The Cast of Eve, An Opera 2022
It was an honor to share the experience of Eve, An Opera with you on Friday, October 28th, 2022. Read below to learn more about some of the fantastic performers who joined our 2022 cast.
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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 at the age of 22. 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. Nestled in an ocean-side town north of San Francisco, Shannon is currently developing The Sentience Project - a body of work exploring injury, healing, and the wild. She is a youth mentor, surfer, and animal rights advocate.
Hobart Owen is the elder son of Andrea Densmore, and brother of Tony Owen. Born and raised in the mystic hills of West Marin, he grew up surrounded by music and nature, with creativity being of paramount importance and one of his core values to this day. Hobart has his own freelance videography business, Hobart Media, as well as a podcast, The Bartcast, and seeks to better understand and develop the role of the artist in this fast-paced and ever-changing world. He has contributed his professional video and photo talents in the promotion of this opera, as well as playing bass alongside his brother in the the opera's R&B section.
With an affinity for dynamic places and partners, Megan Lowe Dances shifts your perspective, demonstrating the “intensely-physical, curiously-playful, delightfully-weighty rigor of physicality” (Life as a Modern Dancer). Directed by a fierce female choreographer with Chinese and Irish ancestry woven into the fabric of her being, MLD tackles unusual physical situations and invents compelling solutions, opening up the imagination to what is possible. MLD’s recent works have been seen at de Young Museum, David Ireland House, ODC, Legion of Honor Museum, Joe Goode Annex, and in the United States of Asian America Festival. For Eve, an Opera, Megan and Shira Yaziv will be performing an invigorating partnering duet. Learn more about Megan Lowe dances at www.meganlowedances.com
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.
An active Bay Area violist, Elizabeth Prior is the principal violist with the Santa Rosa Symphony and a member of the New Century Chamber Orchestra. Elizabeth is also a season substitute with the San Francisco Ballet and is the associate principal violist with the Marin Symphony. She performs regularly with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. Other orchestral credits include Freiburg Philharmonic (Associate principal) and Cape Town Symphony. She has worked with the Pittsburg Symphony, Südwestfunk, Stuttgart Radio, Basel Symphony, and the Mannheim Opera Orchestras.
Terrance Kelly has garnered extensive musical credentials in both gospel and jazz music. His operatic range and joyous emotional feel for the music make him a popular soloist as well as an accomplished director, composer, and arranger. His credits include choral arrangements on albums by Linda Ronstadt and the Kronos Quartet and gospel arrangements of popular music for TV and video soundtracks. In addition, he wrote or arranged most of the music for each of the choir’s albums. Mr. Kelly received an Emmy Award for his choral arrangement of OIGC’s KGO-TV public service announcement.
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Michael Pinkham has been a working bay area drummer since the early 90's. He has played, recorded and toured nationally and internationally with many artists including Peter Rowan's Big Twang Theory, Linda Tillery, Joan Baez, the Oakland Symphony, the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Matt Montgomery & The Petty Troubles Orchestra, The San Francisco Mime Troupe, Samba do Coracao, Diego's Umbrella and many others. Michael currently holds the drum chair with the Circus Bella All-Star Band (since 2008) - the Bay Area's old-world soul group, Kugelplex, Physical Suicide Deterrent System Project (PSDSP) & Matt Small's Crushing Spiral Ensemble.
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!
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Jennifer Perfilio (she/her) is the founder and Artistic Director of Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works. Her work is invested in the activation of shared space, as a form of solidarity and collective care. As a dancer, Perfilio has performed in the works of choreographers in NYC, Nashville, and San Francisco, including Christy Funsch, Amy Foley, Charles Moulton, Mary Carbonara, HT Chen, and Mark Dendy, among others. She has a long history as a site-specific dancer, committed to exploring the intersection of art and public space in works by choreographers Stephen Koplowitz, Alexandra Beller, Jess Curtis/Gravity, Katie Faulkner, and for 10 years with Kim Epifano’s Epiphany Dance Theater.
Graduating from the California Jazz Conservatory in 2013 with a BM in "Jazz Studies," Eli Goldlink has been playing piano for almost 25 years and teaching it for almost 15.
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 soul and r&b inspired pop (egfotmcb.bandcamp.com/music).
"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."
Camilla Ford has performed with Inverness Shakespeare, Marin Shakespeare, Baja Shakespeare, and any chance she gets! She has directed 10 shows in Baja. She is a graduate of the ACT Summer Training Congress, Drama Studio London at Berkeley, has an MA in Psychology (CIIS) and BA in English from Stanford. She performs with her husband singing his original songs. She is awed by the community, sea and stars in Los Barriles and Bolinas, and grateful beyond words to be a part of this loving, healing project. Life takes many meandering paths, and all offer surprising gifts. Camilla wishes to thank Anny and every single person who is woven into her life through this magic work....including YOU, the audience!
Maica Folch is a movement theater educator and performance artist. She has been an energetic presence in the San Francisco arts education community for over twenty years. She has extensive experience teaching performance arts to children of all ages and backgrounds. Maica is most recognized for crafting children’s stories, both folk stories and those that come from the children themselves, into theatrical performances. In addition to her work with children, Maica has studied and practiced 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.
