wcciJAM
about
the
team
© Rob Kunkle | Good Lux Photography
Contact Us
The West Coast Contact Improvisation JAM is created for dancers, by dancers. Come find us at the festival! Organizers past and present can help orient you, answer questions, have a dance.
The wcciFAM
Rene Alvarez
Cathie Caraker
Subrato Dey
Rosemary Hannon
Megan Lowe
Antonia Mambelli
Michael McDougall
Nhu Nguyen
Devin Pastika
Rajendra Serber
Aura Tantadel
Ronja Ver
Vitali Kononov
Karin Moriarty
Miriam Wolodarski Lundberg
Andy Wolodarski Lundberg
wcciJAM
Team
Here are the folks who make it all happen!
These organizers have been an integral part in making wcciJAM happen over the years. Their knowledge and passion will continue to shape future wcciJAMs.
René Alvarez (Budget, Finances, Registration)
​
René Alvarez, practicing physician, fire dancer, and erstwhile recreational slam dancer, is the founder of InterKinected LLC, whose mission is to investigate and promote Contact Improvisation through organization and sponsorship of classes, jams, festivals, intensives, laboratories, films and showings. ~ interkinected.org
Cathie Caraker (Marketing, PR, Housing)
Cathie is an international dance artist and teacher based in San Francisco. She has been practicing/teaching Contact and other improvisation for over 35 years. She has worked extensively with Nancy Stark Smith, Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, and others. Her interest in movement research led her to the School for Body-Mind Centering®, where she became a certified Practitioner of BMC with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. A pioneering teacher in the field of dance and somatics, she has shared her work at the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, Contact Festival Freiburg, Movement Research NYC, the New York and Seattle Improvisation Festivals, Goa CI Festival, l’Association Hayyou’Raqs in Tunis, Contredanse Brussels, and ODC in SF. She has been on the organizing team of wcciJAM since 2013. ~ cathiecaraker.com
Rosemary Hannon (Music, Meeting Facilitation, PR)
​
Rosemary dances and makes performances exploring perception, perseverance, fear, femininity, the intersection of identity and aesthetic values, the nature of story and experience of the body within shifting cultural contexts. She also performs in the work of other choreographers, teaches and organizes dance events. ~ rosemaryhannon.com
Megan Lowe (Website)
​
Megan Lowe (she/they) is a dance creator/performer/teacher/filmmaker, aerialist, singer-songwriter, and administrator of Chinese and Irish descent, making dance art in the SF Bay Area, situated on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. With an affinity for dynamic places and partners, her creations through Megan Lowe Dances explore complex identities and experiences by tackling unusual physical situations and inventing compelling solutions, opening up the imagination to what is possible. Her recent choreographic works have been seen at ODC, de Young Museum, Legion of Honor Museum, and The Annex, as well as in SF Trolley Dances, the United States of Asian America Festival, CAAMFest, and on KQED Live. She won an Izzie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance - Ensemble for HOME(in)STEAD, a site-specific dance she created with Johnny Huy Nguyen at the historical David Ireland House / 500 Capp Street. Megan has performed with Flyaway Productions, Lenora Lee Dance, Dance Brigade, Scott Wells & Dancers, Lizz Roman & Dancers, Epiphany Productions, and more. She is a teaching/choreographing artist for Joe Goode Performance Group, Bandaloop, Flyaway, and her alma mater Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, where she currently works as the Program Associate. Megan has been a part of the wcciJAM team since 2016. ~ MeganLoweDances.com
Antonia Mambelli (Food, Grants, Oversight)
​
Antonia is a mom, dreamer, catalyst, and project manager. Perpetually on a quest for meaningful contribution, unhurried connection, and zest, she has discovered conscious movement to be her primal source of energy and her favorite form of meditation. Although relatively new to CI, Antonia is a regular at the jams in Berkeley, and is excited to be part of this awesome wcciJAM crew.
Michael McDougall (Grants, Registration, Documentation)
​
Michael is a dancer from the San Francisco Bay Area. He's big on awareness of somatic delight and surprise, attention to the sensory processes, and contact improvisation as a social dance form. His background includes physiology and body reading, bunches of physics and maths, psychology, and conversation as an ephemeral artform.
