship Football Team. As a saxophonist and vocalist, Jonathan has shared the stage with legendary artists including Max Roach, Eddie Palmieri, Danilo Perez, and Bobby McFerrin.

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peter anastos, choreographer
23-24 season

Peter Anastos is a US dancer and choreographer. He first studied ballet in New York and Leningrad, and then began choreographing for various companies, including Eglevsky, San Antonio Ballet, Dallas Ballet, and Pennsylvania Ballet. In 1974, he became a founding member of the comedic, all-male company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, for which he choreographed many works and later became director and principal dancer. 

Since then, he has also worked as resident choreographer of Garden State Ballet, artistic director of Cincinnati Ballet, and artistic director of Ballet Idaho, for which he was appointed in 2007. Anastos retired from his position at Ballet Idaho in 2018, but continues to work as a freelance choreographer, creating works for companies such as Vero Beach Ballet, Ballet San Antonio, and Nevada Ballet Theatre. Read more about Anastos and Les Ballets Trockadero here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/14/arts/dance/les-ballets-trockadero-peter-anastos.html

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DOUGLAS JAYD-BURN, MASTER PIANIST
23-24 SEason

Dr. Douglas-Jayd Burn, a native of Richmond, Virginia, began serious musical study at age 18 and holds degrees in performance from the University of Arizona, the Hartt School, and Virginia Commonwealth University, studying with John Milbauer, David Westfall, and Dmitri Shteinberg respectively, and studying organ with Ardyth Lohuis. He has appeared in masterclasses with Eric Larsen, Sonia Rubinsky, and Edward Newman. He previously served as an instructor at the University of Arizona under the guidance of Lisa Zdechlik, and as a Teaching Fellow at the Hartt School. Burn has adjudicated for the Tucson Music Teachers Arizona Study Program and the Reno Tahoe Piano Competition. In Europe and the United States, he has performed with members of the Zürich Opera Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Deutsch Oper Berlin, Las Colinas Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and Richmond Symphony Orchestra. Burn is a prizewinner of the 2023 Pittsburgh Concert Society Major Artist Competition. He was selected as the Academy Fellow Pianist for the Talis Festival’s 2018 and 2019 seasons. Since 2019, he has performed with Richmond Ballet and accompanied works choreographed by Salvatore Aiello, Jerome Robbins, Tom Mattingly, Mate Szentes, and Ma Cong. He appeared as the Guest Piano Soloist with the Richmond Symphony for Richmond Ballet’s production of Ben Stevenson’s “Dracula” in February 2024. He will return to Richmond Ballet in March 2025 to perform Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain” with violinist Karen Johnson. Burn currently resides in Pittsburgh where he is active as an organist, director, freelance pianist, and ensemble singer. He has previously served as Collaborative Piano faculty at Westminster College in New Wilmington and Director of Music at Sixth Presbyterian Church in Squirrel Hill; currently, he serves as Director of the Pittsburgh Compline Choir, Organist and Choirmaster at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Mount Lebanon, and he is a member of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and Voces Solis. To hear performances and to learn more information regarding upcoming engagements, visit www.douglas-jaydburn.com.

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SHANNON ALVIS, CHOREOGRAPHER
22-23 SEason

Originally from Greenwood, Indiana, Shannon received her training at Butler University and the University of Utah. She had her professional career with both Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Nederlands Dans Theater, performing around the world for over twelve years and dancing works by many world renowned choreographers such as: Jiri Kylian, Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, Jorma Elo, and Crystal Pite. After returning from Europe, Shannon rounded out her stage career with seven productions at the Lyric Opera Chicago including Rob Ashford's Carousel and Francesca Zambello’s West Side Story. Through this concert dance and musical theater experience, Shannon brings with her a rich breadth of knowledge that she now integrates into her teaching and her own creating. She has choreographed work for Visceral Dance Chicago, Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, Ballet Des Moines, The Big Muddy Dance Company in St. Louis, the University of Iowa, and was also a recipient of the Joffrey Ballet’s Winning Work’s Choreographic Competition. She teaches and mentors dancers throughout the Chicago area and has been on faculty at the Joffrey Academy, Interlochen School for the Arts summer faculty, and Visceral Dance Center. Most recently, Shannon completed an MFA in Dance from the University of the Arts with a continued commitment to the revealing of the power of dance as a language that transcends the tangible and to the creation of the future through art.

