David Dorfman, Artistic Director
Artistic Director and Founder of David Dorfman Dance (1987), has been Professor of Dance at Connecticut College since 2004. Dorfman received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005 to continue his research and choreography in the topics of power and powerlessness, including activism, dissidence, and underground movements. DD has been honored with four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, an American Choreographer's Award, the first Paul Taylor Fellowship from The Yard, and a New York Dance & Performance “Bessie” Award. David was a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Dance. His work has been commissioned widely in the U.S. and in Europe, by Dancing Wheels (Cleveland), AXIS Dance Company (Oakland), and Bedlam Dance Company (London).
His forays into theater include choreography for the Tony Award-winning play, Indecent, by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, for which DD received a Lucille Lortel Award and Chita Rivera Nomination for best choreography for the play’s Off-Broadway run. David traveled to London in March 2020 to set choreography for Indecent’s UK premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In addition, David has contributed his choreography for the upcoming Whisper House, a new musical by Duncan Sheik and Kyle Jarrow, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at Yale Rep; Our Town, a co-production of Deaf West and Pasadena Playhouse; Assassins at Yale Rep; and the original musical Green Violin at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, for which he won a 2003 Barrymore Award for best choreography.
Dorfman tours an evening of solos and duets, Live Sax Acts, with dear friend and collaborator Dan Froot, most recently in New York City and at the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe. As a performer, he toured internationally with Kei Takei's Moving Earth and Susan Marshall & Co. DD hails from Chicago and holds a BS in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis (1977). He appeared on several episodes of A Chance to Dance, a reality show on OvationTV starring Dorfman’s pals, the BalletBoyz who invited David Dorfman Dance to make a three minute video for RandomAct/Channel 4UK. We Don’t Own a Dog came out of that invitation—click here to watch it.
DD continually thanks Martha Myers and the late Daniel Nagrin, for being his dance mom and dad; his late parents, Oscar and Jeanette, for inspiring him to dance to heal and instilling the importance of a good joke; and his in-house “family project”, Lisa and Samson, for sharing with him the practice of unconditional love.
Lily Gelfand
is a Brooklyn-based dancer, experimental cellist, composer, and teaching artist. Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, Lily received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance and Choreography from Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College. While at Ohio University, she also began her dance musician training under the mentorship of Andre Gribou. As a dancer, Lily has had the pleasure of performing works by Kyle Abraham, Joanna Kotze, Kendra Portier, David Dorfman, Jasmine Hearn, Thryn Saxon, Serena Chang, and Ani Javian. As a cellist, Lily is currently on staff as a dance musician at The Juilliard School, and has composed and performed original collaborative works for Christina Robson, Jasmine Hearn, Dance Lab NY, Toscana Dance Hub, Venza Dance, The Wooden Floor, Douglas Gillespie, and Nik Owens. Additionally, Lily is a 200 Hour RYT through the Yoga Alliance, and uses cello as a source of sound healing for a variety of meditations and restorative practices throughout the city. Her favorite color is green.
Kashia Kancey
is a Miami-born performer and choreographer, who earned her BFA in Dance from New World School of the Arts. She has been commissioned by Peter London Global Dance Company, and has had work presented in The Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dixon Place and CreateART Performance. Kashia has performed in spaces like Perez Art Museum Miami, South-Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center, Dance Place DC, the American Dance Festival, The Yard, and New York Live Arts. She has danced with Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, Adele Myers and Dancers, and Abby Z and the New Utility. Kashia was most recently an apprentice with Urban Bush Women and is a company member with David Dorfman Dance. She is based in Brooklyn, NY, and continues to pursue her career as a performer and choreographer.