Nhu Nguyen (Marketing, PR, Equity & Inclusion)
​
Nhu began her dance career at the age of 8 in her hometown, Vietnam. She worked with HBSO, Vietnam for 7 years, while at Vietnam’s National School of Dance and Choreography. Since her migration in 2012, she has been involved with dance organizations transcenDance Youth Arts Project, A Reason to Survive, and A Step Beyond. There, she has been teaching Contact Improvisation to youth. Nhu uses C.I. to inspire youth to find agency and problem-solve interpersonal challenges. In 2017, Nguyen was named Outstanding Graduate in Dance, completing her BFA in Dance and minor in Visual Art at San Diego State University. Currently, she is interested in creating works that explore/expose the human instincts in C.I. and live decision making.
Rajendra Serber (Communication, Oversight, Teachers Meeting)
Rajendra has had the privilege of collaborating with many wonderful artists including Sara Shelton Mann, Scott Wells, and The Residents. He was born the same year as Contact Improvisation and grew up wrestling as a playful and loving practice; Starting with his father, who was a national wrestling champion in Argentina, and continuing with his own two sons. He has studied a variety of physical and energetic forms including Contact Improvisation, Body-Mind Centering, and Release Technique. Some of his teachers have been Anna Halprin, Nita Little, Simone Forte, Daniel Lepkoff, and Cathie Caraker. Rajendra began teaching Contact Improvisation in 1999. Since 2012 he has been part of the organizing team of the West Coast Contact Improvisation JAM. ~ rjndr.net
Aura Tantadel (Marketing, PR, Mailchimp)
Aura was born and raised in Mexico City. In 2006, she created the non-profit organization Müuval Collective, and in 2007 graduated from London Contemporary Dance School, after which she formed the dance company M.I.M. She holds a Masters Degree in Arts Management, and has led trainings, workshops, and certifications for families, artists, and entrepreneurs. Aura has danced around the world and just recently moved to Marin County. Her choreographies have been sponsored by FONCA, INBA, Librerías El Tomo Suelto, the Embassy of Quebec, the Limón Institute, Oxfam, and more. Since 2001, Aura has guided jams, classes and retreats, as well as organized/supported contact improvisation communities in Mexico, Italy, Spain, the UK, Norway, Nicaragua, and the US.
Ronja Ver (Curation, Teachers, Equity & Inclusion)
​
Ronja Ver is a dancer, dance maker, teacher, mother, and activist. A perpetual student of performance as a way of participating in community and a tool for social change, Ver is deeply inspired by Contact improvisation and its capacity to create deep and meaningful impact in themself and the world. Ver is proud to be spinning underwater in Steve Paxton’s DVD Material For The Spine. ~ ronjaver.net
Vitali Kononov
​
Vitali Kononov, born in St-Petersburg, Russia, has been teaching CI since 1997. Vitali has completed Somatic Educator, Developmental Movement, Embodied Anatomy and Yoga programs from The School for Body-Mind Centering®. He teachers at Moving On Center – School for Participatory Arts and Somatic Research since 2002, and was a faculty member of American Dance Festival (2003-04.)
Karin Moriarty
​
Karin is the Artistic Director of Dance-Is-It, a contact improvisation group based in Palo Alto. She is currently a Harbin Jam organizer/teacher and a regular teacher for the Berkeley Jam. She also teaches both modern dance and contact improvisation at DanceVisions in Palo Alto, Dance Odyssey in Santa Cruz, Ecstatic Dance in Palo Alto, and Stanford University.
Miriam Wolodarski Lundberg
Miriam is an experimental performance maker, dancer, improvisation teacher, organizer, comanager of The Finnish Hall, and freelance translator. She holds a MFA in Contemporary Performance, a BA in Political Science, and a banana in her left hand. ~ senseobject.com
Andy Wolodarski Lundberg
​
Andy is an outdoor education teacher, organizer, activist, and co-manager of The Finnish Hall. He takes a deep interest in politics, history, place, and such things that bring joy and wonder to juxtapositions otherwise seen and felt.