Hassan Christopher
Hassan Christopher, an Illinois native, discovered dancing in the legendary warehouse parties of Chicago's Deep House movement during the late eighties and nineties. It was in the clubs of this underground music scene that he developed his passion for individual freestyle expression. His love of dance led him to the more formalized study of Jazz, Ballet, Modern, and Tap as a scholarship student at Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago before heading of to NYU to study theater and contemporary dance.

As a performer, Hassan's career has covered a broad spectrum. He has worked with pop icons like Brittany Spears, Usher, and Shakira in addition to building an outstanding reputation as a concert dancer. Recent projects include work with Heidi Duckler's Collage Dance Theater, David Rousseve's Rose Colored Glasses, and Rosanna Gamson's RGWW. He is a former company member of Diavolo Dance Theater and currently teaches at The Edge Contemporary Dance Center in Hollywood. Hassan is also a guest lecturer at UCLA 's Department of World arts and cultures.

As a choreographer, Hassan draws on his broad understanding of movement combined with his passion for music, experimental theater, and the written word to create exciting and innovative work. As Artistic Director of his own dance theater group, The Company of Strangers, he aims to create work that reflects his belief that to be a truly original person – one who follows his passion and interest in a world that encourages people to be average – is to be wonderfully strange. His work celebrates the aspect of humanity that makes us unknowable to each other in any concrete sense. Through his writing and choreography he finds the joy and embraces the challenge of living in the Company of Strangers.

Chad Michael Hall
See Full-Time Faculty.

Scott Heinzerling
See Full-Time Faculty.

Holly Johnston
See Part-Time Faculty, Modern

Tekla Kostek
See Part-Time Faculty, Ballet

Denise Leitner
See Part-Time Faculty, Jazz

Loretta Livingston
Loretta Livingston is an award winning choreographer and dancer who has made Los Angeles her artistic home for over 30 years. She is the Artistic Director of Loretta Livingston & Dancers, a downtown Los Angeles performance ensemble that has received multiple Lester Horton Dance Awards for choreography, company performance and individual performance. Ms. Livingston produces and directs works ranging from large scale dance/theater evenings to improvisational events with live music and video presented in gallery-sized spaces. She also works as a free-lance choreographer, solo performer and guest artist throughout the United States.

A fifth-generation Califomian, Ms. Livingston began her career with another native westerner—the legendary Bella Lewitzky. Her first ten years as a professional were spent touring throughout Europe and the United States in the Lewitzky Company, eventually dancing some of Ms. Lewitzky's original roles. She left the Lewitzky Company in 1983 to begin her work as an independent artist, forming her own company and developing a collaborative artistic community of dancers, designers, visual artists, video artists and composers that continues evolving to this day.

In addition to many past awards, this season Ms. Livingston has received two fellowships—the California DanceMaker Grant from the James Irvine Foundation, and the City of Los Angeles "COLA" Individual Artist Fellowship, both given to create new work in 2003. Her previous professional acknowledgements include the 1990 Dewar's Young Artists Recognition Award, the 1994 Distinguished Artist Award from the Club 100 of the Los Angeles Music Center, the 1995 Professional Artist Award from the California Alliance for Arts Education, and the 1997 title of "California Distinguished Artist."

Always interested in creative process, Ms. Livingston has a daily practice of improvisation, and continues her training as a visual artist. In addition to her more mainstream choreographic history she also has been involved in several special crossover projects that mix art forms and cultures, such as a collaboration with the Los Angeles folklorico company Danza Floricanto/USA; an improvisational project in Paris with performer Simone Forti and a group of European dancers; a three-year performance project with senior/immigrant citizens in downtown Los Angeles and experimental performance work that combines dance with live video projections and live visual art created by a painter.

Ms. Livingston holds a B.F.A. in Dance from California Institute of the Arts, with previous training in the visual arts and ballet.

For a complete look at her work and history, visit her website at www.LivingstonDance.com.

Karen McDonald
Karen McDonald began her dance training in Los Angeles with Carolyn Skyers who truly inspired her to become a dancer. At age seventeen Karen moved to New York to continue her training at Dance Theatre of Harlem, studying with dance masters such as Arthur Mitchell, Karel Shook, Tommie Johnson, Thelma Hill, James Truit, and many others. She danced professionally in the companies of Fred Benjamin and George Faison. Ms. McDonald went on to Broadway, appearing in shows such as Purlie, Two Gentleman of Verona, and was featured in both The Wiz and Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies.

After returning to Los Angeles, Karen began choreographing theatre shows including Voices, Sing Out Sweet Gospel, and Shaw Girls for which she received an N.A.A.C.P. Award for "Best Musical". She has also worked as an Associate Choreographer and Assistant Director for shows including Bigger Than Bubble Gum at the Pasadena Playhouse, the Broadway musicals Don't Bother Me I Can't Cope, rewritten and remounted with a Los Angeles cast, and Jezebel presented at the Vision Theatre. Karen has also performed on stage and screen with artists such as Michael Jackson (Thriller), Janet Jackson, El DeBarge, Freddie Jackson, Maria Gibbs, Sheree Brown, Billy Higgins, Horace Tapscott, and Diane Reeves.

Karen McDonald has been teaching in the Los Angeles area for over twenty years. She taught for five years at the prestigious California Institute of the Arts and seventeen years at Susan Miller Dorsey High School. She is currently the Director of the Los Angeles Unified School District Gifted Talented Program at Cal State LA and Associate Director of the dance department at Alexander Hamilton High School in West Los Angeles. In 2001, Karen joined the faculty of the Debbie Allen Dance Academy and was appointed a position as Dean of the Pre-Academy Program.

Ms. McDonald is currently the Artistic Director of the New Age Dance Workshop, which she founded in 1985. She has developed a unique and provocative modern dance technique that allows dancers to discover their own spirituality, power, and creativity. Ms. McDonald believes that both her approach to dance, as well as dance itself, brings a spiritual balance to light within the artist. Karen McDonald continues to train professional dancers at Dance Arts Academy in Los Angeles. In 2003 Karen joined the dance faculty at UCLA in the World Arts and Cultures department. On April 13, 2003, Karen received the Lester Horton Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching for her achievement as a master teacher.

Paige Porter
See Part-Time Faculty, Jazz

Patrick Damon Rago
See Full-Time Faculty.

Shel Wagner Rasch
Shel Wagner Rasch is a Los Angeles-based choreographer, contact improvisation dancer and teacher. Her contact improvisation scores and choreographic works have been well received in New York City, San Francisco, New Orleans, San Diego, Amsterdam and extensively throughout Los Angeles, including at Highways, LACE, Japan America Theatre, LATC and Dance Kaleidoscope. Three of her works have been commissioned by Pacific Dance Ensemble and in 1995, she received the Lester Horton Award for Excellence in Choreography. She recently curated and performed in the Contact Improv Performance Festival at Highways. Wagner Rasch is thrilled to have collaborated with Jim Rasch on a new work that premiered in the Fall 2001 season. Wagner Rasch recently danced with ghosts at the Big Event at UCLA. Wagner Rasch teaches contact improvisation at UCLA and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, maintains a private practice teaching Alexander Technique and Pilates and is helping to raise two super heroes.