David Dorfman, Artistic Director
Artistic Director and Founder of David Dorfman Dance (1987), has been Professor of Dance at Connecticut College since 2004. Dorfman received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005 to continue his research and choreography in the topics of power and powerlessness, including activism, dissidence, and underground movements. DD has been honored with four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, an American Choreographer's Award, the first Paul Taylor Fellowship from The Yard, and a New York Dance & Performance “Bessie” Award. David was a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Dance. His work has been commissioned widely in the U.S. and in Europe, by Dancing Wheels (Cleveland), AXIS Dance Company (Oakland), and Bedlam Dance Company (London).
His forays into theater include choreography for the Tony Award-winning play, Indecent, by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, for which DD received a Lucille Lortel Award and Chita Rivera Nomination for best choreography for the play’s Off-Broadway run. David traveled to London in March 2020 to set choreography for Indecent’s UK premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In addition, David has contributed his choreography for the upcoming Whisper House, a new musical by Duncan Sheik and Kyle Jarrow, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People at Yale Rep; Our Town, a co-production of Deaf West and Pasadena Playhouse; Assassins at Yale Rep; and the original musical Green Violin at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, for which he won a 2003 Barrymore Award for best choreography.
Dorfman tours an evening of solos and duets, Live Sax Acts, with dear friend and collaborator Dan Froot, most recently in New York City and at the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe. As a performer, he toured internationally with Kei Takei's Moving Earth and Susan Marshall & Co. DD hails from Chicago and holds a BS in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis (1977). He appeared on several episodes of A Chance to Dance, a reality show on OvationTV starring Dorfman’s pals, the BalletBoyz who invited David Dorfman Dance to make a three minute video for RandomAct/Channel 4UK. We Don’t Own a Dog came out of that invitation—click here to watch it.
DD continually thanks Martha Myers and the late Daniel Nagrin, for being his dance mom and dad; his late parents, Oscar and Jeanette, for inspiring him to dance to heal and instilling the importance of a good joke; and his in-house “family project”, Lisa and Samson, for sharing with him the practice of unconditional love.
Lisa Race
performed, choreographed and taught in NYC for many years before moving in 2004 to Connecticut, where she is a Professor of Dance at Connecticut College. She danced with David Dorfman Dance from 1989-2000, having received a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) in 1995 for her dancing with the company. She then took a pause when her and Dorfman’s son was young before rejoining the company in 2013. While in NYC she also danced with Sara Pearson/Patrik Widrig & Co. and Ronald K. Brown. Under the guise of RaceDance, her choreography was seen at the former Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Dancenow and MR at the Judson Church while in NYC. She has been fortunate to teach at Bates (ME) and ImPulsTanz (Vienna) Dance Festivals, as well as the American Dance Festival (NC) multiple times, and has given classes and workshops at many locations here in the US and around the globe. Race has collaborated with Shawn Hove on three dance films, which collectively have been screened at the Sans Souci Festival (CO), Dance For Reel, Light Moves Festival of Screendance (Ireland) and Motion State Arts (RI). She most recently collaborated with Hove and Rachel Boggia on a performance project at Connecticut College.
Lily Gelfand
Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, Lily Gelfand is a Brooklyn based dancer, cellist, and teaching artist. Lily received a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio in 2018. In addition to DDD, Lily has danced with Baye & Asa and Saxyn Dance Works. As a cellist, she has accompanied for dance at The Juilliard School and NYU Tisch as well as performing with Parsons Dance at The Joyce. She has collaborated and composed for/with Jasmine Hearn, Michael Wall, Christina Robson, and the Gibney Company, and has had the pleasure of live-scoring for NPR Radio Diaries. Her favorite color is green.
Dorchel Haqq
Raised in Harlem, Dorchel studied at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and received her BFA from Purchase College, SUNY. Dorchel has performed in works by AIM by Kyle Abraham, Kayla Farrish, Loni Landon, Vanessa Goodman, Maya Lee-Parritz, Stefanie Batten Bland, Johannes Wieland, Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More Shanghai, and Emursive’s Life and Trust. Dorchel is in her first season with David Dorfman Dance. She is an adjunct lecturer at Purchase College, where her work has also been commissioned. Through her 2025 Movement Research Van Lier Artist of Color Fellowship, she is mentored by Nora Chipaumire.
