COMPANY
THE PATRICIA RINCON DANCE COLLECTIVE is a San Diego-based professional dance theatre performing company aspiring to educate dancers and enrich San Diego audiences by providing diversified, socially-conscious, innovative programming and choreography.
Patricia Rincon Dance Collective is known for its adventurous programming and cultural investigations. Now on its 30th year of dance making, working both independently and collaboratively with other prolific artists and arts organizations since 1982. PRDC continues its programing of engaging artists who move towards risk-taking and broadening audience perspective.
Patricia Rincon
PATRICIA RINCON (Artistic Director/Choreographer) Artistic Director of the Patricia Rincon Dance Collective since 1982. She has performed, directed and choreographed in California, Mexico and Europe, as well as participated in annual workshops and performances as artist-in-residence at the University of Heidelberg Sports Institute, University of Frankfurt Main, University of Manheim and in Konstanz, Germany. She also has taught for many years at the Universities of Zurich, Bern and Lugano in Switzerland. The company has been presented by the UCSD’s University Events Office (UEO) National Dance Series, the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, Arts Partnership Program. (MCA) in La Jolla, and Sushi Performance and Visual Arts. In 1999 the company was featured as the only American dance troupe at the “Tanz in Olten International Dance Festival” in Switzerland, and the “Cuerpos Entransito International Dance Festival” at the Centro Cultural Tijuana Performing Arts Center, to name a few. The company has won five San Diego Dance Alliance Tommy Awards for its performances. In 1999 Artistic Director Rincon won a Tommy Award of Distinction for her years of service, leadership and vision in creating performance opportunities for choreographers —international and local — as well as local dancers.
Ms. Rincon has developed the successful annual “Blurred Borders Dance Festival” as well as the site-specific Myth Project series in San Diego. Her additional international work for the past ten years has also included traveling to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she has been touring her company, teaching and creating choreography for dancers from the Bellas Artes Cultural Art Center there. Ms. Rincon has continued to work with partner, Paula Zacharias, in creating numerous dance video/films projects such as “Project Contemporary Dance San Miguel de Allende,” and “The Walls Have Memories,” which premiered both in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and San Diego, in December 2007. Rincon and Zacharias were awarded a UCSD Latino Studies Research Initiative grant in 2008-2010 for the research and making of their new documentary: “Latino Now-Landscape of Desire,” filmed in Mexico and California about the American Dream. Their video-film “Waiting,” created in Buenos Aries, Argentina in 2008 premiered in San Diego later that year at PRDC’s Blurred Borders Dance Festival. It was subsequently chosen for the Buenos Aries Festival Internacional VideoDanczaBA’08 in October 2008 and presented in San Diego for the Dance-on-Film Festival. premiering in both Tijuana and San Diego in February and March of 2009. PRDC was invited to tour Ms. Rincon’s work “Peeled” and held a week workshop on Society and Dance at the IUNA Instituto Universitario Nacional de Arte in Buenos Aires, Argentina in September 2011. PRDC has recently been invited to tour to Switzerland to the TANZINOLTEN Festival as well as Germany in FY2013. Patricia is the Head of Dance in the UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance.
PERFORMERS AND ARTISTS
Keely Campbell
KEELY CAMPBELL (performer) began dancing at the age of three training under the guidance of Terry Wilson, Jean Isaacs, and Faith Jensen-Ismay. She has performed in various projects throughout San Diego for such choreographers as Sadie Weinberg, Erica Beuchner, and Yolande Snaith. She currently dances for Colette Harding Contemporary Dance Company and is a guest artist for d’shire Dance Collective. Keely presented her own choreography in the 2008 Emerge Festival and is now excited to have the opportunity to show her art as well as dance in her third season with the Patricia Rincon Dance Collective.
Kenna Crouch
KENNA CROUCH (performer) grew up dancing ballet, tap and jazz at the San Juan School of Dance in Los Altos, CA. With certification at the elementary level of the London-based Royal Academy of Dance and national competitive experience under her belt, Kenna arrived to UCSD in 2004 ready to diversify her movement repertoire. This she did under the guise of many distinguished professors of contemporary dance, such as Patricia Rincon, Jean Isaacs, Allyson Green and Yolande Snaith. She took every opportunity she could to participate in Dance Department productions throughout college. In 2007, she moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she studied classical and modern dance as well as tango at the Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte. Upon returning to UCSD, she drew inspiration from her experience abroad to create a piece for the student-choreographed show Highly Sprung 2008. This debut work, Queremos Paz, successfully fused elements of ballet, modern dance, yoga, tango, and contact improvisation. Having graduated cum laude in December ‘08 with Bachelors of Arts in Dance & Sociology, Kenna now works as a Yoga Instructor at Haute Yoga in Solana Beach. She aspires to continue creating and experimenting in the field of dance, both in and outside of San Diego.