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JENNIFER ARCHIBALD, choreographer
22-23 SEason

Toronto-born JENNIFER ARCHIBALD is the founder and Artistic Director of the Arch Dance Company and Program Director of ArchCore40 Dance Intensives. Archibald has choreographed for the Ailey II, Atlanta Ballet, Ballet West, Grand Rapids Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, and BalletX among others. She has worked commercially for NIKE, MAC Cosmetics, Tommy Hilfiger, as well as chart-listed artists. She will return to the Crypto Arena to choreograph the opening for KCON’s annual conference. 

She was appointed as the first female Resident Choreographer in Cincinnati Ballet’s 40-year history. Jennifer has been commissioned by BalletMet, Grand Rapids Ballet, BalletX, the Washington Ballet, Smuin Contemporary Ballet and the Kennedy Centre’s Pathways to Performance program to deliver new works in 2025. Ms. Archibald was the acting Movement Director for Michael Kahn’s The Oresteia at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Her directorial debut WeAight was named the Official Selection of the 2022 Dance on Camera Festival.  She creates a “Documentary Ballet” format, in which she creates works rooted in historical history bringing communities together. Her documentary ballets are theatrical engagements that evolve beyond the stage and rely on historical education as an integral part of the creative process.  Her projects in this space include – Breakin’Bricks which honors the community of Black Wall Street produced by Tulsa Ballet; Sounds of the Sun which honors the life of dancer Florence Waren exploring her experience during the holocaust produced by the Pittsburgh Ballet and Seven, a biographical work about Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee commissioned by MADCO Dance Company.

Archibald’s works have been performed at venues including Aaron Davis Hall, Central Park’s Summerstage Mainstage, Jacob’s Pillow Inside|Out Stage, Lincoln Center, New York’s City Center, and The Kennedy Center. She was awarded a Choreographic Fellow for Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab under the direction of Robert Battle and is a Joffrey Ballet Winning Works Choreographic Competition recipient. Her commissioned work “DIRT ” was presented at TED TALK by St. Louis-based MADCO Dance Company. Arch Dance Company’s Chasing Shadows, was remounted for Dallas Black Dance Theater’s 2018/19 season. Archibald was also the 2018-19 recipient of the City of New York Dance Initiative.

She is currently an Acting Lecturer at the Yale School of Drama and was appointed as a Guest Faculty Lecturer to develop the Hip Hop dance curriculum at Columbia/Barnard College. Jennifer is also a guest artist at several universities including Boston Conservatory, Columbia College Chicago, Fordham/Ailey, Goucher College, Miami New World School of the Arts, Purchase College, Point Park, Princeton, South Carolina’s Governor’s School of the Arts, University of South Florida, Oklahoma University and Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a returning guest choreographer for the School at Jacob’s Pillow. www.jenniferarchibald.com

Read more at Dance Magazine: Jennifer Archibald Has Commissions Seemingly Everywhere This Season—But Don’t Call Her An Overnight Success

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STEPHANIE MARTINEZ, CHOREOGRAPHER
21-22, 22-23 SEASONS

Over eleven years of award-winning works, Chicago-based choreographer Stephanie Martinez moves her audiences along a journey guided by the kinetic momentum of her work. With original creations for Joffrey Ballet, Ballet Hispanico, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Charlotte Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Eugene Ballet, Nashville Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Kansas City Ballet, and National Choreographers Initiative among others, Martinez’s versatility expands the boundaries of contemporary ballet movement. Martinez has created over 60 ballets on companies and collegiate programs across the country.

In 2015, Martinez was awarded Joffrey Ballet’s “Winning Works: Choreographers of Color” commission and the Chicago 3Arts Award in recognition for her work as a female artist of color. More recently, Martinez was awarded an NEA grant for her premiere of Bliss! with Joffrey Ballet. Dubbed “a chameleon” of choreography by the Chicago Tribune, Martinez’s psychologically revelatory works challenge the viewer’s notion of what’s possible.

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ilya vidrin, dramaturg
21-22 SEASON

Ilya Vidrin is a choreographer, researcher, and educator situated at the nexus of performing arts, ethics, and interactive media. Born into a refugee family, Ilya grew up navigating the nuances of cultural expectations, language barriers, and diverging political ideologies. This experience of code-switching fuels Ilya's research and artistic practice to examine embodied ethics, including intimate labors of care, cultural competence, and social responsibility. Ilya is Assistant Professor of Creative Practice Research at Northeastern University, Affiliate Faculty in the Institute for Experiential Robotics and Institute for Experiential A.I., Researcher at MetaLab (at) Harvard, and director of the Partnering Lab, an interdisciplinary research platform for investigating embodied ethics in and through shared movement. 

