Founded in 1983, the Phoenix Dance Company enthralls audiences with riveting choreography and its groundbreaking fusion of modern dance and technology.

The Company has performed throughout Maryland for more than 20 years and has appeared at Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and other major venues.

Acclaimed for its experimental collaborations with leading artists in fields as diverse as videography, engineering, and computer science, Phoenix has created stand-alone dance/video works that have been featured in regional film festivals and have been broadcast on Internet2.

Phoenix is the professional dance company in residence at UMBC.

Recent Works
Phoenix choreographers are always creating new material. Among the dances presented in spring 2006 are...

• A new hardcore/punk work by Carol Hess featuring the chaotic and thrashy music by Baltimore band Lilu Dallas.
• Award-winning soloist Sandra Lacy in the highly expressive and provocative Underview by Lisa Race and Dissolve by Jeanine Durning.
• Floating Above, a sumptuous and thrilling duet with striking imagery and intricate partnering
• The mysterious, jarring and dramatic Nacht by Doug Hamby, in which three women explore the confines of a surreal nightmare.
• A new work by Doug Hamby that explores the hot zone of connection between dancers to the music of Charlie Haden.

About the Artistic Directors
Phoenix is co-directed by Carol Hess and Doug Hamby, called by the Howard County Times as "two of the most exciting choreographers in Maryland." Carol Hess received a B.A. from Barnard College and an M.A. from Columbia University. Before coming to Maryland, she danced professionally in New York City, where she performed and taught in hundreds of public schools through the Young Audiences Programs and Residencies in the Schools and the Lincoln Center Touring Program. She has performed with Hannah Kahn and Dancers, the Rondo Dance Theatre, the Janet Soares Company, and as a tap soloist she has appeared on television and in concerts in the United States and Europe. As Artistic Director of the Oregon Dance Theatre, Ms. Hess, in partnership with the Carpenter Foundation, initiated a series of program and workshops in schools, in which nearly fifty schools participated. As associate professor of dance, Ms. Hess has taught at UMBC for over ten years and is currently chair of the Department of Dance.

Doug Hamby, co-director of Phoenix, lives and works in the Baltimore-Washington area. He has extensive experience as a dancer, choreographer, and educator. Hamby directed the Douglas Hamby Dance Company in New York City and performed with Martha Graham, Mary O'Donnell, Rachel Lampert, Elizabeth Keen, Pearl Lang, Norman Walker, the Chicago Moving Company, Phoenix Dance Company, and Hamby and Lacy. He has received choreography awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, the Arts Council of Montgomery County, Maryland, and the Baltimore Mayor's Advisory Committee on Arts and Culture. He is an associate professor of dance at UMBC and has served as a dance panelist for the Maryland State Arts Council. Featured performances of his company have included the Riverside Dance Festival, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, and Celebrate Brooklyn, in New York City, Dance Place, in Washington D.C. as well the New York International Fringe Festival, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and the International Fringe Festivals in Edinburgh, Scotland and Vancouver, Canada. He has also appeared on national television as a giant slice of American Cheese.

Principal Dancer
Sandra Lacy holds a B.A. in psychology and is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dancing in London. She has performed with the Maryland Ballet, Bill DeYoung Dance Theatre, Impetus Dance Company, Path Dance Company, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Company. Currently, Ms. Lacy is employed as an instructor of dance at UMBC and the Baltimore School for the Arts. She continues to perform in Baltimore with the Phoenix Dance Consortium and in New York with Kathy Wildberger and Sean Curran. She has been a regular participant in the Maryland Dance Showcase: Workshop for Choreographers, and has received Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards in Solo Dance Performance.

Project REACH
Phoenix offers a dance outreach program, Project REACH, to Baltimore City and Baltimore County public schools. Established in 1995, Project REACH has opened the world of dance to thousands of K-12 students and has been funded by the Morton and Sophia Macht Foundation and the Macht Philanthropic Trust.

Contact
Carol Hess
Department of Dance
UMBC
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
410-455-2951
hessvait@umbc.edu
www.umbc.edu/dance/phoenix