Doug Hamby, artistic director
Doug Hamby lives and works in the Baltimore-Washington DC area. He has extensive experience as a dancer, choreographer, and educator. He is the artistic director of Doug Hamby Dance, a professional dance company in residence at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). The company features works that spring from collaboration with dancers, composers, and other creative people. Recent collaborators include artist Timothy Nohe, intermedia artist Steve Bradley, video artist Deborah Gorski, and mechanical engineer Tony Farquhar. Hamby has directed the Douglas Hamby Dance Company in New York City and performed with Martha Graham, May O'Donnell, Rachel Lampert, Elizabeth Keen, Pearl Lang, Norman Walker, the Chicago Moving Company, Phoenix Dance Company, and Hamby and Lacy. Featured performances of his company include annual summer seasons at Dance Place, Washington DC, Riverside Dance Festival, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, and Celebrate Brooklyn, in New York City; the1998 New York International Fringe Festival, 1997 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and 1995 International Fringe Festivals in Edinburgh, Scotland and Vancouver, Canada. He has received choreography awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, New York State Council on the Arts, Arts Council of Montgomery County, Maryland, and the Baltimore Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art and Culture. He has served as a dance advisory panelist for the Maryland State Arts Council for three years. He is an assistant professor of dance at UMBC and has an MFA in Dance from Temple University and a Biology degree from Michigan State University. He has also appeared on national television as a giant slice of American cheese.

Send email to hamby@umbc.edu.

Brian S. Bagley, dancer
Brian S. Bagley is a graduate of the theater department of the Baltimore School for the Arts. He studied with Stephanie Powell, Magi Ross and Donna Jacobs at Morton Street Dance Center. He has performed with the Kimberly Mackin Dance Company, the Baltimore Opera, Marilyn Byers' Dance Dimension, and Kinetics Dance Company, and Morton Street Dance Center, Phoenix Dance Company's Project REACH, and Eva Anderson Dance Company. He is the recipient of the 2000 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Professional Dance Soloist. He is currently teaching Hip Hop at Catonsville Community College and teaches and performs for Project DARE.

Dave Clark, dancer
Dave Clark is a graduate of Goucher College with a BA in chemistry. Before becoming a professional dancer, Clark played basketball. He was captain of his college team and led them to 1st Team All-Conference for four years in a row. He won numerous collegiate athletic awards including Academic All-American in 1994-1995. When he took dance classes to help his basketball skills, he became intent of becoming a professional dancer. He has performed with the Pennsylvania Dance Theater, Doug Hamby Dance, and the Kimberly Mackin Dance Company. Currently Dave is a special education teacher in Baltimore County Public Schools.

Emily Giza, dancer
Emily Giza graduated from UMBC with a BA in Visual and Performing Arts/Dance in 1996. While studying at UMBC, she performed regularly with the Phoenix Dance Company and was a soloist with Phoenix's Project REACH. She has studied dance with Sean Curran, Karla Wolfangle, David Dorfman, Mary Williford-Shade, Doug Varone, Terry Creach and Mark Dendy. She teaches ballet throughout the Baltimore area and is on staff at Experimental Movements Concept (EMC) in Hampden and the Baltimore School for the Arts. She also performs with the Collective, a professional modern dance company in residence at EMC.

Jenafer Herling. dancer
Jenafer Herling is a senior Dance major and Psychology minor at UMBC. She previously attended the University of New Mexico, where she studied dance with Bill Evans and Nora Reynolds. She has studied and performed with various artists in San Francisco, and recently performed in the DC area with Ed Tyler, Adrienne Clancy, and Cat Scratch Theater. She enjoys teaching children ballet and jazz at Flair studio, and for Project DARE in Baltimore.

Jennica Lee, dancer
Jennica Lee is senior Dance major at UMBC, and a recipient of the University's Linehan Artist Scholarship. These performances mark her first appearance with Doug Hamby Dance.

Julie Peoples-Clark, dancer
Julie Peoples-Clark has performed a major venues including Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, the Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia), The Conduit (Portland), and Dance Place. She has toured nationally with the Pennsylvania Dance Theater, Pittsburgh Ballet, Pittsburgh Dance Theater, Baltimore Voiceworks, Phoenix Dance Company, Deborah Riley Dance Projects, and Doug Hamby Dance. Peoples-Clark has received grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences. Her choreography has been showcased at the American College Dance Festival, Glen Echo Hall of Mirrors, Towson University, Baltimore Museum of Art, Essex Community College, the Harford Dance Theatre, and Columbia Center for the Arts. She is the National Project coordinator for DARE America's Dance program.

Sarah Seely, dancer
Sarah Seely received an MFA from Smith College, where she was also a graduate teaching fellow, in May 2001. She is also a choreographer and creates an inter-active dance/installation works. In the fall of 2001 she will move to New York City.

Pamela Stevens, dancer
Pamela Stevens is a senior Dance major at UMBC, and a recipient of the University’s Linehan Artist Scholarship. He work was recently presented in a Gala Concert at the 2001 American College Dance Festival at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University. These performances mark her first appearance with Doug Hamby Dance.

Margaret Veléz. dancer
Margaret Veléz was born in the heart of New York City's Spanish Harlem. She has extensive training in both classical and modern dance. She studied with Ballet Hispanico while earning a BS in dance from Brooklyn College Conservatory of Dance. She danced with June Lewis and Company and also received a scholarship to the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. She toured with Edith Stephens and Company in Mexico City. She has traveled extensively in Europe, Mexico and the U.S. with Lori Belilove and Company, the Isadora Duncan Foundation for Contemporary Dance, and collaborated with Anita Willoughby. Veléz presented her own work at the Merce Cunningham Studio for the American Dance Guild's Choreographers Showcase. She has choreographed dance routines for the female rap group Worl-A-Girl and has done music video choreography for Columbia Pictures' movie, I Like It Like That. Veléz is also an editor and writer and has appeared as fitness expert on Good Day New York, Tiempo, Edicion Especial, and Eyewitness News.

Maurice Tombé, robot
Also known as PDR-1A (Prototype Demining Robot 1A), Maurice is a robot developed by Dr. Tony Farquhar of UMBC with more than 20 UMBC engineering students, including Darian Robbins, a senior mechanical engineering student and Meyerhoff Scholar who is an intern at NASA's Goddard facility in Maryland; Byron Stancil, a senior mechanical engineering student and Meyerhoff Scholar who is an intern at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Todd McCleaf, a junior mechanical engineering student who also collaborated with Doug Hamby to program Maurice's movements. The project was partially funded by a grant to Doug Hamby and Tony Farquhar from the UMBC Designated Research Initiative Fund.

The robot's six legs and one arm are actuated by miniature servo motors with the onboard controller receiving instructions from a remote laptop computer in a unique hybrid evolving from simpler subunits made by Lynxmotion. The goal of the dance project was to explore the artistic limits of the robot's unusual if limited movement repertoire. Maurice will next play a central role in a related project aimed at developing novel technologies for deactivating unexploded antipersonnel land mines.