Guest Artists

JOHN MURTON, Guest Conductor

Conductor and singer John Murton studied at the University of Oxford, where he held a choral scholarship in the Choir of Magdalen College. He subsequently went on to sing with numerous choirs and consorts across the United Kingdom and on tour throughout Europe. His experience as a singer led naturally to an interest in opera, and as a conductor he has appeared at London’s Grimeborn and Tête à Tête festivals. John relocated to the United States to study conducting at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, and has subsequently held conducting fellowships with the Allentown Symphony, Eastern Music Festival and Cincinnati Symphony. John is currently Assistant Conductor of the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra where he leads the ensemble’s flagship educational concerts as well as appearing in subscription concerts through the season.

Photo by Rick Peckham

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!

Steven Honigberg

Sophia Kim-Cook

PIANIST

Born in Montréal, Canada Sophia Kim Cook pursued piano studies first at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal, and finishing at McGill University, Schulich School of Music, receiving both her Bachelors with Honours and Masters of Music there. Described as ‘a steadying presence at the piano’ (Washington Post) and a ‘virtuosic piano backbone’ (DC Arts Beats), Ms. Kim Cook is a sought out collaborative pianist and orchestral pianist, having played for a myriad of soloists and ensembles, including the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, Maryland Symphony Orchestra, and the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra. She is also a collaborative pianist for many conferences and workshops including the International Trumpet Guild Conference, the American Trombone Workshop, the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute, and the Fredericksburg Brass Institute. In 2018, she joined the Boulanger Initiative as a Performance Ambassador promoting works by women composers. Sophia was invited to record a CD with the principal trombonist of the San Francisco Symphony, Timothy Higgins which was released in spring 2013. “To talk about the trombone or the pianist individually doesn’t do this recording justice. Their collaboration transcends to another level of beauty and artistry. Absolutely Breathtaking.”.

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