Meet the Creators of Eve 2024
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Andrea Densmore created the framework for this project in the California Institute of Integral Studies' School of Consciousness and Transformation. In March of 2020 she presented the first iteration of Bach’s Daughter, an opera, later named Eve, in completion of the Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing Master of Arts Degree.The composed chamber music correlates with her true story.
Creator/Director Tony Owen wrote the script and composed much of the music for Eve. Tony’s direction and vision has been integral in bringing this story to the stage. A graduate of California Jazz Conservatory, Tony is a guitarist/producer/music educator and performs all over the SF Bay Area.
​​Artistic Production Advisor, Heidi Carlsen is an experimental theater artist, actor and director who creates movement stories. She performs in New York City, LA, San Francisco, Portland and is eagerly continuing to expand. Currently, she’s collaborating on The Peacoat with filmmaker, Nanda D’Agostino, and is pursuing an MFA in Performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She’s taught at SFSU, A.C.T., the Yat/Bentley Centre, etc. Carlsen received a Fulbright to Poland and holds an MFA in Directing from CalArts. Being a
Feldenkrais Practitioner informs her life and work. She is grateful to her mentors Linda K. Johnson, Ruth Zaporah and Tom Bentley-Fisher. Heidi loves diving into the unknown!
Ky Frances is a white, queer artist who was born and raised in the East Bay. He studied dance at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and at La Universidad de Chile in Santiago de Chile. He was the Co-Artistic Director of Kickbal, a dance company based in San Francisco, with colaborator Emma Lanier. He has presented his work at Fresh Festival, ODC Pilot71, Works in the Works, SAFEhouse, SPF12, BAMPFA, QDF’s Frolic at Counterpulse and YBCA. He has choreographed for the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, the SF Girl’s Chorus and 21V Choir.
Bob Densmore has been involved in the Bay Area contact improvisational dance world for over 20 years. He has traveled to Seattle and Italy to take workshops with noted teachers. He has also been involved in numerous song circles / circle singing groups and plays in a bluegrass band. He is married to Composer / Creator Anny Densmore and has been intimately involved in previous productions of Eve; singing in the chorus, creating props, managing backstage, raising money, and helping vision and shape the creation of Eve an Opera.
Camille Campbell is thrilled to join the Eve: an Opera collaboration. She’s a Bay Area performance artist and psychotherapist. She lives part time on the Sonoma coast and appeared in several Sea Ranch Thespians productions: I Hate Hamlet (2024), Ladies Foursome (2023), Rose and Walsh (2023), and A Fish Story (2022). She performed in, co-created and assistant directed The Talking Machine, 2004, for the San Francisco based Exit Theatre's Diva Fest.
Emma Lanier is a dance artist who works with movement, objects, and sound. She has presented work at San Francisco Symphony’s SoundBox, Fresh Festival, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Catherine Clark Gallery, Sonoma Ceramics, Creativity Explored, and Eleanor Harwood gallery at Minnesota Street Project. Lanier has recently performed with Alexandra Pirici, KT Nelson, Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works, and Cauveri Suresh.
Danielle Noda began her dance training at NCDC. Noda was awarded the Virginia Ann Excellence in Dance Scholarship which allowed her to continue her training at San Jose State University and perform as a company member of University Dance Theater. Noda received her BFA in Dance from San Jose State University. Noda has danced professionally for Kara Davis, Nhan Ho, Rogelio Lopez, Diane Frank, Jenni Hong Dance, Maria Basile, Jhia Jackson, Conni Mckenzie, Natasha Adorlee, Kt Nelson, Hsiang Hsiu Lin and seymour::dance collective. Noda also works as a Flexologist at StretchLab.
