Guest Artists

Christian Denice, Choreographer

Christian Denice’s professional dance experience includes Odyssey Dance Theatre, River North Dance Chicago, and BJM Danse (Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal). As a choreographer, he has created new works for such companies and organizations as Chamber Dance Project, the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, Odyssey Dance Theatre, DanceWorks Chicago, Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company, Visceral Dance Chicago, Missouri Contemporary Ballet, Western Michigan University, Modern America Dance Company, Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company, Eisenhower Dance Detroit, Houston Contemporary Dance Company, Wright State University, Kit Modus, and Dance Lab New York. Christian has been on faculty with Modas Dance, Open Doors Dance Festival, EPIC Dance Utah, Eisenhower Dance Detroit NEWdanceFEST, Kansas City Jazz Dance Fest, DanceWorks Chicago Dance360, AXIS Connect Los Angeles, and Peridance Center in New York City.

Christian had the opportunity to re-stage KOSMOS by Andonis Foniadakis on the dancers of the National School of Dance in Athens, Greece in 2019, and again on the dancers of Nationaltheatre Mannheim NTM Tanz in Mannheim, Germany in 2022. Christian worked with New York City based filmmaker Alexander Sargent on a dance film of his work “Dwellings” created on Chamber Dance Project which premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in October. Christian is currently dancing in a production for Andonis Foniadakis Dance Company based in Athens, Greece called “Salema Revisited” and has been on faculty as Artist in Residence at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland since 2021. Christian most recently made his Broadway debut in “The Little Prince” which opened in New York in 2022.

Gayle Danley, Poet

After winning the International Poetry Slam in Heidelberg Germany, poet Gayle Danley entered America’s classrooms, teaching children the power of words as an aid in healing trauma and creating a life of hope and options. Gayle facilitates grief writing workshops with Johns Hopkins and Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and she also works with women experiencing homelessness, showing them how to use their words to find home. CBS 60 Minutes, The Baltimore Sun, Washington Post and New York Times have profiled her work as a teaching artist and stage performer. Gayle is providing professional development for teachers at the National Gallery of Art heightening their experience of the museum's works of art. She served as the Maryland Library Association Poet of the Year and is a former national Young Audiences Artist of the Year. This is Gayle’s first season working with Chamber Dance Project.

Drew Anderson, Poet

Hip hop artist, slam poet, producer, screenwriter, host, and veteran middle and high school teacher Drew Anderson has continued to innovatively utilize his talent for connecting with audiences big and small via the avenues of art and education.

In 2001, he decided to capitalize on this audience by self-publishing his first collection of poetry, Droopy: Dat Boy’s A Fool, through his company Broke Baller Enterprises. The success of this first project led to the publication of his sophomore work Feel No Way: The Drew Testament (2002) and the compilation I’ll Probably Die Writing(2003), which he edited and co-wrote along with The 5th Element, a spoken word/theatre troupe which he co-founded in 2002.

His publishing projects have caused him to be sought out to edit a number of books, including Brandi Forte’s Drama Girl: Diary of a Sistapoet (2002), Dana E. Crawford’s The Evolution of an Ugly Duckling (2003) and Michelle Sewell’s Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces (2006). The latter work won the 2007 National Underground Spoken-word Poetry Award (NUSPA) for Book of the Year. A member of the 2003 and 2004 DC/Baltimore National Poetry Slam teams, he has been a coach and judge at a number of performance poetry competitions, including the DC Scores Youth Slam and special activities with Higher Achievement and Upward Bound.

He is the proud winner of the 2006 and 2010 NUSPA’s for Host of the Year, as well as the “Why Didn’t I Think Of That?” Award for his hit poem “Why Do I Like You?”, the 2010 Album of the Year award for The Bully: The Aww-Dacity of Broke, and the 2010 Venue of the Year Award and Washington CityPaper’s Best Open Mic Award (2013) by virtue of “Spit Dat”, which he founded and has co-hosted along with his brother-in-arms Dwayne B. since June 2002.

