Lindsay Guarino is a jazz dance artist, educator and scholar. Her creative and scholarly research lives at the intersection of jazz history, Africanist aesthetics and pedagogy, and she has presented her research across the U.S. and Canada. She edited and published her research in the volumes Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches (2014) with Wendy Oliver and the award-winning Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century (2022) with Carlos R. A. Jones and Oliver, both published by University Press of Florida. In summer 2024, Lindsay launched the inaugural Bridging the Gap Festival in Newport, RI featuring collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Julius Rodriguez, and presented work at Newport Jazz Festival in a set inspired by an evening-length collaboration titled The Jazz Lounge at Ochre Court with jazz dance artist and scholar Brandi Coleman and jazz drummer and ethnomusicologist Marcus Grant. As professor and chair of Music, Theatre and Dance at Salve Regina University in Newport, RI, she has been on the faculty since 2006 and has grown the dance program from a minor to a vibrant B.A. focused in jazz and justice. She directs Salve’s dance company and seeks to honor jazz and its creative spirit by presenting works that are rooted and uphold the communal values of the jazz language. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Buffalo (SUNY), where she was recognized with a Distinguished Alumni Award in October 2024, and an MFA in Dance from the University of Arizona.

Carlos R. A. Jones has enjoyed a vibrant career as educator, performer, director, choreographer and scholar. Currently he is professor and chair of the Department of Dance at SUNY Brockport.  He is also adjunct faculty and artistic collaborator for the dance program at Salve Regina University. Prior to arriving at Brockport, Jones was professor of Theater and Dance at Buffalo State University where he held several positions including chair of the Theater, coordinator of Africana Studies, associate dean of Arts and Sciences, and interim dean of the School of Arts and Humanities. His work at Chapman University, Loyola Marymount University, UCLA, St. Cloud State University, and University of California- Irvine, round out his other academic positions. He has developed and implemented several dance education projects and programs in the K-12 sector through is work with the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, Tapestry Charter School, M.U.S.E., and Bethune Theatredanse/Infinite Dreams, a California based not-for-profit dance company specializing in classes for children and youth with disabilities and impairments. In the private sector, Jones founded and directed the Los Angeles dance training facility Academy 331 Fine Arts Center. He was founding artistic director of Teen Dance Company of the Bay Area, creative advisor to In-Sync Youth Dance Theater, and served as resident artist for Pleien children’s dance company.

Jones began his professional career as a performer and then transitioned to director and choreographer. From concert dance to musical theater to television and film, Jones’ work has appeared on a variety of venues. He landed in the movies I’ll Do Anything, Dance With Me, and Uptown Girls and was featured on the television series Cybill, Howie, the Nanny, and the Drew Carey Show. Among his theatrical credits are Sugar, Man of La Mancha, It’s a Pretty Good Life and Sesame Street Live, to name a few. His theatrical directing and choreography credits include: Hairspray, The Magnolia Ballet, Beehive, Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope, Four Guys Named José, West Side Story, Black Nativity, She Hysteric a one woman show with SNL veteran Ellen Gleghorne, Once Upon a Mattress under the direction of television icon Carol Burnet and Hair directed by Broadway legend André DeShields.  In addition, he has created dance segments for television and film, including the award-winning film short, Insurance Inc. On the concert stage, Jones has created works for Jazz Antiqua Dance and Music Ensemble, Rhythmically Speaking, Movement Source Dance Company, Dance Spectrum Alaska, Adage Repertory, Bethune Theatredanse and his self-named, Carlos Jones and Company.

The Black American dance experience sits at the center of Jones’ research.  Specifically, Jones returns to the point of jazz dance inception to reclaim omitted histories and social context to build a framework for creative and pedagogical scholarship.  Through his investigations, he aims to facilitate liberated bodies that boldly channel connections to cultural heritage, ignite discussion that acknowledges erased narratives and eradicates the infantilizing of diasporic dance forms, guide pedagogical and creative practices that centers the social and kinetic elements of Black American dance, and disrupt ideologies that support hierarchy in dance.  The goal is a global dance community that holds itself accountable to unfiltered truth, responsible practice, and unfettered access to all. Jones’ research has been realized in a number of commissioned concert dance works, theatrical productions, and in two seminal books; Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches and in the award-winning Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanists Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century, of which he was also co-editor.

Brandi Coleman is an assistant professor in the Division of Dance at Southern Methodist University where she teaches Jump Rhythm® Technique - a jazz-rhythm-based movement approach that transforms the moving body into a rhythm-driven percussion instrument. She was a performing member, rehearsal director, and associate artistic director of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project (JRJP), a Chicago-based dance company founded by Billy Siegenfeld. She received an Emmy Award in the category of “Outstanding Excellence On Camera/Performer” for her work in the Emmy-Award-winning documentary, Jump Rhythm Jazz Project: Getting There, and has toured nationally and internationally with JRJP to Finland, Italy, and Canada. As a teaching and creative artist, she has led more than 40 choreographic and teaching residencies at universities nationwide and internationally. In 2022, she was commissioned to create a new work for Decidedly Jazz Danceworks in Calgary, Alberta, Canada which was presented on their 2022 Family of Jazz concert series in Calgary and at the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur in Saint-Sauveur, Quebec, and the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario. Recently, along with jazz dance creator, educator, and scholar Lindsay Guarino, she co-curated the first-ever Jazz Lounge at Ochre Court in collaboration with drummer Marcus Grant and Salve Regina University dancers. Her work “Seven and Five” was featured at the historic Newport Jazz Festival in collaboration with the dancers of Salve Regina University and the Marcus Grant Trio, and she created new work performed live to the music of multi-instrumentalist Julius Rodriguez for the inaugural Bridging the Gap: A Jazz Dance and Music Festival at Salve Regina University in Newport, RI. Her writing, “Performing Gender: Disrupting Performance Norms for Women in Jazz Dance Through Gender-Inclusive, Human-Centric Choreography” is included in the book Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century (University Press of Florida, 2022)