Native to the San Francisco Bay Area, pianist Sharon Lee Kim is a freelance recitalist performing throughout the nation and internationally, collaborating with many top instrumentalists and opera singers in the world. Sharon is an Associate Professor of Music at Saint Mary’s College, pianist of Ensemble Ari, a collegiate staff pianist at the SF Conservatory of Music, and maintains a thriving private studio teaching piano and vocal coaching singers. She was awarded the Steinway & Sons Top Teacher Award in 2021 and is a member of the Music Teachers Association of California (MTAC), and adjudicator for local competitions. Sharon holds degrees from UC Berkeley (BA) and NewEngland Conservatory (MM and GD).
Colleen Grimes is a wife and mother of 2 teenagers who lives in Woodacre. She works as a special education teacher at Mill Valley Middle School. She has always enjoyed acting and singing and recently started singing with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. She is honored to be performing in her dear friend Andrea‘s opera.
Leslie Chin has lived and worked in the Bay Area as a professional freelance flutist for over 30 years, performing with SF Ballet, SF Opera, Oakland Symphony, Fremont Symphony, Pacific Chamber Symphony, Marin Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony and West Edge Opera. She has recorded music for video games and movies. She also plays in the pit for Broadway shows ("Porgy and Bess," "American in Paris," "The King and I," "Wicked," "Beauty and the Beast," "Cinderella," and "Lion King.") Leslie plays lots of instruments in the flute family: piccolo, alto flute, recorder, pennywhistle, ditzu (chinese bamboo flute), pan pipes, bansuri. She performs on the pennywhistle with a local Pogues cover band. Leslie is grateful to have played flute at
Burning Man 2019 with ArtHaus Collective's full-length performance of Stravinsky's Firebird ballet. She enjoys playing chamber music and has performed with the Bellavente Wind Quintet in the SF Symphony's AIM program for over 20 seasons.
Alicia Chazen was born and raised in the Bay Area, and is eternally grateful for having discovered the power and magic of singing with others. She has sung with the Calling All Choir, the Occidental Community Choir, The Blue Swamis, and in duet with her partner, Lonnie Lazar.
Karen Campbell (Soprano) is Founder and Certified Pilates Instructor of Peaceful Body Pilates. Teaching Pilates since 2005, Karen offers private instruction of the Pilates technique on equipment and mat by appointment only in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury. Creative expression through the performing arts using her voice, somatic movement, and dance has been a great source of personal transformation and healing. Additionally, Karen is a strategic development professional and a passionate advocate for social justice and the environment. She holds a Masters in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco School of Management alongside a Bachelor of Science in Environmental and Biological Sciences from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio.
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Mary Ford is a 35-year member of and soloist for the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, a jazz and folk singer, mother, wife, and activist. A retired psychologist, she works in many spheres at lifting all boats by supporting the recovery and advancement of girls, women and BIPOC people.
Alison Strahan in a SF Bay Area actor, musician and proud mama who hails from Sydney, Australia. She has performed in theatre around the Bay Area and enjoyed a six-year stint as a presenter on cable channel TechTV and another six experiencing the power and magic of joining voices- and instruments- with San Francisco’s Calling All Choir. She was part of the Bolinas production of Eve last year and is delighted to join the San Francisco show.
Flutist Victoria “Tori” Hauk loves exploring the beauty of music through collaboration with fellow Bay Area musicians and by sharing it with the next generation of musicians through coaching and teaching. She is an avid chamber musician and can be seen performing with groups including: Avenue Winds, One Found Sound, Areon Flutes, and Nomad Session.
Orchestras she has worked with include: Marin Symphony, Vallejo Festival Orchestra, Napa Valley Festival, Midsummer Mozart Festival, Berkeley Symphony, California Symphony, Stockton Symphony, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and New World Symphony.
She maintains an active private teaching studio and also teaches at San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Pre-College Division and California State University, East Bay.
Jasper Thelin is in his 23rd year teaching Drama at Archie Williams High School, where he also teaches Outdoor Leadership in the Team Program. The founding Program Director for Project Avary which serves children with incarcerated parents, this summer was his 31st consecutive year as a staff trainer and Performance Coordinator at Wavy Gravy’s circus arts and social justice camp, Camp Winnarainbow. He was a founder of the Original Action Pack improv theater troupe, and has worked with the Inverness Theater project since 2016. He’s currently cast as the detective in Derailed the film, currently in preproduction. He’s a lifelong resident of the San Geronimo Valley, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
Cory Vangelder’s passion for the last seven years has turned toward finding creative, collaborative ways to address the climate crisis. She produced her first climate benefits with Dance In Flight, the youth aerial dance program that she founded, directed and taught in for 20 years. She currently works at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center where she created their youth climate internship program Greenstitch. At the heart of her teaching is fostering close relationships and creative collaboration. She is grateful to be among Anny’s trusted peers and a lifelong modern and contact dancer.