Year: 2009

Hallie Gordon is the Artistic and Educational Director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults.

 

Hallie graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the New School for Social Research in New York City where she studied theater and theater in education. She served as Managing Director for the Atrium Theater in New York City and as Artistic Director for the Pillar Studio in Chicago. As Program Specialist with the Chicago Park District, she served as Managing Director of Theater on the Lake as well as implementing a wide array of cultural programming throughout the city.

For Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Hallie has created and facilitated many educational programs. Along with selecting the young adult productions each season, she has created the Young Adult Council, in which high school students collectively create innovative programming for their peers. As Educational Director, Hallie has worked closely with the Chicago Public Schools to create an environment in which all students and teachers have access to the theatre.

As a theatre artist Hallie has directed the world premiere of Harriet Jacobs adapted for the stage by Lydia R. Diamond. The premier of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (also adapted by Lydia R. Diamond) won a Black Excellence Award from the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago. This production also transferred Off-Broadway to The New Victory Theatre. She has directed staged readings for The Goodman Theatre, Chicago Dramatists and Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Hallie is also currently serving as the Artistic Director of the Chicago Park District’s Theatre on The Lake.

A featured guest on Marian McPartland’s NPR program Piano Jazz, Elizabeth was the magnet for many years at Chicago’s famed Pump Room.

 

Doyle has had three of her musicals on stage: Sleepy Hollow with productions in Chicago and California, The White City presented at the Writers Bloc Festival in 2009 and at IIT sponsored by the Mies Van der Rohe Society and Duo, given a reading at Theater Building Chicago. She has presented cabaret shows as varied as Not Just a Boys Club: Women’s Contributions to the Great American Songbook, and a World War II cabaret.

Recognized nationally for his significant achievements in the field of Dance School Services.

 

Selected for the 2006-2007 Who’s Who in Dance by The Heritage Registry of Who’s Who.

Homer Hans Bryant is a former principal dancer with the world renowned Dance Theater of Harlem. His professional performing credits span from a command performance for Prima Ballerina Maria Tallchief and the former Chicago City Ballet, to Timbuktu with Eartha Kitt and the motion picture The Wiz with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. His teaching and training experience include working with Canada’s mesmerizing Cirque Du Soleil productions of Mystere, Alegria, Quidam and Saltimbanco. In the summer of 1998, he was the lead artist for the first downtown dance site for the City of Chicago’s Gallery 37 program.

Although he has received various offers to teach from all over the world, he prefers to remain here and share his talents with the youth of Chicago. In 1990 he founded the Bryant Ballet on the city’s North side. In October of 1997, the Mayor issued a proclamation, officially changing the growing organization’s name to the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center. The purpose of this change was to reflect the diversity for the school’s students, class offerings, and the diversity of Chicago.

Homer’s inspiring ABC Rap Ballet was featured in Encyclopedia Britannica’s Health and Medical Annual edition. The Rap Ballet is a motivational piece that uses hip-hop music and rhythms to teach ballet in a format that young people can understand. The emphasis is not placed purely on ballet, but on the premise that everyone can be whatever they wish to be if they remain focused, disciplined, and most of all, study.

Known as a strict disciplinarian, his slogan “The Fun is in the Discipline, The Discipline is in the Fun” has become a mantra for his current and former students. The parents and students alike have established Mr. Bryant as one of the most respected teachers in the country. Homer Bryant and his dance school were featured in the February 2008 issue of Dance Teacher Magazine. Bryant also received the 1998 Monarch Awards Tribute to Black Men In Fine Arts, the 1999 Katherine Dunham Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts, the Cultural Expressions Productions 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2009 Arts Alliance Illinois Arts Legend Award.

The Chicago Tribune named Bryant Chicagoan of the Year for Dance in 2009. Raising the Barre, a documentary about Bryant’s life was recently released and shown on PBS.

“The Fun is in the Discipline, The Discipline is in the Fun.” HHB