SATURDAY November 8TH
Show 4 - 8:00 pm
Meet the Artists
REBECCA LEUSZLER OF LADYBUG A/V CLUB
REBECCA LEUSZLER is a native of Cleveland, Ohio where she began her pre-professional training in 2003 at the Royal School of Ballet under the direction of Joanne Hughes Morscher. In 2007, Rebecca graduated from the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts located in Torrington, Connecticut, with a BFA in Ballet and Modern Dance Performance. During her professional career, Rebecca has performed with the Kirov Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Ohio Dance Theatre, MOMIX Dance Theatre, Doug Elkins and Friends, MorrisonDance and Verb Ballets. Rebecca has taught dance throughout northeast Ohio and spent 4 years teaching as an adjunct professor at Baldwin Wallace University dance department. Rebecca is one of the founding members of The Movement Project, a modern dance company located in Cleveland, Ohio. The Movement Project was founded in 2009 by Megan Gargano and Rebecca Leuszler with a mission to challenge perspective, evoke social change and bridge communities through the power of movement. Her most recent project has been creating and collaborating with her husband and daughter. Ladybug AV Club emerged through a big shift in learning how to develop differently as an artist and mother. For the past 2 years we have focused on bringing analogue technology back to our community while collaborating with local artists on new work.
DANSERIES COLLECTIVE - Caitlyn Schrader (based in Greensboro, NC) and kt williams (based in Chicago, IL) join forces under the moniker DanSeries Collective. They make dance in the form of performances, installations, and events that are typically presented as a series, often placed in public locations, and many times (but not always) involve Doc Martens, a cooler, a sign, and a chair. Together, they aim to challenge easy classifications of dance and performance. Fostering long-distance collaboration, they use dance as a catalyst for maintaining and sustaining their creative partnership, ultimately making dances together, while apart.
www.caitlynschrader.com | IG: @caitlyn_schrader
MOJO CO.LAB is a Cleveland-based contemporary-theatre movement project, founded in 2021 and directed by movement artist, Morgan Joanne Grube. Meaning magic charm, magic power, or spell, “MoJo” represents the vision, purpose, and commitment to recognizing that movement is created by the individual and that every artist has a profoundly unique and important voice to share. Meaning a community collecting to connect, collaborate, and share conversations as a company, “Co.” represents the vision, purpose, and commitment to featuring and honoring all artists within the creative space as part of the creative process. Together, with the belief that inclusion leads to creation and innovation, MoJo Co.Lab’s mission is to create space for all creators and those who wish to explore and share their stories by providing performances, creative workshops, and classes reflective of the unique identities of the community within it. Paying homage to her own artistic heritage, Grube blends parts of her first and middle name (MoJo), with the abbreviations “Co.”, (standing for community, collective, connect, collaborate, conversation, company), and “Lab” (laboratory) in the creation of a space devoted to celebrating identity and creating community through creation. MoJo Co.Lab’s focus of contemporary dance is intended to expand and breathe through various art forms anywhere that creativity and community happens. Furthermore, Grube is dedicated to donation based classes, integrated arts and spaces, promoting dialogue, and inspiring innovative and provocative dance creation for all.
“Everyone deserves space. Take your space, be true, and scream your story from the depths of your belly.” -MoJo Co.Lab Director, Morgan Joanne Grube
THE CLEVELAND TANGO SCHOOL - Launched in 2015, The Cleveland Tango School is a cultural organization dedicated to preserving the beauty, codes, and traditions of Argentine Tango in the Greater Cleveland area. Through group classes, seminars, workshops and performances we work to foment the growth of the Cleveland Tango community and inspire a whole new generation of dancers.
ANTHONY PAPALEO is a Cleveland, OH native who has worked as a full time musician in the area for over a decade. During that time, he has made a name for himself as a sought after guitarist and has worked with countless local and national artists. These days he mainly focuses on his own songwriting and strives for an honest and soulful sonic representation of his years of dedication and musical influence from his peers, family, friends and recordings alike.
