CASTING: BLANC / SCHREIER / POSSOKHOV PREMIERES

Alexander Nichols, a Bay Area native, designs lighting, scenery, and projections for theater, opera, music, and dance both nationally and internationally. He has designed sixteen productions for SF Ballet including RAkU, Trio, Swimmer, Optimistic Tragedy, Ghost in the Machine, and The Infinite Ocean. Nichols’ Broadway credits include Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking, and John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons. Recent Bay Area projects include the production design for Dear San Francisco at Club Fugazi and Fidelio at San Francisco Opera. Upcoming projects include Orfeo ed Euridice at SF Opera and the musical Kiss My Aztec at Hartford Stage.

Abigail Dupree-Polston came to ballet from a career in fashion design, designing athletic apparel before transitioning to design for the stage. She has been a designer and technician for ballet and opera, most recently designing pieces for the Atlanta Ballet and Miami City Ballet with choreographer Claudia Schreier.

Jim French, lighting supervisor for San Francisco Ballet, designs lighting for performing arts and live events. At SF Ballet, he has created lighting for world premieres by Christopher Wheeldon, Myles Thatcher, Arthur Pita, Trey McIntyre, Yuri Possokhov, and Benjamin Millepied, among others. After working with the Martha Graham Dance Company and Twyla Tharp Dance, French spent nine years as resident designer for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Locally, he has worked with Alonzo King Lines Ballet, Bandaloop, ODC Dance, Post:Ballet, SF Danceworks, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, and Sacramento Ballet. Other credits include Ballett Basel, Carte Blanche, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Ballet West, National Ballet of Finland, and collaborations with choreographers Jessica Lang, Crystal Pite, Pascal Rioult, and Val Caniparoli. He has been house lighting designer at SF Jazz, and volunteers for Dancers Responding to AIDS and Bike East Bay.

Katrin Schnabl is a multi-disciplinary artist, collaborator, and educator.  Her work has been featured in New American Painting, and exhibited at Facility Chicago, Evanston Art Center, Highland Park Arts Center, SAIC Galleries, and the DePaul Art Museum. Her recent oevre ‘Portals’ are dimensional mesh fabric sculptures that subtly but profoundly shift bodily relationships in space. Schnabl designs sophisticated fashion that sensuously engages the body. Her designs have been shown at New York Fashion Week and featured in high-fashion magazine spreads around the world, including Harper’s Bazaar (US, Spain, and Saudi editions), Madame (Germany), Soma Magazine, Vestal Magazine, Fault Magazine, Kurv Magazine, Creem Magazine, Stylewylde, Wired, and Fashion Theory. Trained as a dancer, Schnabl has created costumes for acclaimed dance companies Joffrey Ballet Chicago, Khecari , Maggio Danza Florence Italy, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Troika Ranch, and choreographers Blondell Cummings, DD Dorvillier, Doug Elkins, John Jasperse, Jennifer Monson, Jody Oberfelder, Wendy Perron, and Nejla Yatkin, and many more. Schnabl is professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she currently serves as Chair of the Fashion Department.

Jim French, lighting supervisor for San Francisco Ballet, designs lighting for performing arts and live events. At SF Ballet, he has created lighting for world premieres by Christopher Wheeldon, Myles Thatcher, Arthur Pita, Trey McIntyre, Yuri Possokhov, and Benjamin Millepied, among others. After working with the Martha Graham Dance Company and Twyla Tharp Dance, French spent nine years as resident designer for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Locally, he has worked with Alonzo King Lines Ballet, Bandaloop, ODC Dance, Post:Ballet, SF Danceworks, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, and Sacramento Ballet. Other credits include Ballett Basel, Carte Blanche, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Ballet West, National Ballet of Finland, and collaborations with choreographers Jessica Lang, Crystal Pite, Pascal Rioult, and Val Caniparoli. He has been house lighting designer at SF Jazz, and volunteers for Dancers Responding to AIDS and Bike East Bay.