Peter Chu, Choreographer

Peter Chu was born in the Bronx, NY, & raised in Cocoa Beach, Florida. He began his training as a competitive gymnast, later nurturing his artistry at Dussich Dance Studio. Upon graduation from The Juilliard School, he performed with BJM Danse, EZdanza, Aszure Barton& Artists, Kidd Pivot, & inCeline Dion’s Vegas spectacular,A New Day.In 2008, Peter formed a Las Vegas project based dance company, chuthis., which showcases the work of Chu & his collaborators.Chu has created works forPaul Taylor Dance Company,Hubbard Street DanceChicago, Staatstheater Augsburg, Charlotte Ballet, Gibney Dance Company,Cirque du Soleil (Vitori&MUV),Orlando Ballet Theatre, GroundWorks Dance Theater, Giordano Dance Chicago, SYTYCD, NewDialect, SALT Contemporary Dance,HSPro,& The Juilliard School, among others.This season, Chu will premiere new creations for DARTDance Company(Berlin),SALTContemporary Dance, and his own company, chuthis

Gabrielle Lamb, Choreographer

Gabrielle Lamb, winner of a Princess Grace Award for Choreography, is based in NYC, where she directs Pigeonwing Dance. A native of Savannah, GA, she trained at the Boston Ballet School and was a longtime soloist at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal. In 2009 she was invited by Christopher Wheeldon to join his company Morphoses in NYC. DANCE Magazine described her as “a dancer of stunning clarity who illuminates the smallest details—qualities she brings to the dances she makes, too”.

Her choreography has been presented by the ABT Incubator, The Juilliard School, the MIT Museum, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Whim W’Him, BalletX, Sacramento Ballet, Ballet Austin, and Ballet Memphis, among others. She has won fellowships and competitions at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Milwaukee Ballet, the Banff Centre, and NY City Center, as well as a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship

Andile Ndlovu, Choreographer

Andile Ndlovu of Johannesburg, South Africa, is in his ninth season with The Washington Ballet, after dancing one season with TWB’s Studio Company. Ndlovu began his training in Latin American and ballroom dance at the age of ten. At 15, he began training in ballet under Martin Schöenberg, director of Ballet Theatre Afrikan. In 2007, Ndlovu performed with South African Ballet Theatre, performing the lead in Don Quixote and the Jester in Swan Lake, among other roles. He went on to dance with Cape Town City Ballet and tied for first place in the contemporary category of the 2008 South African International Ballet Competition. Ndlovu was part of the 15-year anniversary tour of Step Afrika! as a guest artist, performed his collaborative choreography solo with Gregory Vuyani Maqoma in Beyond Skin and was a part of the South African version of Queen with Mzansi Productions, choreographed by Debbie Rakusin and Timothy Le Roux. He choreographed Guardian of the Pool which was performed by The Washington Ballet Studio Company in 2012. He also danced Spartacus In South Africa the summer of 2015. He was also was a nominee for best male performer of 2018 for the “Benois de la dance” held at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow Russia. Andile danced with Chamber Dance Project for four years and choreographed the men’s section of Chant in 2019 and returns to choreograph a section of Slam! This year.

Vic Adebusola, Choreographer

Vic Adebusola is a seasoned dancer, choreographer, instructor, and arts manager working throughout the DC area. He was the artistic director of Culture Shock Dance Troupe, captain of Capital Funk DC, and established Project VictorAde, which debuted in 2017.Vic serves as the Commercial Dance Director for Metropolitan School of the Arts, leading the organizations after school hip-hop and contemporary dance programs and as the Programming and Engagement Manager at the Center for the Arts at George Mason University. He graduated from the University of Maryland and is currently pursuing an arts management degree at George Mason University where he served as an adjunct instructor in the dance department. He has also performed and taught in Los Angeles, San Diego, Ottawa, Canada, and New York and continues to spread his knowledge and love for dance to all Vic choreographed his hip-hop ballet, Festival, for Chamber Dance Project in 2016 and returns to create a section of our new ballet Slam!

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Header Photo: Jiamond Watson and guest artist Joe Gonzalez in Gravity to Grace
Photo by Eduardo Patino.NYC