Jacksonville, Fla.—The JU Division of Dance Welcomes Rosero McCoy and Stefanie Batten Bland who will serve as artists-in-residence beginning this week (Oct. 17-21) in the College of Fine Arts.
McCoy is one of the most versatile and well-rounded choreographers in the entertainment industry. His approach to film, TV, live stage, music videos and commercial projects is to create fresh, innovative yet timeless dance numbers spanning all styles of dance.
In 1990, McCoy relocated to Los Angeles, honed his technical training in choreography and got his start in the entertainment industry, dancing and choreographing for Usher, Celine Dion, Snoop Dogg, and N’Sync.
His choreography credit include the feature films “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” “Step Up,” “Beauty Shop,” “Vanilla Sky,” “Garfield: The Movie” and “Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties.” Additionally, he has choreographed major commercial projects for Volkswagen, Target and Sprint, as well as music videos and stage shows for Usher, N’Sync, Ellen DeGeneres, Outkast and Gloria Estefan.
Batten Bland is the artistic director of Company Stefanie Batten Bland (CSBB) comprised of an ethnically and artistically diverse community of dancers and artists each contributing creatively to the goals of a troupe that has performed live and via dance cinema, throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the States with the generous support of the Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Jerome Robbins Foundation and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy of New York and Atlanta.
The company was invited to perform at UNESCO in Paris for International Dance Day 2010. Sharing her time between Paris and New York, Batten Bland’s choreographic vision is recognized as a 2010/11 Baryshnikov Arts Center/Jerome Robbins NEW Fellow and 2011/12 Cambridge Who’s Who! of Professionals and Entrepreneurs. She fuses her past heritage from Bill T. Jones, Lar Lubovitch, Jerome Savary, Georges Momboye, Angelin Preljocaj, Julie Taymor and Pina Bausch... to create her own distinct, multi-disciplinary futuristic environments for stage and film.
In theater and television, she has worked for directors such as Jérôme Savary, “A La Recherche de Joséphine,” made for the Paris Opera Comique, which toured internationally from 2006-10 and premiered at Montclair State University “Peak Performances” in 2009, Aurélie Delmart for “Soweto,” and has choreographed for shows and brands such as “SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE”- Poland, Guerlain perfumes, Van Cleef & Arpels, Hermes and the 2011 Paris Opera gala for Louis Vuitton.
For more information, please contact Cheryl Peters at 904-256-7374 or cpeters12@ju.edu