BIODANCE — Social Justice

Stuart Tsubota, PhD, has been a university professor for 31 years, receiving grants from NIH and NSF to support his research. While genetics is his first passion, he has a second interest in dance. Stuart has performed with local dance companies in England and in the United States since 1980 and with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in their production of Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land. Since 2006, he has performed in New York, Geneva, and Rochester including the last three Rochester Fringe Festivals with the Rochester-based modern dance company, BIODANCE.\nMissy Pfohl Smith is the Artistic Director of BIODANCE and the Director of the Program of Dance and Movement at the University of Rochester. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and her BS from The College at Brockport. Based in NYC for 12 years, Missy performed and toured with Randy James Dance Works as a founding company member from 1993 to 2003. Missy has performed and taught across the U.S. and in Greece, Poland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia & Japan. She has recently been developing a BIO/DANCE and Social Justice Series that features socially conscious choreography and community outreach.\nJulie Schlafer Rossette is a Chemical Dependency Prevention Counselor at The Center for Youth. She received an MS in School Counseling from the University of Rochester and a BFA in Dance from The College at Brockport. In 2005, she was a performer at the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando. Since then, she has performed extensively in the Rochester area in festivals including Vision of Sound, ImageMovementSound, Rochester Contemporary Dance Collective, and the Rochester Fringe Festival. She has performed with a number of groups including the Rochester Raiderettes, Kista Tucker Dance, and since 2007 with BIODANCE.