Meet the choreographers and artists of CounterPointe13
CounterPointe13 image designed by Jason Andrew featuring artwork by Natalie Moore. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This March, Norte Maar brings forth CounterPointe13, the longest standing performance production exclusively featuring collaborations between female dance makers and visual artists. The performances will take place at downtown Brooklyn’s Mark O’Donnell Theater at the Entertainment Community Fund from March 20-22, 2026. Tickets here.
We are pleased to introduce the six CounterPointe13 choreographers and their collaborating artists:
A New York native, Ava Desiderio is a mover, educator, and choreographer. They have performed with Alabama Ballet and Eglevsky Ballet, working with Gabrielle Lamb, Dennis Nahat, and Garrett Smith. Now a New York–based freelancer, Ava has appeared with Lavy/VERBAL ANIMAL, Queensboro Dance Festival, Dances Patrelle, and in their own self-produced work, and is a company member with Sheep Meadow Dance Theater (AD Billy Blanken).
Ava’s choreography has been presented at Syracuse City Ballet, Miami City Ballet School, Philadelphia Youth Ballet, Steps on Broadway, and Columbia University. Additional credits include assisting Lauren Lovette on Win/Win, commissions from Norte Maar (CounterPointe), and movement direction for the film Deepest Corners. Residencies include NYC Emerging Artist Project and Kaatsbaan Cultural Park.
An ABT® Certified Teacher, Ava is on faculty at Edgewater Performing Arts and Ballet Academy East, and also directs, choreographs, and produces dance films, including WHEN WE’RE TOGETHER.
Natalie Moore is an artist and educator working in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice includessculpture, works on paper, and installation. Moore has exhibited her work nationally and internationally since 1987 at diverse venues such as Silver Arts Projects, NYC, The Boiler, Brooklyn NY, The James Gallery, NYC, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, NYC the Spartenburg Art Museum, SC, artMoving Projects, NYC, the Textile Art Center, NYC, Gallería Arté Mexicano, Mexico City, Mexico, White Columns, NYC, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC. She a recipient of grants and awards from the Pollock/Krasner Foundation, Pratt Institute, Textile Arts Center, and Artists Space. Moore’s work has been featured in Sculpture Magazine, and CNN International and reviewed in several publications including the New York Times, New York Newsday and USA Today.
Moore received a MA Studio Art, NYU in 1992 and BA Fine Art, from University of California, Santa Cruz in 1987.
Photo: Lucas Chilczuk
Julia K. Gleich is a choreographer and creative director whose work bridges classical ballet and contemporary practice through interdisciplinary collaboration. She founded Gleich Dances in 1995 to support experimental choreography, creating dances informed by science, systems, and women’s experiences in ballet.
Her projects often partner with visual artists and draw on cultural and literary histories, including a recent collaboration with artist Nicole Cherubini inspired by Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, presented at The Campus during Upstate Art Week. In 2004, Gleich co-founded Norte Maar for Collaborative Projects in the Arts with Jason Andrew, dedicated to producing cross-disciplinary work. Through Norte Maar, she created CounterPointe; 2026 marks the program’s 13th year.
Gleich returned to New York City in 2018 to focus on independent creation after an international teaching career in higher education and conservatory settings. She teaches at Peridance Center and is known for championing new ideas and collaborative models within ballet. In addition to her choreographic work, she contributes writing on contemporary ballet and supports artists as a partner in Artist Estate Studio.
Photo by Ian Christmann
Brenda Zlamany is a Brooklyn-based painter known for reinvigorating portraiture through sustained observation and conceptual inquiry. Over three decades, she has challenged traditional power structures in portraiture by centering historically underrepresented subjects—particularly women and people of color—in institutional and public spaces.
Her work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery (London), the New-York Historical Society, the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, the National Museum (Gdańsk), the Frankfurter Kunstverein, and the Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent). She has received a Fulbright Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and a NYFA Artist Fellowship, and has completed residencies at the American Academy in Rome, Yaddo, MacDowell, and Denali and Glacier National Parks.
