BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance
BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance has shown work at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jacob’s Pillow, The Public Theater, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, University of Florida, ENTPE University (Lyon, France), NYU, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Bryant Park Summer Stage, BDF Edinburgh at EICC, Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center at Gibney Dance Center, NY City Center, Dixon Place, UME, ICA Boston, 92nd St. Y, Naropa University, Franco-American Cultural Center, CPR-Center for Performance Research, 14th St. Y, Merce Cunningham Theatre, The Dance Complex, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton Cultural Center, Triskelion Arts, and in concerts with Phish. BodyStories has put on free and ticketed public concerts throughout the United States and abroad, and held several workshops with integrated participant performances, such as the Patrick Dempsey Cancer Center, where participants contributed text/movement created in collaboration with BodyStories.
Collaborations on original music under the direction of our Musical Director, John Yannelli, are vitally integrated into our productions. Music collaborators include Yannelli, Trey Anastasio, Phish, Ryan Lott, Ryan Edwards, Kevin Keller, and Carver Audain. We have also enjoyed in-depth collaborations with costume designers Nina Katan, Ljupka Arsovska, and Elena Comendador, set designer, Robert Gould, and video artists Nel Shelby, Jacob Hiss, and Charles Dennis.
Teresa Fellion (Artistic Director & Choreographer)
Teresa Fellion founded BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance in late 2011, after working as an independent choreographer since 2004. Fellion’s work has been positively reviewed by The New York Times, NPR, The Huffington Post, The Scotsman, Oberon’s Grove, Dance Informa, Revieux, The Dance Enthusiast, TheatreScene.net, Cretus, NY-Theatre.com, The Skinny Magazine, World Dance Reviews, Edinburgh Festivals Magazine, Edinburgh Spotlight, Southampton Press, Stage Buddy, East Hampton Press, The Sun Journal, Broadway Baby, and Earth Press, among others. She has received the Choreographic Fellowships from SummerStages Dance Festival and ICA Boston, American Dance Guild Fellowship for Jacob’s Pillow’s Choreographers’ Lab, and LEIMAY Outsight Garden Choreographers Fellowship. Teresa has received grants for her work from The National Endowment for the Arts Window Award, O’Donnell Green Foundation for Music and Dance, LMCC, Peg Santvoord Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Fund Grant, New York Community Trust, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The New Music Organizational Fund, Dance/NYC Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund: New York State Edition, Artist Relief Fund, Indie Theater Fund Grant, Dance/NYC, and space grants from ITE-Inception to Exhibition, MANA Arts/Armitage Gone! Dance, Mount Tremper Arts, Field FAR Space, and at Triskelion Arts and Mark Morris Dance Center through the Mellon Foundation.
Teresa’s choreography has been commissioned by NYC Department of Transportation’s Summer Streets, chashama at Anita’s Way 4 Times Square, Island Moving Company, Marcia Brooks/Various Works MixT Company, and The Hudson River Museum via the Jordan Matter Dancers Among Us exhibit. Her full-length choreography for Book of Saints, commissioned by Marigny Opera Contemporary Ballet won the Best of New Orleans 2018 Gambit Award for Best Dance Presentation (Full Length) for this original work. Teresa has led workshops and master classes, and been commissioned to set work at University of Florida, Gainesville, NYU, Pace University, Castleton State College, University of Maine, Farmington, Jacob’s Pillow, Wilson College, and several performing arts schools. She has taught regularly at The Ailey School, Sarah Lawrence College, she is an Adjunct Dance Professor for 10 Hairy Legs New Jersey Arts & Education Center at Brookdale Community College, Middlesex County College, Union College, and Monmouth, and she is a faculty member and director of the Summer Dance Program at The Ross School. She was also the Dance Department Director and lead faculty at Studio Republik Dubai. Teresa has worked in social justice and activism since the 1990’s, involved with community groups, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and protests. Since 2005, Fellion has employed dance, live music, and theater with social justice at scores of NYC schools, organizations and professional performances as director of InterCATaction/Children’s Adaptive Theater and BodyStories: TFD, as Senior Teaching Artist for DreamYard, Marquis, Women’s Project, CWP.
Teresa was named Artistic Liaison between Cameroon & U.S. by president Paul Biya, while performing with National Ballet du Cameroun and at the National Soccer Cup Finals. She has performed for Lucinda Childs, Sarah Skaggs, Kimberly Young, M’Bewe Escobar, Skip Costa, and Martha Bowers, and she has performed works by Twyla Tharp, Deganit Shemy, Liz Lerman, and Megan Boyd, among others. Teresa completed a Dance MFA from Sarah Lawrence under Bessie Schonberg Scholarship, Certificate from the Ailey School under scholarship, and BA in French & English Literature, with a minor in dance from NYU as a merit scholar.
John Yannelli (Musical Director)
John Yannelli composer of chamber, choral, orchestral and electronic pieces, works in both traditional and experimental styles of music. Some of his more unusual combinations have been StoneMusic, where the entire ensemble performed on stones of varying shapes and sizes; and WaterHarvest, for water percussion, winds and voices. He often collaborates with dance, film and performance artists and has created many scores for modern dance as well as composed music and designed sound for theater productions ranging from Beckett to Shakespeare. He founded the Electronic Music Studio at Thomas Jefferson College and joined the music faculty there in 1976. He toured nationally as composer/accompanist with the professional theater company, United Stage, and he conceived of and developed the use of live electronic music in the productions. He joined the music faculty at Sarah Lawrence College in 1983 where he currently holds the William Schumann Chair in Music. He is the Director of Electronic Music and Music Technology and teaches for the Music, Dance and Film Programs. Mr. Yannelli also rotates as conductor of the SLC Orchestra, in which he offers programs of experimental music including the works of Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, John Cage and others, and multi-media concerts that include experimental film and animation. Mr. Yannelli’s music has been performed in U.S., European and Russian cities, the Kennedy Center, and throughout NYC including a concert at Carnegie Recital Hall devoted entirely to his music, which received critical acclaim. His music is published by Soundspells Productions and John Yannelli Music (ASCAP).
Charly Wenzel (Rehearsal Director)
Charly Wenzel is an award winning choreographer whose work has been presented in her native Germany, as well as at Dixon Place, Judson Church, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, The Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater, Steps on Broadway, The Secret Theater, Connecticut College and many other venues in and around New York. She choreographed and danced for several recording artists for live shows and for music videos. Charly received multiple awards for her dance films “Global Tides” and “Licht”, which have been screened at numerous film festivals worldwide. Charly was the Rehearsal Director and Associate Artistic Director of Naganuma Dance and she worked as the Rehearsal Director for Shadow Box Theater. Charly danced at the Bavarian State Opera in Germany and performed with Naganuma Dance, Keila Cordova Dances,Regina Nejman & Company, Earl Mosley/Diversity of Dance, Erick Montes (Bill T. Jones), Bodystories: Teresa Fellion Dance, LolaLola Dance Theater,Eddie Stockton, Morningside Opera, Hydroflo Movement Company, Soul Movement and others. She is currently a performer in Third Rail Project’s Bessie award winning show “Then She Fell”. She is thrilled to be working with all the incredibly talented artists of Bodystories: Teresa Fellion Dance! www.charly-wenzel.com