Perceptual Motion Company Dancers:

 

Mary Iris Loncto 

“Dance allows us to visualize our own internal worlds.”

Mary Iris Loncto is a dancer, actor, and choreographer from Ridgewood, New Jersey.  She recently graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied dance with Susan Lee, Jeff Hancock, Laura Wade, Amanda Lower, Annie Arnoult, and Joel Valentín-Martinez.  In Chicago, she has recently performed in Theatre-Hikes’ 10 Ways To Survive The Zombie Apocalypse and Collaboraction’s Peacebook festival.  In 2014, she joined Northwestern’s Jeff Hancock and the cast of Hancock’s Impolite Society at the Kennedy Center to perform in the National College Dance Festival.  She has also trained at the American Dance Festival, the Boston Conservatory, and the Joffrey Ballet School in New York.

Keila Hamed-Ramos

 

Keila Hamed-Ramos loves both dance and theatre. A 2016 Millikin University graduate, Keila has taught for Joffrey Ballet Community Engagement, Ballet Excel Ohio, Steps Dance Center, and more. She has also danced with Joel Hall Dancers, Meadows Dance Collective, Joel Valentin Martinez, and Mariah Eastman Dancers. She’s performing as The Mistress in Drury Lane’s upcoming “Evita”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                            Natalja Aicardi

“ I breathe, I dream, I dance …” 

Natalja is an interdisciplinary artist from Italy; she’s worked as movement director and choreographer for musical theatre, new operas and children’s theatre, with the Theatre Building Chicago, Caffeine Theatre, Stockyard theatre Project and Chicago Opera Vanguard. She danced with The New Yiddish Dance Ensemble; with Theatre Un Speak Able and CocoDanceGroup, for the stage and film. In 2014 she received the DCASE “In the Works” Residency. She Graduated from the School for Theatre Creators in 2015 . She has studied modern dance, ballet, African dance, jazz, tap and improvisation. 

 

Guest Choreographer, Peggy Lamb

 

Peggy Lamb is a native New Yorker, is a dancer, choreographer and writer. She was a key member of the Dallas performance community for the better part of a decade, alternately playing founder, choreographer, director, dancer and collaborator in numerous projects. Her work has been performed across the country. Her background includes an MA in Dance from American University in Washington, D.C. and post-graduate work in Movement Studies. The Dallas Morning News praised her work as “pushing the boundaries of decorum and sense…” She currently lives in Austin, TX and dances with Body Shift. Studying with Anna Halperin woke up her desire to teach movement in non-traditional settings. Her deepest passion is teaching creative movement and creative writing to incarcerated women in several Texas prisons through the nonprofit organization Truth Be Told.

 

 

Guest Choreographer Harvard Vallance

Harvard studied dance with Shirley Mordine, Nana Shineflug, Joel Hall, Fred Alexson and Victor Clottey. Harvard performed with The Chicago Moving Company for Urban Gateways and the Felix Fibitch Dance Company. Harvard worked with Bill Veeck to present The Instant Replay Ballet, a dance performed for 40,000 fans in Comisky Park in 1976. In 1999 he founded The Kalamazoo African Dance Company, which has introduced West African dance and hip-hop to thousands throughout Southwestern Michigan. He teaches children’s ballet, modern and African dance.

 

Helene Alter-Dyche

“Dance is liberating – it’s freedom – the heart’s expression. Dance gives the soul wings to fly.”

   Helene, 87, danced with Perceptual Motion, Inc. from 2002 to 2020. She studied ballet with Natalie Rast, Richard Ellis and Christine DuBoulay. She taught ballet at the Ellis DuBoulay School of Dance. 

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PMI’s mission is to engage dancers of mixed generations to create inspiring and meaningful experiences that open awareness, challenge perceptions, and create community.