Since 2011, her project The Itinerant Portraitist has produced over 3,000 portraits globally through direct engagement with communities. Her film 100/100, created with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Kernis, won Best Documentary Short at the Greenpoint Film Festival. Recent work includes major commissions for Yale University and Rockefeller University, and a 2024 portrait of philanthropist Ruth Gottesman.
Taylor Gordon is an international dancer, creator, and educator based in NYC since 2005. Her 18-year professional performance career brought her to some of the world’s biggest stages, including Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Jacob’s Pillow, off-Broadway, and numerous international tours to Japan, India, China, Indonesia, Cuba, and the UK, in addition to extensive concert dance credits in NYC. She has choreographed for Princeton University, STEPS Beyond Foundation, Dixon Place, Exit12 Dance Company, “Juliette’s Miracle” film, Jazz Choreography Enterprises, Uptown Rising, Asian-American Film Awards, Women in Motion, Queens Outdoor Dance Festival, DanceAction Garden Series, Nacre Dance Group, T2 Dance Company, LILA Dance Festival, and recently was selected for Dance Lab NY’s Broadway Choreography Intensive. She served as Resident Director for Dublin Worldwide Productions and Show Supervisor for RWS Global, staging shows internationally. Taylor currently teaches at New York Film Academy, Broadway Dance Center, and the United Nations Ballet Club. She’s been featured in The New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX5, Dance Magazine, and Dance Spirit. Taylor is grateful for the chance to collaborate and grow as an artist through CounterPointe– special thanks to Julia Gleich, pre-pro dancers, and Dance Lab NY.
Gaby Collins-Fernández is an artist living and working in New York City. Her work has been shown in the US and internationally, including at Rachel Uffner Gallery, Nina Johnson Gallery, anonymous gallery, the Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama and el Museo del Barrio, NY. Her work has been discussed in publications such as The Brooklyn Rail and artcritical, and on the video interview series, Gorky’s Granddaughter. She is a recipient of residencies at Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, NY), The Marble House Project (Dorset, VT), and the Elizabeth Murray Art Residency (Granville, NY), and a 2013 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Art Award. She was a 2023-4 resident of the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program. Collins-Fernández is also a writer whose texts have appeared in Cultured Magazine, The Miami Rail, and The Brooklyn Rail. She holds degrees from Dartmouth College (B.A.) and the Yale School of Art (M.F.A., Painting/Printmaking). She is a founder and publisher of the annual magazine Precog, and a co-director of the artist-run art and music initiative BombPop!Up, and currently teaches at Pratt Institute.
Christopher Fox @christ.fox and Norris Guncheon @norrismusicofficial
Magali Johnston-Viens is part French and part Canadian but grew up mostly between Washington, DC, and Paris. They trained at the Kirov Academy of Ballet of Washington DC from 2011 until graduation; in that time, they also studied at the American Academy of Dance of Paris. Magali has danced professionally since 2019, when they joined Ballet Palm Beach. Magali then joined Minnesota Ballet as a dancer. This is where they began truly exploring their choreographic voice by choreographing on the company. Magali was a creator at Point Park University’s Choreographic Collective in 2022 and received the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council Individual Artist Project Grant in 2023. Magali was a 2025 artist-in-residence at Moulin/Belle in France's Périgord Vert. Magali is currently a freelance dancer and choreographer in NYC and has danced with Dances Patrelle, Sekou Walton Dance, Neglia Ballet, Sarah Yasmine Marazzi-Sassoon, and other NYC-based choreographers. Magali has had the opportunity to present choreographic work many times since their move to NYC in late 2023, including in HOT Dance Festival 2024 at Dixon Place, Emergence Dance Festival NYC, CounterPointe12 by Norte Maar, as part of the Evolution Festival organized by the Center at West Park.
Jency Sekaran is a New York City-based multimedia artist exploring themes on intersectionality of identity. Combining many different techniques such as printmaking, embroidery, and ceramics, Sekaran is able to depict stories of the complexity of being a third culture person in America.
Being an Indian woman in America, Sekaran struggled with adhering to both cultures which led her to create her own culture, a third culture. By depicting the female form breaking free of cultural and societal ideology, Sekaran evokes emotions of acceptance of multiple identities and freedom of choice.
