VALLETO summer intensive is a global and inclusive transformative dance training program that is offered every summer in New York City.
Intermediate and advanced dancers from all over the globe are welcome to apply. It is led by Valeria Gonzalez, and guest emerging international choreographers, and guest speakers. Students will be trained in techniques such as, Contemporary, Floorwork and Improvisation.
Upcoming Intensive: July 5th - July 17th
One year after not being able to dance together...
we are back in NYC!
We have 15 limited spots open this summer to comply with CDC's Covid-19 safety precautions.
We will have a variety of classes in floorwork, flying low, improvisation, and a choreographic process with our director, Valeria Gonzalez.
We cannot wait to move with you!
2021
July 5th - July 17th
Monday - Friday: 10am - 5pm
Performance: Saturday Evening on July 17th
Location: New York Live Arts
Price: $900
**we have a four part payment plan available through sezzle**
This 2-week intensive will provide dancers with the professional experience of working with renowned emerging choreographers, an artistic statement, a physical trained body, and the experience of performing with an audience in New York City.
Dancers will also be mentored one-on-one during the intensive, and much more!
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis and will close when all spots have been filled.
We have a four part payment plan available through Sezzle.
Michael Wall
Composer
Michael Wall is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer and educator who collaborates with musicians, choreographers and filmmakers around the world. He composes original music, teaches sound design and performance with Ableton Live and offers a comprehensive online library of music. Michael serves on the faculty at the University of Utah as Program Head of Modern Dance.
Jessie Lee Thorne
Contemporary Forms + Expand (USA)
Jessie Lee Thorne is a free-lance dancer, teacher, and choreographer based in Los Angeles. Jessie dabbles in both commercial and theatrical realms of dance, and finds it important to use art as a form to further understand the nature of the self and reality.
She started her training at LACHSA and continued at The Boston Conservatory. After receiving her B.F.A in Dance and Choreography, she spent two years in Italy touring with the Imperfect Dancers Company. Jessie has traveled the world performing works by Walter Matteini, Ohad Naharin, Jiri Kylian, Doug Varone, Robert Moses Kin’, Adam Barruch, and Micaela Taylor. Since her return to LA, Jessie has performed with Kybele Dance Theatre, Acts of Matter, and The TL Collective. She has started her own dance company "Poets In Motion," and has movement directed and choreographed music videos for artists such as: David Archuleta, Kevin Mchale, Emit Fenn, Tam Visher, as well as choreographed for the Universal feature film "Bobbleheads The Movie" and for the short film, "Daisy Boy."
Dorchel Haqq
Contemporary Forms (USA)
Dorchel Haqq raised in Harlem began her dance training at Dance Theater of Harlem. With education from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts then later at the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College SUNY, Dorchel initiated her discovery of the body as a political statement. Through Purchase College, Dorchel studied at Korea National School of the Arts and was an Adopt-a-dancer recipient. Working with artists Johannes Wieland, Stephanie Batten Bland, Maxine Doyle, Loni Landon, and Kayla Farrish, Dorchel’s movement practices questions, challenges and induces an imaginative world. Dorchel is the co-founder of LLAB RATS, an interdisciplinary arts collective that creates through collaboration in response to social injustice. Dorchel explores fantasy and abstracts the echo of transgenerational trauma in her body of culture through film, sound exploration, and object investigations. Dorchel’s recent choreographic works, ‘tenderheaded’ honorarium of the 2020 Battery Dance Festival and ‘BLACKDIAMOND’ commissioned by the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College SUNY illuminates these ideals. Dorchel is a Springboard nominated, recipient of Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation AIR Founder’s Residency. Dorchel is currently an adjunct lecturer at the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College SUNY and joined A.I.M by Kyle Abraham the fall of 2020.
Paulina Espinosa
Flying Low (Artistic Exchange with Mexico)
Mexican dancer, choreographer and educator. Graduated with honors from Peridance Capezio Center in NYC. She's been a member of numerous international companies such as Valleto, Anna Konjetzky & CO, Physical Momentum, Vortx Dance, Soluq Dance Theater, TNSP, Anabella Lenzu/Dance Drama, Azul Dance Theater, Ehrstrand Dance Collective, among many others. She has been part of original creations and reprises by Jesee Zaritt, Manuel Vignoulle, Bryan Arias, Robert Battle, Igal Perry, Enzo Celli. In Mexico, she has been part as a performer and choreographer of Humanicorp, directed by Gerardo Hernández. She has also been a guest artist for Pálido Teatro directed by Raúl Tamez, Apoc Apoc of Jaime Camarena, Tierra Independiente ofHelmar Day Alvarez and Paulina Alvarez.
She's a direct student of David Zambrano, who has led her into becoming an authorized teacher of Flying Low and with whom she has participated in public Passing Through sessions in Portugal and Spain.
Her choreographic work has been showcased in Mexico, The United States and Portugal, countries where, along with Sweden and Canada, she has also developed as an educator. She Co-directs Balero Proyecto Escénico with Isela Quintana, a cultural management and educational project. She is also the Founder and Co-Director of Conexión Festival Virtual de Danza.
Her workshop Building Space: Flying Low and Spiral Research is currently promoted by the platform Técnicas de Movimiento, directed by Francisco Córdova.
Isela Quintana
Floorwork (Artistic Exchange with Mexico)
Isela is a Mexican dancer, teacher and choreographer, born in Mexico City. She graduated from Ollin Yoliztli School of Classical and Contemporary Dance (Mexico). She also continued her studies in Los Angeles, California, USA. And training capoeira with Longe do Mar(Mexico).