Ilya has been featured as one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" (2022), and invited as a guest artist at the National Choreographic Center, Ballett Schwerin, Freie Universität (Berlin), Boston Ballet, TEDxProvidence, L.A. Contemporary Dance Company, New Museum (NYC), Jacob's Pillow ('18, '19, '23), AREA Gallery, National Parks Service, Harvard ArtLab, The Walnut Hill School, Interlochen Arts Academy, MIT Media Lab, Le Laboratoire, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), North Atlantic Ballet, Ballet Des Moines, and the Harvard Dance Program under Jill Johnson and visiting mentor Francesca Harper. Ilya has written for Dance Magazine, Psyche Magazine, the Boston Art Review, Journal of Performance Research, and has presented internationally at the Conference for Creative Computing, Dance Research Society, International Conference for Robotics and Automation, International Association for Dance Medicine and Science, Movement and Computing, Performance Philosophy Biennale, and the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, among others. 

Drawn to the arts, Ilya began formal dance training at the Boston Ballet School at the age of nine, and has invested time in the study of music (piano&clarinet), as well as social partner dancing, Fusion Dance, Latin/Ballroom, Jewish folk, Argentinian Tango, Horton modern technique, and contact improvisation. Ilya holds teaching certifications in experiential anatomy based on proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation with Irene Dowd, Mat Pilates, and Restorative Yoga. Ilya has worked with Vibeke Toft, Wendy Whelan, Nancy Stark Smith, Sylvain Lafortune, and professional dancers of the Royal Swedish Ballet, Chicago Hubbard Street, Berlin Staatsballett, Boston Ballet, and Erick Hawkins Company. In recent years, Ilya has collaborated with a diverse range of creative professionals across media, including award-winning Japanese Butoh dancers Mutsumi Neiro, dancers Shura Baryshnikov and Danielle Davison, designer Çaca Yvaire, violinist Daniel Kurganov, singer-songwriter Alec Hutson, and New York-based choreographers Brian Brooks, Raja Feather Kelly, and Valeria Solomonoff. As a dancer, Ilya has performed works by Aszure Barton, Crystal Pite, Dwight Rhoden, Jill Johnson, Ohad Naharin, Sidra Bell, Lorraine Chapman, Jim Viera, and Brian Brooks, and Ali Kenner Brodsky, among others. Ilya holds national titles in Competitive DanceSport, including First Place in Open Latin at the U.S. National Collegiate Ballroom Championships and Second Place in Open Latin at the North American Open Championships. From 2011-2020 Ilya directed the Reciprocity Collaborative, a multidisciplinary platform supporting collaboration for a network of creative professionals across disciplines of performing arts, technology, and film.

Alongside artistic practice, Ilya pursued undergraduate studies in Cognitive Neuroscience and Rhetorical Theory at Northeastern University. Ilya completed three years of intensive clinical research training in the Neurology Department at Beth Israel Medical Deaconess Center, with a focus on non-pharmacological therapies for cognitive and neurodegenerative disorders. Ilya went on to graduate school at Harvard University, earning a Master’s Degree in Education with a focus on Human Development and Psychology under the mentorship of advisors Catherine Elgin, Kurt Fischer, and Ellen Langer. While at Harvard, Ilya worked on experimental research projects investigating cognitive models of creative practice and empathy, including biofeedback technology, Therapeutically Active Digital Medicine, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), and Somatic Enrichment. Focusing deeper on ethics in creative practice, Ilya pursued a practice-based PhD funded by the Centre for Dance Research (Coventry University) in the United Kingdom under the mentorship of advisors Sarah Whatley, Scott Delahunta, and Sara Reed. Ilya is an Associate of the Signet Society for the Arts at Harvard, and a professional member of the Dance Studies Association and Association for Moral Education, among others. Ilya is the recipient of several prestigious grants and fellowships, including a Presidential Grant from the Knight Foundation, two Erasmus Fellowships (Bern, Switzerland and Berlin Germany), Derek Bok Fellowship in Literacy, Media, and Visualization (Harvard University), Combined Jewish Philanthropies Arts+Culture Grant, Movement Arts Creation Studio grant, Visiting Scholar Fellowship at the Davis Center (Harvard University), Laban Conservatoire Dance Research Fellowship (London, UK), Centre for Global Engagement Grant (Sapporo, Japan), Byron Fellowship, Three Live Arts Boston Grant (Boston Foundation; 2018/2021/2024), and the Massachusetts Cultural Council Choreographic Fellowship. 

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