Sarah Larson
SARAH LARSON (performer), originally from Minnesota, began dancing in high school at The Perpich Center for Arts Education. Larson followed her dreams of pursuing dance and moved to San Diego in 2004. Since moving to the area, Sarah has studied dance at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, and graduated in 2008 from University of California, San Diego, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance. Since graduating, Sarah has performed annually in San Diego Dance Theater’s Trolley Dances and has performed for Sound Dance Company, DK Dance, Brava La Danza, Brown Paper Bag Dance Co., Blythe Barton Dance, Martita Abril in Tijuana and other dance companies in San Diego. Sarah was recently featured as guest artist in the San Diego Dance Theatre’s Cabaret Dances 2011. Reviewed by SanDiego.com earlier this year “Larson is one to watch as she can undulate wildly. . .” Sarah is currently in her 3rd season with Patricia Rincon Dance Collective, and is looking forward to challenging herself more as a choreographer and artist, and is enthusiastic about touring in 2011.
Sam Mitchell
SAM MITCHELL (performer) has over 19 years of dance experience including five years as a core dancer in Santa Barbara Dance Theatre. Sam has experience as a choreographer for both dance and theatre. He has taught ballet, modern and performing skills extensively at the university level as well as in independent dance studios. He directed The Studio at North Park for one year, where he taught modern technique, ballet, salsa, and tango classes. He has taught Master classes in Santa Barbara, Oakland, New York, San Francisco, the Czech Republic, China and Bologna, Italy.
Justin L Viernes
JUSTIN L. VIERNES (performer), originally from Kaneohe, Hawaii, has been entertaining audiences nationally and internationally since age 5. Justin has been a part of well known groups such as The Honolulu Boy Choir and the nationally recognized theater group CPAC (Castle Performing Arts Center) which has led him to travel and perform in Japan and Canada and has performed at some of the world’s finest venues alongside famous artists such as Kool and the Gang, Sheri Lewis and Ray Charles. Justin began his dance career at the age of 16 as a scholarship student at 24VII Dance Company and was trained in ballet, jazz, modern and hip hop. After moving to San Diego Justin has danced for Vitality Dance Company, Fusion Dance Company, guest artist for Long Beach Community College, Chapman College in Orange California, Sondra Kazama, Khamla Somphanh, DK Dance, Lavian Rich, Heather Dale Wentworth and with The Southern California Ballet. As a scholarship student at The Academy of Performing Arts he received intense training from well known artists from all over the country in all major dance styles. His dancing has traveled him to Kazakhstan as a United States Cultural Envoy representing American contemporary dance, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Florida and was featured in San Diego Performer Magazine (formerly Dance San Diego Magazine). Justin has also been a guest teacher at Hammond School of Dance, Chula Vista High School, La Jolla Country Day, The Academy of Performing Arts, Freespace Dance, Downtown Dance (Lakeworth, Florida), Eveoke Dance Theater, J. Company and is a resident teacher at Dance and Company. Exploring his own choreographic voice, he has started to present his own work all over San Diego County and recently debuted two pieces in The Blurred Summer Dance Festival produced by the Patricia Rincon Dance Collective. Justin dances for the d’shire Dance Collective, The Patricia Rincon Dance Collective, and is the rehearsal director for The PGK Project – A Contemporary Dance Company. Striving to enhance dance in San Diego and beyond, Justin has recently started his own dance company, brown paper bag dance co. which made it’s San Diego debut at Ignite 2011: A Choreographer’s Showcase.
Natalia Valerdi
NATALIA VALERDI (Associate Artistic Administrator) is a video artist, social media specialist, and creative collaborator with the Patricia Rincon Dance Collective. She is currently developing and implementing PRDC’s social marketing strategy. Valerdi-Reese worked as the Audio-Visual specialist in the Dance Department at the University of Utah and was visiting lecturer at the University of California, San Diego. Her work brings together dance and digital media through performance. Her recent works include White Dreams, Feedback Looping and Traces, as well as collaborations with choreographers Patricia Rincon, Alicia Rincon and Yolande Snaith. Valerdi-Reese received her M.F.A. in Dance and Technology from the University of California, Irvine. She currently teaches PRDC’s outreach program at La Jolla Country Day, and teaches dance at Southwestern College and with Collaborations of Teachers and Artists.
PAULA ZACHARIAS (video artist) is founder and head of Nagual Films, her own video editing and production company, while living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, now headquarted in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her filming and editing credits are many, including having worked with Ms. Rincon to film and produce the video projects Project Contemporary Dance San Miguel de Allende, and The Walls Have Memories, and Waiting, which has been selected for numerous international film festivals, including the San Diego Latino Film Festival, March 2010. She has produced stock photo shoots in Argentina, Brazil, India, Thailand and Mexico. Her stock images are carried by Getty Images, Corbis, and BLEND. Ms. Zacharias’s photos were recently published in a new book entitled South India 2007.
