AMY TARAVELLA is co-director, choreographer and dancer with Buffalo Contemporary Dance. As a member of the Sokolow Archive Company directed by Lorry May, she has performed Anna Sokolow's Kaddish, Preludes (to the music of Rachmaninoff), the solo "The End" from Rooms, and Dreams in Philadelphia, Virginia Beach,, Saratoga Springs and Buffalo. In 2004 she danced in the premiere of Gerry Trentham's Ash. In 2003 Ms. Taravella performed in a piece by Leslie Wexler at the Elan Awards sponsored by DanceSpirit Magazine at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Ms. Taravella holds an MFA in dance from Florida State University. She has taught modern dance and ballet at SUNY College at Brockport, the University of Buffalo, and the Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts. In recent years she has performed as a soloist with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and in Pick of the Crop's Snow Queen. Additional performance credits include work with Buffalo Ballet Theatre; Buffalo Regional Ballet; Jacksonville Dance Theatre and Dance Repertory Theatre (FL); and Nashville Dance Theatre (TN).

 

LESLIE WEXLER is co-director and choreographer for Buffalo Contemporary Dance. She was on the faculty of the Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts, a magnet school for grades 5-12, from 1983 to 2006. Ms. Wexler has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan and a BS in dance from SUNY Brockport. Her choreography was selected to close the Gala concert of the 2003 American College Dance Festival, Northeast division. Her work has also been performed with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra; at the Elan Awards in NYC honoring Broadway and film choreographer Rob Marshall; at the Dance and the Child International Conference in Sydney, Australia; in the Gala concerts of two National High School Dance Festivals; and at the New York State Summer School of the Arts under the direction of Carolyn Adams. Ms. Wexler has mounted works on the student companies of SUNY Buffalo, Brockport, Geneseo and Fredonia. Ms. Wexler teaches the community classes at The Yard in Martha's Vineyard, MA as well as for Dance Masters of America's Student Honors Intensive Program and the Teachers Training School during the summer. Through her studies with the American Dance Legacy Institute, Ms. Wexler teaches the Repertory Etudes TM, studies based on the works of master choreographers such as Jose Limon, Donald McKayle, David Parsons, Sophie Maslow, etc. In 1991, she was a recipient of a County Initiative Grant for Choreography from the Buffalo and Erie County Arts Council.