Julie Crothers is a white, queer, disabled performer, choreographer, and community educator based in Oakland, CA. Julie has danced professionally with Bay-area-based companies AXIS Dance Company, Sharp & Fine, Tara Pilbrow Dance, WaxPoet(s), and Kickbal. Her solo choreographic work has been presented on stages throughout the Bay Area and beyond. In 2023, Julie was a visiting artist at MANCC (Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography), where she developed an evening-length one-man dance theatre show, titled Holy Crap, which premiered in June 2023 at ODC Theater in San Francisc
From the time she could remember, Shannon Gray’s relationship with dreams and the unseen world was profound; as was her relationship with movement, creativity, and the natural world. The merging of these passions led her to discover circus arts 17 years ago. Over the years, Shannon has cultivated her unique and emotionally honest approach to aerial dance and has performed and taught internationally through circus festivals, aerial dance companies, and social circus organizations. Located in Bolinas, Shannon is currently developing The Sentience Project - a body of work exploring injury, healing, and the more than human world.
Bay Area Native, Amber Hines, brings her passion for the healing arts through her voice to support the transmission of this sacred story of Eve. She is a long time member of Keith Terry’s Crosspulse Percussion Ensemble and has worked closely with Kelly Takunda Orphan & Evie Ladin in addition to many other creative beings and projects. She currently leads multiple groups building community through music and dance.
Ken Adams is excited to join the cast of Eve this year. He’s grateful to have played other monsters like Eddie and Dr. Everett Scott in the Rocky Horror Show, Scrooge and the Ghost of Jacob Marley in Stapleton Theater’s A Christmas Carol, Uncle Ernie in NTC’s Tommy etc, along with performing guitars in MMTC’s Spring Awakening, etc. You'll find him holed up in his West Marin studio shed, working on his own weird musical projects, videos, voiceovers, and making things sound, stream and look good for his clients.
Beth Carusillo is so happy to return to her roots in acting and the stage after many years of being away working in the realm of personal development. She’s back and loving the creativity and magic of the theater!
Ali Rucker is a Bay Area born & raised musician, dancer, yogi, and lover of what's true. She is a member of Wildchoir, an Oakland-based love in action social justice choir singing music for movements and revolution, and singer/flutist in Prog Frog, an alternative psych-folk prog band based in West Marin & Oakland. It is her distinct honor to help tell this important story which reflects the experiences of so many others.
Maica Folch is a movement/theater educator and performance artist. She has been an energetic presence in the San Francisco arts education and performance communities for over twenty years. She recently performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for Kim Epifano's 25 years of Trolley Dances and is a frequent collaborator with the Eve team. She has extensive experience teaching performance arts to children of all ages and backgrounds. In addition to her work with children, Maica has studied and performed dance, theater, circus technique and aerial performance disciplines with master artists in her native Barcelona and the Bay Area. She blends circus skills and street theater with contact improvisation and clowning. She is honored to collaborate with Ms. Densmore in the extraordinary telling of her story in Eve.
Cory van Gelder began training at ODC and Mission Dance Theater in her teens and then returned to ODC after studying modern dance in Paris and at North Carolina School of the Arts, and Aerial Dance with Terry Sendgraff. Most influenced by Lizz Roman, Kathleen Hermsforf and Nita Little. In 2000, she founded Dance in Flight, a youth aerial program where she taught and directed performances until 2020. She now directs art activism performances with teens addressing the climate crisis. She performed in Kim Epifano’s Epiphany Productions, as well as with RoCo Dance, Lili Weckler, and Maica Folch. She has danced in all four of the previous performances of Eve.
Colleen Grimes is wife of Ken Adams (who plays The Monster.) They have two children and live in Woodacre. She has worked as a special education teacher in middle and high school for 15 years. She currently teaches at Mill Valley Middle School, where she also leads the Green Team Environmental Club. She has always enjoyed acting and singing, and attended New Orleans Center for Creative Arts High School for Theatre. She has sung with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir for the past 3 years, and is honored to be performing for her fourth time in Eve Opera.
Mary Ford is a 37-year member and soloist with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, as well as performing with The Left Coast Sextet 2014-2019 and a cappella vocals for conferences. She lives in West Marin with her partner Rob.
