staff
Kay Gayner, Artistic Director
Kay Gayner rejoined the National Dance Institute (NDI) team in 2000, and currently directs programs in three New York City schools including programs for special needs and wheelchair mobile children. With NDI founder Jacques d’Amboise, she served as producer and co-choreographer in the launch of Toni Morrison’s Atelier program at Princeton University. Currently she co-directs a hands-on graduate program for educators studying Multiple Intelligences at St. Joseph’s College in Hartford, CT. As a teacher/performer, she has appeared in NDI exchanges with children in Shanghai, and Moscow. With Jacques and Artistic Director, Ellen Weinstein, she has co-directed, produced, performed and choreographed for more than thirty residencies and performances worldwide, and was instrumental in the planning and implementation stages for NDI affiliate programs in Trenton, NJ and Santa Fe, NM. In 2006, she conceived, directed and choreographed NDI’s annual Event of the Year, an original version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Highlights of her career as an actor/singer/dancer include performing as Diana Morales/Bebe in A Chorus Line (National Tour/Regional), Annie in The Norman Conquests at Primary Stages in NYC, The Central Park Jogger in Gorgeous Mosaic (Circle Rep), and Maria in West Side Story (Regional). She appeared in the world premiere of Frank Gilroy’s Contact with the Enemy, nominated for 2002 Drama Desk Award for best play. As a dancer, singer and actor, she has performed at the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Playwrights Horizons, E.S.T., Circle Rep, HERE, and Westbeth, and performs regularly at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society of New York. Films to her credit include Tully, Heroines and A Special Place.
Lisa Van Deman, Executive Director
Lisa Van Deman joined NC-AIA in April 2008 after spending nearly 20 years in non-profit management and administration. Most recently, she served as Vice President and later as senior consultant to the National Children’s Museum in Washington, DC, where she directed the development of the museum master plan and created a variety of fundraising materials and presentations for the $130m project. She also served as a program consultant to the Association of Children’s Museums for their new national child-health initiative, Good to Grow! She began her career as an Equity actress at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where she fell in love with informal learning and founded the museum’s resident theatre company. She has written extensively on using theatre as an interpretive strategy for learning, and was an adjunct Professor of Theatre at Rollins College in Orlando, FL She holds a B.A. in American Literature from Washington University in St. Louis and an M.F.A. in Theatre Performance from Southern Illinois University.
Alton Tisino, Associate Artistic Director
At 9 years of age, Alton Tisino participated in the Texas affiliate program of the National Dance Institute (NDI) of New York. For two years, he danced in the in-school program and later joined the SWAT Team (Scholarships for the Willing, Achieving and Talented) and the Celebration Team (a semi-professional troupe) which allowed him to perform at venues across the state. At 15, Alton received scholarships from Jacques d’Amboise to participate in the National Dance Institute’s 2000 Teacher Training Program and the Irene Diamond Summer Institute. The following summer, he was invited to be the assistant to NDI’s Summer Institute Director Lori Klinger. Inspired by his experiences with the National Dance Institute, he became a teaching artist with the Texas NDI affiliate program. Alton’s training includes tap, jazz and musical theater. During high school, he sang in a quartet and they were signed by a local record company.
Recently, Alton assisted Jacques d’Amboise, NDI founder and Kaye Gayner, NDI Master Teaching Artist, at a hands-on graduate program for educators at St. Joseph’s College in Hartford, CT. After an introduction from Jacques, Alton is currently a teaching artist for NC-AIA and assists with the fourth grade program at Rashkis Elementary. Alton is senior at Texas State University in Austin.
Marlon Torres, Teaching Artist
A fourteen year professional dance veteran, Marlon Torres is a lead dancer and choreographer for Galumpha, a modern acrobatic dance ensemble with a worldwide following that features inventive choreography and striking visual effects. Marlon is also a regular guest dancer with the Fokine Ballet Company in New York and he guest teaches at a variety of dance schools throughout the United States and at the prestigious Instituto Superior de Danza in Venezuela.
In spring of 2006, Marlon volunteered his talents to North Carolina Arts in Action. His love of children in combination with his dance experience has now made him an important part of Arts in Action’s team as a teaching artist and assistant choreographer to the NC-AIA artistic director. He has been accepted to train at the National Dance Institute’s Teacher Artist Training Program this December.
Prior to joining Galumpha, Marlon completed a BA in theatre with an emphasis in dance at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he received the prestigious Friars Foundation Award for Excellence in the Arts.
Fallon D’Eliseo, Teaching Artist
Fallon D’Eliseo began working with North Carolina Arts in Action (NC-AIA) in the spring of 2007. Once onboard with NC-AIA, she began attending teacher training workshops with the National Dance Institute in New York City. Prior to joining NC-AIA, she was chosen to join Martha Connerton’s Kinetic Works dance company for its 2006-2007 season. Fallon has been a guest artist with Galumpha and has toured regionally with Ms. Connerton, including a performance at the American Dance Festival in 2006. She began her study of dance at age seven and graduated cum laude from UNC-Charlotte in December 2006 with a major in dance and theater. At UNC-Charlotte, Fallon performed in several fall and spring dance concerts and was awarded a fine arts scholarship for the duration of her studies.