Page to Stage II

Page to Stage II, produced by Starr Foster Dance, is a cross discipline project combining the art of writing and dance.

DECEMBER 1st, 2nd, & 3rd 2022 @ 7:30pm

DECEMBER 3rd 2022 @ 5pm

Firehouse Theatre 1609 W Broad St, Richmond, VA

In the Spring of 2015, we launched a call for submissions of sudden and flash fiction stories to inspire new dance works. The response was overwhelming and the performances were a huge success. For Page to Stage II, we decided to include poetry in addition to flash fiction, and invited 7 exceptional writers and 6 guest dancers.

page to stage II writers

please click on the name to learn about these amazing writers

Judith Bice

M.C. Boyes

Clay McLeod Chapman

Mary Lou Hall

Patricia Smith

Molly Todd

Tonyehn Verkitus

PAGE TO STAGE GUEST DANCERS

Through the Page to Stage Dance Series, SFD is able to offer other artists opportunities. We feel that community engagement and involvement is essential to the success of any project, especially this one. We are thrilled to have these 5 extraordinary, talented dancers, and our mentee Charlotte Bray, join the company dancers for these performances.

Elena Dimitri

Elena Dimitri was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. She found joy in dance at a young age through Richmond Ballet’s Minds in Motion program. She attended Appomattox Regional Governor's School for Dance, which is where she fell in love with Starr Foster's movement quality and choreography. After graduating in 2011, she enrolled in the University of Virginia, minoring in Dance under the direction of Kim Brooks Mata. She was selected as a Miller Arts Scholar for Dance and participated in numerous guest artist residencies and regional festivals. After graduating, she moved back to Richmond to pursue a career in education as a teacher in Richmond Public Schools. This is her 7th year of teaching elementary students and she is thrilled to perform again (after many years) as a guest dancer with the Starr Foster Dance.

Shannon Comerford

Shannon Comerford, who grew up in Amelia, VA, got her start dancing at Joy’s School of Dance. She continued her dance education at Radford University and graduated with a BFA in Dance Performance in 2015. While at Radford, she performed in many main stage productions, as well as at the New York Jazz Choreography Project and served as an apprentice for d a n a h b e l l a DanceWorks. Since graduating, Shannon has danced as a guest dancer for local RVA and DMV artists and was a company member with RVA Dance Collective for several years. Through her time with the company she worked with several notable choreographers including Eric Rivera, Miguel Perez, LaWanda Raines, Vicki Fink and Kelly Bartnik. In addition to performing Shannon has a huge passion for choreography and teaching. She loves creating and continuing to help nurture and cultivate other dancers’ journeys. Shannon is thrilled to be a guest dancer for this production of Page to Stage II and is very excited to work with Starr Foster Dance.

Mosca Mavrophilipos-Flint

Mosca Mavrophilipos-Flint graduated from VCU in 2006. There she studied Theater Education and Dance Performance and Choreography. For several years, Mosca taught Theater and English to secondary learners before stepping out of the field to focus on her family. Today she and her husband share three wonderful children and she has had the privilege to return to her passions as a dancer for Starr Foster Dance and to return to her love of education as a librarian.

Keeley Hernández

Keeley Hernández began her dance journey in Pittsburgh starting with her mother’s ballet school, The Southwest Ballet. She later went on to dance at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre before relocating to Carlisle, Pennsylvania to join the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. She spent four years training there under the teachings of Marcia Dale Weary, Simon Ball, Melinda Howe, and Darla Hoover. She danced in various ballets, including works such as: George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Serenade, Alan Hineline’s A Midsummer Nights Dream, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella’s Ball. After graduating from CPYB, she joined the Richmond Ballet as a trainee for two years. She studied under the teachings of Starrene Foster, Artistic Associate’s Jerri Kumery, Igor Antonov, Malcolm Burn, and Judy Jacob, as well as Deanna Seay, Jasmine Grace, and Cecille Tzuii. Keeley is currently faculty for the School of Richmond Ballet’s Minds in Motion program.

Sophia Berger

Sophia Berger, originally from Northern Virginia, is a dancer, choreographer and teacher and is currently pursuing her BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University. At VCU, she has created numerous works on her peers and her solo work "How She Resides” was selected to be included in the VCU Dance NOW faculty concert and represented VCU Dance at the 2022 Mid Atlantic South Regional Conference of the American College Dance Association. She has performed in many student works and in dances by professors Scott Putman and Eric Rivera. With Rivera, Sophia had the opportunity to assist him throughout his creation process. The summer of 2022 Sophia performed for choreographer Jelani Taylor at the KoDaFe International Festival in New York City and trained at Orsolina 28 in Moncalvo, Italy under the direction of Netherland Dans Theatre company members Chloé Albaret and Menghan Lou, as well as former NDT Artistic Directors Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon. She is hopeful that her training will develop into a professional performative and choreographic career after graduation in 2024.