In 2013, Sekaran received their BA in Art and minor in Biology from Augusta University, however, being raised by Indian immigrant parents, she followed her parents dream of being in the sciences. Receiving her Master in Public Health in 2017 from Georgia State University, science has heavily influenced her art by incorporating organic chemistry and beakers serving as a container for memory and emotion.
In 2025, Sekaran completed the Canopy Program and a residency at In Situ Polyculture in Vermont. She is currently working on a new body of work for their upcoming solo exhibition at cia Gallery in Ridgewood, and has been in multiple group shows in New York City. Sekaran has been published in the Canvas Rebel and the Artist Talk magazine as well as been on the Scouted podcast.
Alexandra Light (née Farber) is a choreographer whose work merges classical ballet form with experimental structure. A former Principal Dancer with Texas Ballet Theater, her choreography explores ecology, feminist history, and psychological space through rigorous physical practice. Her work has been presented by The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Battery Dance Festival, and Steps on Broadway Conservatory, and developed through residencies at the Frank Lloyd Wright Martin House, Jacob’s Pillow, ORTO Creative Hub in Portugal, Centre Pompadour in France, and The Volland Foundation in Kansas.
Photo: Paul Salveson
Karen Lee Williams (b. 1980, Los Angeles) is a Korean American artist based in New York. Her sculptures and installations explore vulnerability, the physical effects of time, and moments where bodies and environments blur together. Through recurring motifs of soft grids, hard shadows, portals, tethers, veils, and cradles, Lee Williams examines where one thing ends and another begins, weighing how much something can reflect or absorb its environment while still asserting its fragile existence.
Lee Williams received her MFA from SUNY Purchase College (2014) and dual BAs in Fine Art and Art History from UCLA (2004). Solo exhibitions include “a heel is half a rock, a slab is a slice” at Art League Houston (2019), “Nature of Particles” at Albada Jelgersma, Amsterdam (2018), “Portuguese Bend” at Monte Vista Projects, LA (2017), and “Remote Sensing” at Equity Gallery, NY (2016). She has shown in group exhibitions at September Hudson, NY; Visitor Welcome Center, LA; and Spring Break Art Fair, NY among others.
Shloka Porwal is a 21-year-old dancer and choreographer from Jaipur, India, currently based in New York City. Her work has been presented at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, the Netherlands Dance Theatre Summer Intensive, Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theatre, Perry Mansfield, Dixon Place, Spark Theatre Festival, and Mark O’Donnell Theatre, among other venues internationally. Rooted in both Indian classical and Western contemporary movement, her practice explores the intersection of tradition and modernity.
Shloka creates work that responds to personal, social, and cultural shifts, with a strong emphasis on storytelling through movement. She believes dance should communicate viscerally, without the need for explanation. Her choreography is marked by attention to detail, emotional clarity, and intention, inviting audiences to connect through feeling rather than instruction.
As a performer, Shloka has danced works by Marco Goecke, Gus Solomons Jr., Sean Curran, Amos Ben Tal, and Ernesta Corvino, experiences that have shaped her sensitivity to diverse movement languages and artistic perspectives. Driven by narrative and connection, she aims to create work that reflects the complexities of the present world, fosters dialogue, and builds bridges between cultures, forms, and generations.
Allison Kaufman is a NYC-based artist working in video, photography, and installation. She received her BFA in Film and Television from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and her MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. Her solo exhibition Smooth Confident Perfection was on view at the Shirley Project Space in Brooklyn, NY in 2024. Solo exhibitions of her work have also taken place at Trestle Projects in Brooklyn, HERE Arts Center in New York City, Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, and Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Her work has also been exhibited at Julie Saul Gallery, Hendershot Gallery, the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Moore College of Art, and the Wassaic Project, among other locations. Kaufman is the recipient of the Paula Rhodes Memorial Award and an Alumni Scholarship Award from SVA, has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo, CATWALK Institute, Trestle Gallery, the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, the Saltonstall Foundation of the Arts, and Penland School of Crafts. Her work has been reviewed in the Huffington Post, the L Magazine, the Pittsburgh-Tribune Review, and Bomb Magazine’s BOMBlog. Kaufman teaches in the Undergraduate Film and Television Department at Tisch at NYU.
