Deemed By Her Latest Presenting Venue As One of the “West Coast’s Finest Female Choreographers” GWU TRDA Alumn Alesia Young Is Changing the Face of Dance In Los Angeles With work that has been referred to as organic, sensual, liquid, deeply connected, textural, and a conscious flirtatious play with gaze and perception this choreographer turned filmmaker is revolutionizing dance theatre creating works for the stage and camera that have been gaining her much notice in the dance world, and with renewed excitement and interest in dance in mainstream media, Young, with her diverse background and visual storytelling approach to choreography, is on her way to taking modern dance to the masses and riding the wave to success.
Young received her earliest dance training at The Performing Arts Center in New Jersey with additional instruction at New York's Steps and Broadway Dance Center, and throughout Europe, with a brief stay at Amsterdam's School for New Dance Development where she was exposed firsthand to the coupling of technology and the arts. Young has had the privilege of performing in such venues as Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors in New York City, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, along with working with some of the industry’s most acclaimed choreographers, and sites her work with GWU’s own Dana Tai Soon Burgess, Joseph Mills and renowned multimedia artist Maida Withers as some of her most rewarding and influential.
A diehard east coaster, Young made the move to Los Angeles in 1998 after graduating from The George Washington University with a B.A. in Dance and American Studies with a focus in Multiculturalism and going on to receive her M.F.A. in Dance from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures. She pursued a fruitful career in dance education while simultaneously developing a thriving career as a performer. Since moving to LA she has been a principal dancer for Oni Dance, String Theory, Collage Dance Theatre, Trip Dance Theatre, Sakoba Dance Theatre (London/LA) which she joined during their U.S. national tour, Contra-Tiempo, and Your Huge Head, an artist collective established by Young and four other dance artists in an effort to create more opportunities for new and innovative choreographers to produce work.
Choreography has always been a part of Young’s creative and professional life, whether self-produced or commissioned, continually committed to presenting original work throughout the country and abroad with a growing body of repertoire for the stage, site-specific, and film. Her site-specific work “Streams of Emergence” created for the Skirball's Siteworks Series in conjunction with the LA River Reborn photo exhibit, “Mujeres” commissioned for Contra-Tiempo's touring roster, and “Fluid,” a breakout animated dance film in collaboration with FADAM Production's Founder and BET Animation Consultant Eric T. Elder, are just some examples of the work that is garnering her some well-deserved attention.
Most recently, Young, alongside fellow String Theory artists, was featured in the Scene in LA section of Angeleno Magazine. She has been profiled as an artist to watch by California Dance Network and nominated for a Lester Horton Award for Individual Performance. Her films have been featured in the FRAME International Film Festival in Portugal, the Edit International Dancefilm Festival in Budapest, and on tour with the NY-based Dance on Camera Festival. Upcoming projects include a commission for London-based Sakoba Dance Theatre's 2009 fall touring roster, the world premier performance of her newest work “Romp” as part of The Edye Second Space’s Fall season, beginning work on her new evening length piece entitled Soaked which explores the descent into the dark and deteriorating effects of grief unaddressed and marks her pending return to Southern California’s boldest center for new performance - Highways Performance Space, and Halle Berry’s soon to be released feature film “Frankie and Alice,” where Alesia worked as Assistant Choreographer.
Her foray into dance for film, beginning with small independent projects, has moved quickly and unexpectedly into the world of animation, television, and feature film, and has Young’s eyes set on establishing a wider audience for dance and greater purpose for her work. Using the medium at its best along with her talent for movement expression, Young plans to reinvent storytelling in a way that breathes life into the human experience in its fullest representation.
Young shares that “(as a Director) I am on the path to making dance on film as accessible and marketable in the states as it is abroad, establishing more fruitful collaborations between multimedia artists and expanding choreographer's tools for envisioning work. As a Choreographer, I am constantly and actively engaged in life and creating a listening for other's experiences; taking in every moment with wide eyes and an unending thirst. This is what excites me and fuels my work.”
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