ORGANI CITY was born to create visual sociopolitical, cultural, emotional and ancestral discourse that subverts hierarchies from our own lived experiences in the world. Through the human body as our primary artistic medium, we create, play, explore, nurture and challenge each other. Jonathan “JayWAN” Pattiwael is an Indonesian immigrant dancer from the Hip-Hop global civilization who makes performances that remix their embodied practice in breaking, house, pencak silat, and contemporary forms to negotiate an authentic identity in our world. Born and raised in Indonesia, JayWAN lives in multiple artistic worlds that reflect the negotiation of their authentic identity as a 21st century US immigrant. Fresh off a 2024-25 European tour JayWAN is proud to be a street dancer who actively performs and competes in Hip-Hop jams and international battles. JayWAN’s work imagines a hybrid approach between choreographic practice as a source of performative social interactions and the theatrical arts as a medium for social change. As a bicultural Indonesian American artist who lives in two different aesthetic worlds (Hip-Hop culture and Contemporary Dance), JayWAN is a master in turning potential creative trainwrecks into dynamic ecosystems that engage abstract and narrative encounters between the physical body and the emergent themes of marginalized peoples. As artistic director at Organi City, JayWAN is interested in investigating the human condition by playfully instigating dances, gestures, authenticity, absurdity, characters, relationships, emotions, menial tasks, and original voices to create interdisciplinary performances that help us better understand the human condition.
ALICIA HANN IN COLLABORATION WITH HIXON DANCE
ALICIA HANN is a dance educator, performer, and choreographer based out of Columbus, OH. She began training in early childhood focusing heavily on the study of ballet, later receiving a BFA in Modern Dance Performance and Choreography from Ohio University. Alicia fell in love with modern and contemporary dance forms because of their endless possibilities for creative physical expression. She has been grateful for performance opportunities across the midwest, notably with Hixon Dance Company, Doma Dance Theater, StilGo Dance + Tech, Columbus Modern Dance Company, Perennial Movement Group, and HOMING. Alicia’s choreography has been featured in Hixon Dance’s Frontiers, Cleveland Dance Festival, Columbus City Dance Showcase, in collaboration with Honora Dance, and CoMo Dance Company. Alicia has been a dance educator for over a decade and continues to teach various dance techniques and improvisational dance forms in studio, community, conference, and university settings. Alicia hopes to be able to foster an appreciation of dance as a physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual pursuit. In addition to dancing Alicia enjoys her urban vegetable garden, backpacking with her husband, and cuddles from her rescue dogs.
ELYSE KASSA & EMMA LITTLE
ELYSE KASSA (she/her) lives in Columbus, OH, and loves to make things-- most recently for her collaborative company/collective, “all our friends collective”, which she founded in 2024. Elyse has performed as part of STILGO dance + tech, Lp & dancers, Perennial Movement Group in addition to touring her own solo and collaborative works around the region. She is always trying to learn something new. Elyse holds a BFA in Dance: Performance & Choreography from Ohio University.
EMMA LITTLE (she/they) lives in Raleigh-Durham, NC, with one foot in Ohio. Her work has been presented at ImPulsTanz, Ohio University, and Cleveland Dance Festival. She is inquisitive and anatomical, and values compassionate art. She holds a BFA in Dance. She loves to improvise, be upside down, and evolve.
CDF 2025 Show 4 Artist - Alisha Jihn
ALISHA JIHN | 靳書怡 (she/her) is a dancer, maker, and board-certified dance/movement therapist. Her work is grounded in ideas of hybridity and intercultural experiences reflective of her identity as a Taiwanese-American raised in the Midwest. She was a Fulbright Fellow to Taiwan researching cross-cultural approaches in dance/movement therapy. Alisha has presented her work at the Asia Pacific Dance Festival, OhioDance Festival, and DanceLAB MKE in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Currently based in Columbus, OH, she holds a MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University.