Sharon Lee Kim is an active recitalist, chamber pianist, vocal coach, music director, choral/vocal accompanist, and piano instructor. She performs and records throughout the nation and internationally, often collaborating with renowned vocalists and instrumentalists. Her most recent recording projects have been for Meta and for a short Sundance film. Since joining Saint Mary’s faculty in 2008, her roles have included: Lecturer in Piano and Music History, Coach for Vocal Studios and Chamber Music, Choral Assistant Director and Accompanist. Beyond Saint Mary’s, she is the staff pianist at UC Berkeley including the UC Choral Program, pianist of Ensemble Ari, freelance pianist, and maintains a thriving private studio. Sharon holds the administrative and management role as Piano Program Coordinator at UC Berkeley. Sharon is a member of the MTAC and received the Steinway Top Teacher Award (2021). In the fall of 2023, Sharon received her EFP certification in the Estill Vocal Training Program to enhance her vocal coaching skills. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley (BA Honors) and New England Conservatory (MM and GD Honors and Distinction in Performance in Collaborative Piano).
Violist Daria D’Andrea performs across stylistic boundaries from 17th century Italian to 21st century tango. Daria is a member of the California Symphony, the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera and plays with the San Francisco Opera Center Orchestra, West Edge and Opera Parallèle. As a baroque specialist on violin and viola, Daria performs with outstanding period ensembles such as American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque, Musica Angelica, Ars Minerva and the San Francisco Bach Choir. As an educator she has taught violin and viola for over two decades at the University of San Francisco, also creating their chamber music program and advising music minors. Daria is President of the Northern California Viola Society.
Baltic nation native, Latvian violinist Alise Ewan has been an active San Francisco Bay Area performer since 2010. She is a regular substitute violinist with Oakland Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony and Symphony San Jose. Prior moving to Oakland, Alise sailed onboard Celebrity Infinity cruise ship for over six months along the Americas leading a sting quartet. A world traveler, graduate of the music conservatory in RÄ«ga, Latvia Alise often is an ambassador for her small country, being the only Latvian they met for many. Since moving to Oakland, besides her love for classical music, she enjoys collaborating with local Bay Area hip hop artists and world music performers.
In her free time Alise likes jogging, modeling, reading about cross-cultures, politics and indigenous people around the globe. She is also certified in Business Management and Applied Accounting.
VIolinist Yuri Uchida performed regularly as a section violinist with the Indianapolis Symphony, Nashville Symphony, and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University under Almita Vamos and her Master of Music degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, studying with Sibbi Bernhardsson. A former fellow of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Yuri served for two years, including as Assistant Principal Second Violin in her second year. She currently resides in San Jose, CA and freelances in the Bay Area.
Cellist Amy Leung has performed chamber music in the US, Europe, Israel, Hong Kong, China, Australia and Guatemala, and has appeared in concert with the Emerson and Guarneri Quartets, the Kennedy Center Theatre Chamber Players, and the Washington Bach Consort including a performance at the White House. A graduate of the New England Conservatory, she earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Maryland, and has been on the faculty of The George Washington University, University of Virginia and the University of Utah. She won the Kranichsteiner Interpretation Prize at Germany’s Darmstädter Ferienkurse. During the summer she performs in the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole.
Graduating from the California Jazz Conservatory in 2013 with a BM in "Jazz Studies," Eli Goldlink has been playing piano for almost 30 years and teaching it for almost 20.
Currently, in addition to teaching, he plays keyboards in a myriad of bands whose styles range from Afro Latino Caribbean (bayonics.com), to straight ahead BAM (theastronauts.org), and some original soul and r&b inspired pop (egfotmcb.bandcamp.com/music).
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"I really enjoy teaching. Watching people learn is one of the most inspiring things in life. But, my favorite thing is probably hearing my compositions come to life in the studio. Listening to musical ideas from my bandmates and co producers, that are based on songs I've written, gives me quite the excitement that's hard to replicate in other settings."
Joey Lynch is a multi-instrumentalist born and raised in the Bay Area. He works as a full-time music teacher, offering lessons to students of all ages and skill levels on piano, guitar, and drums. On weekends, he gigs and records with various bands across a diverse range of genres, from funk and soul to rock and folk. In addition to his work as a performer and educator, he is an accomplished composer, creating his own original music.
Bassist Christian Eck has been playing music professionally since his early days on the Chicago Blues R&B and Gospel scene in 2005. A multi-instrumentalist vocalist and wearer of many hats Christian relocated to the bay area in 2018 and quickly found a home in our vibrant local music scene.