Diamond Laurant
was born and raised in Southern California, he began his training at Zeneith Performing Arts Center in Long Beach. Then received dance training from celebrated instructors Jamie Carbetta, Pam Santelman, and Daniel Bereny at El Camino College. Alongside Jamie Carbetta, Elijah co-founded the all-male dance company, Pony Box Dance Theatre, during his three-year scholarship to South Bay Ballet Academy. He later received a full scholarship to attend the prestigious Ailey School in NYC in 2015. Elijah has showcased his talents in works by renown choreographers such as Matthew Rushing, Jennifer Muller/The Works, and Joshua Beamish, Helen Simoneau and has performed in productions by RWS, Christopher Rudd, Tiffany Billings, Roberto Villanueva, and Akram Khan. Elijah joined Stephen Petronio's company in 2017, Gallim Dance in 2019, and now David Dorfman Dance!
Nik Owens
began his movement experience as a competitive gymnast for 15 years and began his dance training in his senior year of high school and continued at Wesleyan University, where he received a BA in Dance and a certificate in Environmental Studies. He has worked with Nicholas Leichter, Tania Isaac, and Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion and has performed works by The Dance Exchange, Raja Kelly/The Feath3r Theory, Bryn Cohn and Artists, Helen Simoneau Danse, The Bang Group, Kayla Farrish- Decent Structures Arts, Dual Rivet, 10 Hairy Legs and others. He has worked on several duet projects and has been commissioned to create works at Rivertown Dance Academy in New York and The Wooden Floor (under David Dorfman Dance) in California. He currently collaborates and performs with Tiffany Mills Company, Kyle Marshall Choreography, and David Dorfman Dance. In 2021 he began working on a solo of his own creation called The Right Kind and plans to continue that project's choreographic journey.
Claudia-Lynn Rightmire
spends her days writing stories, drawing faces, and creating dances. Claudia-Lynn holds an Honors summa cum laude BA from Roger Williams University and is a certified health coach. She has taught, created, and collaborated in Florida, Australia, and NYC. Claudia-Lynn moves with David Dorfman Dance, INSPIRIT Dance Company, and Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre. She has worked with New York City Children’s Theater, Third Rail Projects, Kinesis Project Dance, Moving Ethos Dance, Sarasota Contemporary Dance, and others. In 2021, she formed c|s movement projects alongside her partner, Simon Thomas-Train. She is driven by storytelling, voice, and shadow.
DDD BAND
Samuel Crawford
completed degrees in English and Audio Engineering at Indiana University in 2003. His compositions and sound designs have included works for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (Venice Biennale, 2010), A.I.M by Kyle Abraham (Untitled Love, 2022), Camille A. Brown and Dancers (BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, 2016), and David Dorfman Dance (Aroundtown, 2017). La Medea, a live film collaboration with director Yara Travieso for which he composed the music and wrote the libretto, premiered at P.S.122’s Coil Festival in 2017. Crawford is a lecturer in sound design at the University of Maryland's School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.
Jeff Hudgins
a transplanted Texan whose music has been described as "somewhat menacing” (New York Music Daily), is a founding member of local NYC group Bombay Rickey. He has toured in the US and Europe, has premiered John Zorn, Tim Berne and John Harbison, has performed in Kamala Sankaram’s award-winning steampunk murder mystery opera, Miranda (2012), and in Yara Travieso’s dance/live-video show, La Medea (2017), and has made records with fellow DDD Band members Sam Crawford, Zeb Gould and Liz DeLise. In addition to Bombay Rickey, he writes for the NYC groups Anti-Social Music and Opera On Tap. This year Jeff is working with Bombay Rickey on their third record, and making new recordings with Guy Klucevsek and Evan Rapport.
Lizzy
is an interdisciplinary, gender queer artist who plays with otherworldly textures and tones to invite, envelope, and transport. They compose / perform music for dance, theater, podcast, and film. Lizzy’s work has been featured on NPR’s Invisibilia, at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Their band Lizdelise released their most recent record Sept 2023, which centers themes of moving through grief by seeking radical joy and acceptance of self. Lizzy currently performs with David Dorfman Dance, Canadian indie band Housewife, and Yara Travieso.
Mark Watter
is a multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer, and producer based out of Philadelphia. When he's not working on new records, you can find him on tour with Lizdelise or David Dorfman Dance!