Kevin Carroll
Kevin Carroll —Is an interdisciplinary dance artist and holds a B.F.A. in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Dance and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park (anticipated 2027). He also is a company member with David Dorfman Dance, continuing to expand his practice through performance, collaboration, and community engagement. His continued studies and creative and choreographic processes have included work with esteemed faculty both at University of Maryland, College Park and Virginia Commonwealth University and beyond—-with artists such as Robert Battle, Paul Matteson, David Dorfman, Sidra Bell Dance New York, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and in programs like The Bates Dance Festival and T he American Dance Festival. He has had the pleasure of performing in works by David Dorfman, Doug Varone, Dean Moss, Scott Putman, MK Abadoo, Eric Rivera, Adriane Fang, Angela Smith, Peter Derby Pattengill, Jalen Rose, and Bree Breeden. In addition to performing he has engaged and connected with the community through his work as a dance educator in both Prince William County and Montgomery County Public Schools.
Claudia-Lynn Rightmire
is a multidisciplinary artist, creating within mediums of dance, writing, theater, and visual art. Claudia-Lynn holds an Honors summa cum laude BA from Roger Williams University, is a certified health coach, and is currently teaching at Gibney Dance. Claudia is an artist with David Dorfman Dance, Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, and INSPIRIT Dance with Christal Brown, and has worked with NYC Children’s Theater, Third Rail Projects, Kinesis Project, Sarasota Contemporary, and Moving Ethos. She has been a guest artist and educator at many institutions, nationally and internationally. In 2021, she formed cs movement projects, a performance art company, alongside her partner, Simon Thomas-Train. She is driven by storytelling, voice, shadow, and being a new parent.
Jack Blackmon
(they/he) was born and raised in the mountains that surround Lake Tahoe, where they received their early dance training. They went on to attend NYU Tisch School of the Arts before working for contemporary choreographers throughout New York City, including Sean Curran, Paul Singh, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Emily Schoen, Nicole Wolcott, among others. They have also toured their choreographic work to Austin Dance Festival, Dance Gallery Festival, WestFest Dance Festival, ChaShaMa Gallery, Arte e Vistas, and the Lake Tahoe Dance Festival. Their immersive theater credits include Punchdrunk NYC’s “Sleep No More,” Company XIV’s “Nutcracker Rouge,” and many nightlife spaces throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Corinne Lohner
(they/she) is a performing artist and dancemaker based in Brooklyn, NY. They freelance as a performer with companies like Yin Yue Dance Company, David Dorfman Dance, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, and more. Currently, they are a Performance Project Fellow at University Settlement and a Pride Resident Artist with WADE. Notable past credits include performing with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, choreographic commissions from Oquirrh West Project and InQUAD Dance, and a B.F.A. from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
DDD BAND
Samuel Crawford
completed degrees in English and Audio Engineering at Indiana University in 2003. His compositions and sound designs have included works for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (Venice Biennale, 2010), A.I.M by Kyle Abraham (Untitled Love, 2022), Camille A. Brown and Dancers (BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, 2016), and David Dorfman Dance (Aroundtown, 2017). La Medea, a live film collaboration with director Yara Travieso for which he composed the music and wrote the libretto, premiered at P.S.122’s Coil Festival in 2017. Crawford is a lecturer in sound design at the University of Maryland's School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.
Jeff Hudgins
a transplanted Texan whose music has been described as "somewhat menacing” (New York Music Daily), is a founding member of local NYC group Bombay Rickey. He has toured in the US and Europe, has premiered John Zorn, Tim Berne and John Harbison, has performed in Kamala Sankaram’s award-winning steampunk murder mystery opera, Miranda (2012), and in Yara Travieso’s dance/live-video show, La Medea (2017), and has made records with fellow DDD Band members Sam Crawford, Zeb Gould and Liz DeLise. In addition to Bombay Rickey, he writes for the NYC groups Anti-Social Music and Opera On Tap. This year Jeff is working with Bombay Rickey on their third record, and making new recordings with Guy Klucevsek and Evan Rapport.
Lizzy
is an interdisciplinary, gender queer artist who plays with otherworldly textures and tones to invite, envelope, and transport. They compose / perform music for dance, theater, podcast, and film. Lizzy’s work has been featured on NPR’s Invisibilia, at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Their band Lizdelise released their most recent record Sept 2023, which centers themes of moving through grief by seeking radical joy and acceptance of self. Lizzy currently performs with David Dorfman Dance, Canadian indie band Housewife, and Yara Travieso.
Mark Watter
is a multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer, and producer based out of Philadelphia. When he's not working on new records, you can find him on tour with Lizdelise or David Dorfman Dance!