She has worked and collaborated with various artists and choreographers, such as Emiliano Cárdenas, Beto Pérez, Jaime Camarena, Francisco Córdova, Adolfo Flores, Carolina Jímenez, Helmar Day, Paulina Hernández, Edwin Salas, and Santiago Malabari among others.
She has collaborated with different performing artists from different disciplines like puppet theater at Edwin Salas Art Performance, Clown and dance with Triciclo Rojo company. Handling of object and space with juggling by Santiago Malabari.
Since 2015 she has been working hand in hand with Reconquest Films and the filmmaker Luis M. Jara who's creat different dance short films, which have been awarded and chosen in different short film festivals in Europe and Latin America.
In the same year, she created her own company “Hebra, Construcción en Movimiento”, a stage creation platform, where she has developed her skills as a choreographer, cultural manager, and stage producer.
Her work has focused mainly on developing her own teaching methodology "Contemporary-Fusion of Movement" a body investigation that starts from the impulses of Capoeira, Urban and Contemporary Dance, she has working with different bodies, of different styles, with more than 8 years of experience, offering permanent training to professional companies of Contemporary Dance, Physical Theater, Urban Dance, Circus performance artists, Acrobats and Athletes in Mexico and abroad.
She co-directs Balero Proyecto Escénico and Conexión Festival Virtual de Danza.
Now, she has the honor of working with Valleto Dance directed by Valeria Gonzalez, for the Virtual Season 2020.
TWO IN SEVEN BILLION
Floorwork (USA)
TWO IN SEVEN BILLION is a NYC-based physical dance theater company founded by emerging choreographers Alex Schmidt and Jessica Eckardt in 2019. Alex and Jessica met in the Alonzo King LINES Ballet training program where they graduated from in 2017, and then moved to New York City shortly after. The company premiered their first evening length ‘TWO IN SEVEN BILLION’ to full houses in December of 2019. The company has taught their movement in pop up classes and intensives throughout the city and for other companies such as MICHIYAYA Dance, Valleto Dance, and moveDIPR. TWO IN SEVEN BILLION is performing and teaching in a west coast tour with other artists that has been rescheduled for Spring of 2022. They also created their first film, ‘MERDE’, in December 2020. TWO IN SEVEN BILLION is currently working on a new evening length work to premiere later this year.
Monica Steffey
Untamed Curiosities (USA)
Monica Steffey is a Brooklyn based dancer, choreographer, and community activist. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Dance from Skidmore College where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. Monica is a Company Dancer with Soluq Dance Theater and has danced for VIVO Ballet, Amirov Dance Theater, and HIVE Dance Company. In addition to working with these companies Monica has studied and performed internationally in Israel, Hungary, and Ghana. She has performed works by Ohad Naharin, Sidra Bell, Paul Taylor, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Shen Wei, Jason Ohlberg, Erika Pujic, and Ali Kenner Brodsky. She has also worked as a Teaching Assistant for Enzo Celli at both Peridance International Dance Center and Steps on Broadway.
In 2020, Monica premiered her movement research theories in Santa Cruz, California, with HIVE Dance Company, exploring empathetic emotional extremes through movement and connection. In the midst of the pandemic, Monica founded Wet Hairy Women, a project focused on curating artwork that exposes and questions the raw truths of womanhood. She is also a co-founder of Community Art Share, an online platform/space for artists to share their projects, ideas, questions, and to give feedback. In addition to her work performing and creating, Monica spent the past 6 months leading one of the largest vaccination efforts across all five boroughs of NYC in reaching marginalized communities. For her newest initiative, Monica is developing a physical research program, Leadership Training for Dancers.
Monica’s class is provocative, expressive, and open. Her movement classes break the norms of traditional movement styles and pedagogical structures. Every class is different and greatly determined by the people in the room. Monica bases her movement research in questions that reveal truths about the human condition. Within a guided improvisational format, Monica explores what it means to tap into our innate curiosities and find our voices as artists and activists. What do you want to say? What do you need to share? A playground for the inner child to liberate, anything goes. Judgement is left at the door, and boundary-breaking self-discoveries are made. Monica’s class invites the unapologetic, uninterrupted, and untamed fire within all of us to speak.
"Working with Valleto is always intense. Val is an intense person herself, and she embraces this part of her in her work. Her deep connection to her sexuality and her mission to unleash the inner sexual demon we all have in us allows a unique experience to shine through. Working with Val makes you realize you’re more badass than you know. She does this with incredible finess and ease, like she was made to bring about kings, queens and majestic beings in the world through her wild mind and incredibly emotional workshopping. Valleto is otherworldly."
Jensen Springer
VALLETO INTENSIVE 2019 PARTICIPANT
"I feel like I grew so much from this intensive, not just as a dancer, but as a human being. We really pushed ourselves physically, but I always felt safe and supported. Everybody involved was able to tap into this really beautiful vulnerability and have the support of everybody in the room. Those moments are so magical because it is so rare and truthful. You feel safe to take risks and push beyond your limits because you know everybody is there for you."
Rachel Lovett
VALLETO INTENSIVE 2019 PARTICIPANT
PAST
2020
2019
"My goal is to create a safe space for the participants to learn in detail and receive personal feedback from our guest artists and myself. I curated this intensive with a variety of techniques and styles to provide a broader insight of the contemporary dance world."
Valeria Gonzalez
FOUNDER | DIRECTOR
