Jeff Slayton (Long Beach)
Choreographer of "Verbal Translation", Jeff Slayton began his professional career performing with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and later became a principal dancer with the Viola Farber Dance Company. Slayton and Farber shared an award for Creativity and Expression at the 1972 International Paris Dance Festival for Farber’s duet Tendency (1970).
After moving to California in 1978, Slayton became the Artistic Director and Choreographer for Jeff Slayton & Dancers, which toured for six years. The recipient of several National Endowment of the Arts choreography grants, he also served on the California Arts Council’s Dance Touring Panel for three years. Slayton’s choreography has been in the repertory of several dance companies throughout the US including Lynn Dally & Dancers, Colorado Repertory Company, Vox Dance Theatre, New York Dance Collective, and the New Dance Ensemble. He has choreographed solos for Viola Farber, Maria Cheng, Donna White, Sarah Swenson and others.
Slayton has taught and choreographed for numerous dance festivals, university and college dance students throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Korea. He was on the faculty of the American Dance Festival in Durham, NC from 1988 to 1996, teaching modern dance technique and repertory. In 1999, Slayton took early retirement from California State University, Long Beach, where he was a faculty member in the dance department for 21 years. Slayton was then a guest faculty member at UC Berkeley (Spring 2000), Mills College (Spring 2001), and the North Carolina College of the Arts (Spring 2002).
In 2006 his book, The Prickly Rose: A Biography of Viola Farber (authorHouse, Bloomington, IN.) was published, and he is now writing a second book. His recent choreographic work includes Inventory (2008), commissioned by Vox Dance Theater; and Tribute (2009), dedicated to Merce Cunningham and the late Viola Farber, and choreographed on students from Santa Ana’s Saint Joseph Ballet, an innovative after-school program for low-income youth, with a 27 member cast ranging in age from 13 – 18. Slayton is also on the Board of Directors for the Long Beach Dance Foundation, Inc.
William H. Meadows (Austin)
Composer for "Verbal Translation", William Meadows has worked as a composer, performer, and sound designer for over twenty years. His compositions have been performed at the Austrian Society for Electro-Acoustic Music, the Los Angeles New Music Festival, SEAMUS National Conferences, and new music concerts across the country. Meadows has created and performed in multimedia works at the International Symposium of Electronic Arts in Montreal, the Caravan of Dreams Theater (Fort Worth), the Dallas Museum of Art, and Richland College Planetarium. He has performed with Tina Marsh and in concerts presented by the Austin New Music Co-op.
Meadows has worked as a sound designer and composer for many choreographers and dance companies including Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth, Deborah Hay, Tré Arenz, Johnson/Long Dance Company, Sharir/Bustamente Danceworks, Heloise Gold, and Stephen Brown. For eleven years he has been composer in residence with Austin-based Sally Jacques’ Blue Lapis Light productions.
He has collaborated with CD/FW for many projects throughout the organization’s history, including creating original scores for "Dialogues in Motion" for the Dallas Museum of Art’s exhibition "Dialogues: Duchamp, Cornell, Johns, Rauschenberg"; "Severini Dances" for the CD/FW’s collaboration with the Kimbell Art Museum for "Severini Futurista: 1912-1917"; and for a site-specific dance created for the Continental Plaza Building (now Carter + Burgess Plaza) for First Night Fort Worth which was also utilized for a different site-specific work created for the GAINSCO parking garage for the MAIN ST. Fort Worth Arts Festival and presented for two years at that festival.
Meadows is currently collaborating with CD/FW to create an inter-active sound score for the premiere of "The Butterfly Effect and Other Beautiful Catastrophes" -- a special event on August 1-2. This collaborative work will use interactive technology to transform dancers' movements and gestures into sound using Nintendo WiiMotes and wireless microphones and transmitters.
Kerry Kreiman (Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth)
Choreographer for "ground to air signals" and performer for "Verbal Translation" Kerry Kreiman is Executive/Artistic Director of Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth. A co-founder of the CD/FW company in 1990, Kerry has choreographed over sixty works for professional and civic dance companies, universities, high schools, musicals, theater productions, outdoor festivals, site-specific projects, liturgical celebrations and a commercial industrial show. Her work has been featured on public television and community cable stations. Her choreography for other organizations includes commissions and re-stagings for Fort Worth’s Shakespeare in the Park, Purdue University, South Bend Symphony Orchestra, Southold Dance Theatre, New Century Danscene, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival, RetroFest, Texas Chamber Orchestra, Ballet Concerto, the Emma Willard School and the University of North Texas.
Kerry was one of only 12 candidates accepted into a new three-year modern dance technique teaching certification program (begun in Summer 2003 in WA), directed by the internationally-renowned master teacher Bill Evans, which she completed in 2006. She has since continued to work with Mr. Evans as a faculty member for this program, working with him to help train and certify other teachers. Kerry studied choreography and acting for dancers with renowned choreographer Daniel Nagrin and is quoted in his book: Choreography and the Specific Image: Nineteen Essays and a Workbook (University of Pittsburgh Press).
As an artist representative for the City of Fort Worth, Kerry was honored to perform her solo "Facets" at the 1998 inaugural celebration of the Fort Worth Sister Cities International partnership with Toluca, Mexico. In 2000, she was invited to teach and perform for a month in Taipei, Taiwan for the first annual Taiwan International Dance Festival on the campus of the National Institute of the Arts. She has performed in works by a variety of choreographers, including Loris Anthony Beckles, Stan Bobo, Mary Cochran, Jerry Bywaters Cochran, Creach/Koester, Chuck Davis, David Dorfman, Margie Fargnoli, Ellen Page Garrison, Caryn Heilman, David Hochoy, Doris Humphrey, Kate Kuper, Linda Leonard, Jose Limon, Dana Eugene Nicolay, Douglas Nielsen, Ruby Shang, Yacov Sharir, Mercy Sidbury, Jeff Slayton, Gus Solomons jr, Linda Tarnay, Lily Cabatu Weiss, and Chester Wolenski.
Prior to co-founding the CD/FW Co. in 1990, Kerry directed the Dance Program at the Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana and was Visiting Assistant Professor at Saint Mary's College at Notre Dame. She was a Guest Lecturer in Modern Dance for the Texas Christian University Department of Ballet & Modern Dance for eight years. In addition to teaching for the CD/FW School and "Dance Delivered" educational and community outreach programs, Kerry is a certified Pilates instructor and is a co-owner and Top Mechanic for The Body Garage, a Pilates studio in Fort Worth. Kerry holds a MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a BFA in Modern Dance and a BA in Philosophy from Texas Christian University. The Star-Telegram has recognized Kreiman as "one of the most inspired artistic leaders in our community."