Travesty Dance Group

KIMBERLY KARPANTY

Kimberly Karpanty is a founding member and co-director of Travesty Dance Group. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography and Dance Technology from Arizona State University and a Master of Arts in Dance/Dance Education from New York University. Karpanty toured nationally with Rondo American Dance Theatre in works by Anna Sokolow, Manuel Alum, Murray Louis and Moses Pendleton, and was a soloist with Linda Nutter & Dancers. She has also performed with Jennifer Tsukayama, GarnerGutierrrez-Garner Dance, Tommy Parlon Dance Projects, and Cliff Keuter. She was a founding member of the collaborative, interdisciplinary group StraightJacket/Danza en vano, a 1993 recipient of the US/Mexico Fund for Culture rant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Additional honors for her work include two consecutive awards from the Dance in Education Fund, Inc. (NY), and commissions for choreography from the Northeast Ohio Dance Ensemble, Richard Stockton College (NJ), The University of Milwaukee-Whitewater, Arizona State University, Instinct Dancecorps (AZ), and Rayn Dance Theatre (AZ). Her Choreography has been performed through the UH and abroad, most recently in Costa Rica as part of the 2004 Jazz Dance World Congress. Karpanty is a certified Pilates instructor and an Associate Professor of Dance at Kent State University where she teaches contemporary dance, Simonson-based jazz, composition and related academics. She is the Artistic Director of the pre-professional Kent Dance Ensemble, and has received several faculty excellence awards.

REBECCA MALCOLM-NAIB

Rebecca Malcolm-Naib performed as a member of the Seattle-based Chamber Dance Company from 1994-1--5 and again in 1997-1998 in the works of Isadora Duncan, Jose Limon, Daniel Nagrin, Alwin Nikolai, Bill Evans, Mary Wigman, Murray Louis and Mark Dendy. Prior to 1994, she toured nationally with ZeroMoviing Dance Company and Karen Bamonte Dance Works in venues including Joyce Theater, Walker Art Center, Jacob’s Pillow Festival, and Dance Theatre Workshop. Malcolm-Naib has also performed with Freedman/Coleman Dance Company, Battery Dance Company and Claudia Murphey Dance Company. She has taught at Kent State University as a visiting professor, University of Washington as a full time lecturer, and master classes at Bucknell University, George Mason University, Susquehanna University and Mount Holyoke College, as well as numerous workshops and classes in inner city schools, studios, and shelters. In 2002, Travesty Dance Group produced Malcolm-Naib’s premiere of evening-length work “Elemental” at the Painted Bride performance space in Philadelphia. Malcolm-Naib graduated summa cum laud and Phi Beta Kappa from Mount Holyoke College with a BA in Dance and received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Washington. Malcolm-Naib currently works as a free-lance choreographer and teacher, and lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two children. She is a founding member of Travesty Dance Group.

KAREN STOKES

Karen Stokes danced in New York and abroad with David Gordon, Larry Clark, and Stephan Koplowitz. Since 1988, Stokes has choreographed over 40 works in the contemporary genre, which have been performed nationally. In 2003, Stokes' evening-length modern dance musical HOMETOWN performed to sold-out audiences in the First Annual Big Range Dance Festival in Houston. Hometown was revived in 2006 at Unigrely Houston, Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Stokes has also been the choreographer for musicals and plays, including Alley Theater's production of "Stones in His Pockets" and "A Christmas Carol." In 2001 and 2003, she was the choreographer for the Shakespeare Festival at Miller Outdoor Theater, Houston. Stokes has received many awards and grants for her work, both as a choreographer and an educator. In 2003, she received the outstanding faculty award for the Southeast Region(Association for Continuing Education) for her Distance Education course "Choreography in Action." She also received the 2003 teaching excellence award at the University of Houston in Distance Education. In 2005, Stokes' premiered her 60-minute "Pronoun Pieces" at Big Range Dance Festival. Stokes has a B.F.A. in dance from Ohio State University, a M.F.A. in choreography from UCLA, and is a graduate of the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston. She served on the faculty at Connecticut College and Kent State University. Since 1998, she has directed the Dance Division in the School of Theatre at the University of Houston. In 2000, she founded the Center for Choreography at the University of Houston. Karen was awarded the 2008 Buffy Award in Choreography for outstanding evening length work in Houston 2005-2008 for HOMETOWN and the 2008 Performing & Visual Arts Ross M. Lence Teaching Award at University of Houston.