Summer Dance Workshop with the 
Martha Graham Dance Company

2008 Faculty and Guest Artists

Artistic Director, Janet Eilber began performing with the Company in 1972 while still a student at the Juilliard School. During her time as a principal dancer, Eilber worked closely with Martha Graham, performed on all national and international tours, soloed at the White House, was partnered by Rudolf Nureyev, and starred in three segments of Dance in America. She danced many of Graham’s greatest roles, had many roles created for her by Graham, and has since taught, lectured, and directed Graham ballets internationally. She has four Lester Horton awards for performance and reconstruction of seminal American dance. Eilber is also Director of Arts Education for the Dana Foundation and a trustee of the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Senior Artistic Associate Denise Vale began her professional performing career with the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1985, attaining the rank of principal dancer. Roles performed include the Pioneer Woman in Appalachian Spring, Woman in White in Diversion of Angels, Chorus Leader in Night Journey, Chorus in Cave of the Heart, the Attendant in Hérodiade, Leader in the 1980s reconstruction of Steps in the Street, and Night Chant, a ballet created for Ms Vale by Martha Graham in 1989. Graham solos performed include Lamentation, Frontier, Satyric Festival Song, and Serenata Morisca.  

Jaki Levy is a videographer, editor, online developer, and new media enthusiast. Currently, he is the resident technologist and New Media Director for Misnomer Dance Theater (www.misnomer.org). His career in theater & video production began at NYU Tisch. He currently holds a Masters Degree from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (www.itp.nyu.edu) where he focused on the intersection of art and technology. Jaki acts as a web consultant for individuals, small businesses, and arts organizations. As a teacher, he has led courses in online outreach, video production, and web design.

Jaki has worked as a lighting designer in Williamstown Theater Festival, a segment producer at NYU-TV, and a video designer for The TEAM during their award winning run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2006, he was the Cisco/mtvU Digital Incubator grant recipient for his project, Snagu. Jaki is an avid cyclist and yogi. He is a contributor for Great Dance (www.greatdance.com), a web blog on emerging trends in the fields of dance, technology, and the web.  

Learn more here: www.jakilevy.com.

Peter Sparling is Thurnau Professor of Dance at University of Michigan and Artistic Director of the Ann Arbor-based Dance Gallery Foundation. A native Detroiter and graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and The Juilliard School, he danced with the companies of Jose Limon and Martha Graham while also forming Peter Sparling Dance Company before leaving New York for Ann Arbor in 1885. A prolific choreographer who has worked internationally as well as with his own company, Sparling is a recipient of the1998 Governor’s Michigan Artist Award and grants from NEA, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and Arts Foundation of Michigan. He is a regisseur of Graham Resources.

While with Graham (1973-87), he danced the roles of St. Michael, Orestes, Adam, Oedipus, The Revivalist, male leads in Diversion of Angels, Acts of Light, Phaedra, Dark Meadow, Plain of Prayer, Circe, and in numerous premieres such as Frescoes, The Owl and the Pussycat, The Scarlet Letter and Song. He was appointed to coach Rudolf Nureyev for numerous roles and served as Graham’s choreographic assistant.

Sparling has worked extensively with composers, poets, actors, visual artists and scientists to create collaborative performance works. He has written texts for performance and has had poetry and articles published in the Michigan Quarterly Review and Choreography and Dance. His video/performance work, “Peninsula”, received its premiere at the 2004 AASF and celebrates the cultural and geographical landscapes of his home state of Michigan. A videographer and teacher of screendance at UM, he recently completed “Babel”, his first work exclusively for the screen, which was selected for the 2007 New York Dance on Camera Festival. His most recent work, “Vox Humana”, will premiere with the Grand Rapids Ballet in April, 08.