MARK DENDY has worked in a variety of dance genres, ranging from experimental dance and edgy East Village drag to high-end Broadway productions, prominent ballet companies and opera to large-scale site-specific works.  His dance and theatre work has been presented at PS 122, the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, The Joyce Theater, Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center, Central Park SummerStage, and Dance Theater Workshop, as well as numerous national and international venues. Dendy has been commissioned by both modern and ballet companies worldwide, most notably Pacific Northwest Ballet. He has collaborated with directors Julie Taymor, Tina Landau, Gabriel Barre, Ellen Hemphill, Rebecca Taichman, and Timothy Sheader; writers Neil Simon and Charles Busch; and composers Boy George, Heather Christian, Don Byron, Andrew Lippa, Jim Steinman, and Stephen Schwartz. His commercial theater credits include choreography for Taboo and The Pirate Queen (Broadway); The Wild Party, The Miracle Brothers and Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well… (Off-Broadway); Pippin, Camille Claudel and Hair (regional and national tours); The Magic Flute (The Metropolitan Opera); Orpheus (NYC Opera); and Rappaccini’s Daughter (Gotham Chamber Opera). He has received several awards and honors, most notably a 1997 Bessie Award, a 2000 Obie Award, the National Society of Arts and Letters Sustained Achievement Award (1990), the Herb Alpert Award and the Joe A. Calloway Award (both in 2000), as well as numerous grants.

MARK DENDY PROJECTS was formed in 2008, with longtime collaborator Stephen Donovan, to create socially conscious dance-theater work. Works include Golden Belt, set in an abandoned tobacco-processing factory in North Carolina, at the American Dance Festival (premiere 2009); Ritual Cyclical, an epic site-specific work for 80 dancers, at Lincoln Center Out of Doors (premiere 2013); Dystopian Distractions! at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara (premiere 2014); Labyrinth at Abrons Arts Center (premiere 2014); and NEWYORKnewyork @Astor Place at Joe’s Pub (premiere 2015).

STEPHEN DONOVAN (performer/designer) is the executive director of Mark Dendy Projects. He performed with the company and designed video, set, and costumes for NEWYORKnewyork @Astor Place (Joe’s Pub, 2015) and Labyrinth (Abrons Art Center, 2014); performed in and designed video, sound and costumes for Dystopian Distractions! (Lobero Theatre, Santa Barbara, 2014); and also designed costumes for and produced Ritual Cyclical (Lincoln Center Out of Doors, 2013). Along with his projects with Mark Dendy Projects, Stephen has worked extensively as a performer, designer and director. His acting credits include Comedians at La Mama, and Airplane Story by Tom Cole at Dixon Place.  Design credits include costumes for Desperate Writers (off-Broadway/Union Square Theater).  He was also the assistant director for Taboo (Broadway).  Stephen studied Contemporary Art at Nottingham Trent University and Acting at Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

CHRIS BELL (performer) hails from San Antonio, Texas, but lives and works in NYC. He recently completed his MFA in Contemporary Dance from Case Western Reserve University. In addition to working with Mark Dendy, he teaches for TADA! Youth Theaters and Pascal Rioult and performs with Ben Munisteri Projects and Gaspard&Dancers (where he also serves as rehearsal director). Here also creates, performs, and teaches his own work with ChrisBellDances.

LIV BRUCE (performer) Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Liv Bruce is currently based in New York. Liv holds a BA in Dance from Bard College, where they studied and worked with Geoff Sobelle, Aileen Passloff, Leah Cox, Zvi Gotheiner, Peter Kyle, Cori Olinghouse, Stuart Singer, Jesse Zaritt, Vanessa Anspaugh, Maria Simpson, Jean Churchill, and Peggy Florin. Dance career aside, they are playing in queer punk duo PWR BTTM, whose first album Ugly Cherries comes out in September 2015 on The Miscreant Records & Father/Daughter Records. Liv has also played drums for songwriters such as Michael Doherty, Lucien Dante, and Amanda Palmer.

HEATHER CHRISTIAN (composer), recently named one of Time Out New York’s “Downtown Innovators To Watch,” is the daughter of a blues musician and a go-go dancer. Primarily a songstress, she can be seen regularly performing all over the world with her “Avant-Americana” ensemble Heather Christian & the Arbornauts.  She composed scores for and performed in theatrical works  Mission Drift (winner of 2011 Fringe First) and Herald Angel at the National Theater in London (nominated for the Drama League Outstanding Performance Award.) Recent composing credits include Gertrude Stein’s The World Is Round (BAM, NYC; a 2014 Obie citation for the score); Of Mice and Men (The West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds); The Burnin’ (Progress Theater); Daily Life Everlasting (Norwegian Theater Academy;  LaMama ETC, NYC), Mud (IAmA Theater Company, Los Angeles), Emily Climbs (The Brick, NYC), Labyrinth (Abrons Arts Center)  as well as numerous compositions for short films, including Gregory Go Boom, the winner of 2014 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.  She is currently staging her Animal Wisdom, a concept album with the Arbornauts, scheduled to premiere at the Transform Festival in Leeds in 2017. She is a member of the Ars Nova Uncharted 2015-2016 Play Group, and a 2015 Sundance Theater Lab Fellow. Christian has worked and performed with many theater makers, including the TEAM, Jane Comfort Company, Mac Wellman, Big Dance Theater, Taylor Mac, Len Jenkin, and Witness Relocation Company, of whom she is a core member. She currently teaches experimental songwriting as part of an Atelier program at Princeton.

REBECCA LUBART (performer) is a native New Yorker . She graduated cum laudewith a B.A. in Dance and Theatre from George Washington University, where she was awarded a Presidential Arts Scholarship in Dance and a Luther Rice Collaborative Fellowship.She has had the pleasure of performing in the works of  such NYC artists as Mark Dendy Projects, David Dorfman Dance, Sarah Rosner/AOMC, among many others. Her own work has been presented by Danspace Project Out of Space at BRIC Studio, AUNTS, MR Open Perform, DNA Works In Progress, WaxWorks, and Women in Motion. When not dancing, she spends her time as a Rehabilitative Pilates Practitioner and owner of Dynamic Body Pilates.

MEI YAMANAKA (performer) is a dancer and choreographer from Tokyo, Japan. She moved to New York in 2008 and has been working since with Mark Dendy Projects, Tiffany Mills Company, Jennifer Archibald. She also has worked with Dai Jian, Mana Kawamura, Palissimo, Oui Danse, Malcolm Low, Jenni Hong, Emily Berry and White Wave Dance Company and more. Mei’s choreographic work had been presented at Fresh Tracks, Movement Research at Judson Church, Performance Mix Festival, New Steps, Dumbo Dance Festival, and at many more NYC events and venues. She was elected as an artist-in-residence at Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts) Fresh Tracks in 2010-2011 and also at Chez Bushwick in 2014.