About TU Dance
Founded in 2004 by Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands in Saint Paul, Minnesota, TU Dance is a leading voice for contemporary dance. The 12-member, professional company is acclaimed for its diverse and versatile artists, performing work that draws together modern dance, classical ballet, African-based and urban vernacular movements.
The TU Dance repertory features original work by Uri Sands, as well as renowned choreographers including Dwight Rhoden, Ron Brown, Katrin Hall, Gregory Dolbashian and Camille Brown. Through celebrated performances of the professional company and accessible dance education at TU Dance Center, TU Dance provides opportunities for everyone to experience the connective power of dance.
TU Dance’s Artistic Directors
Toni Pierce-Sands (Artistic Director). Prior to co-founding TU Dance, Minnesota native Toni Pierce-Sands performed with Minnesota Dance Theatre, Tanz Forum in Germany, Rick Odums in Paris, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where she was a featured soloist in such signature pieces as Revelations. Her command of the Horton Technique has led to teaching posts throughout the United States and Europe. Toni directs programming and teaches classes at TU Dance Center in Saint Paul and at the University of Minnesota, where she is also the Director of University Dance Theater. Toni was awarded a 2004 McKnight Artist Fellowship in Dance, named the Sage Awards’ “2011 Outstanding Dance Educator” and recognized with a 2013 Links Emerald Service Award for service in the arts. She was recently named as a 2015 USA Fellow, receiving this year’s Knight Fellowship in Dance together with TU Dance co-founder Uri Sands.
Uri Sands (Artistic Director and Choreographer) has received national recognition for choreography that is notable for the fusion of classical elegance with edgy contemporary action, for pulsating intensity with poetic lyricism. A native of Miami, Uri trained at New World School of the Arts, and performed as a principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for five years, Philadanco, Minnesota Dance Theatre, James Sewell Ballet, as principal dancer with North Carolina Dance Theatre, and as guest artist with Complexions under the direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson. Uri has received the Princess Grace Award in choreography, the Joyce Foundation Award and the McKnight Artist Fellowship in Choreography. He was named City Pages’ 2011 Choreographer of the Year, and–along with Toni-Pierce-Sands–the 2010 StarTribune Artist of the Year. Uri was recently named as a 2015 USA Fellow, receiving this year’s Knight Fellowship in Dance together with TU Dance co-founder Toni Pierce-Sands.
About Ten Thousand Things
Ten Thousand Things (TTT) brings award-winning, high-quality theater to people with little access to the wealth of the arts. This company invigorates ancient tales, classic stories, and contemporary plays through vital, open interactions between actors and non-traditional audiences.
At performances, audiences experience theater in its most vital, elemental form. TTT doesn’t use a stage; rather, the actors perform on the floor inside a circle of chairs, with the lights on so everyone can see each other, with minimal sets and live music. The result is a performance that engages the imagination of the audience.
Ten Thousand Things offer free performances at homeless shelters, correctional facilities, low-income senior centers, reservations, after-school programs, women’s shelters and locations in rural Minnesota.
Ten Thousand Things’ Artistic Director
Michelle Hensley is the founding artistic director of Ten Thousand Things. Since 1991, she has directed and produced more than 60 tours for the company.
Michelle also has directed shows for The Public Theater in New York and California Shakespeare Theater using the TTT performance model. In addition, the Old Globe in San Diego is now using TTT’s model.
In 2015, Michelle’s critically acclaimed book on the TTT model, All the Lights On, was published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.
Dozens of the shows Michelle has directed for TTT have made local critics’ annual top lists. She has been named Best Director in the Twin Cities by City Pages three times and Best Artistic Director by the Star Tribune (2012) and Minnesota Monthly (2010). She is the 2005 winner of the Francesca Primus Prize, given by the American Theater Critics Association for outstanding contribution to the American theater by an emerging female artist. She also is a recipient of a McKnight Theater Artist Fellowship.
About Dream of Wild Health
Peta Wakan Tipi created the Dream of Wild Health program in 1998 as a way to connect Native people with indigenous foods and medicines. In 2005 a 10-acre farm was purchased in Hugo, complete with a modern farm house, pole barn, and two-car garage that serves as the Learning Center.
Dream of Wild Health now offers educational programs that include traditional American Indian agriculture, seed keeping, healthy nutrition, and culture.
Dream of Wild Health is committed to sharing its knowledge, resources and skills with others in an effort to reduce poverty, improve health and nutrition and reconnect people and plants in a reciprocal relationship. It partners with dozens of urban and tribal organizations on programs that work to restore the mental, physical, and emotional health of our community.
Each year, Dream of Wild Health serves more than 3,000 Native and non-Native people through tours, workshops, community feasts, school visits, and summer programs.
Dream of Wild Health’s Executive Director
Diane Wilson, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Reservation, is the executive director for Dream of Wild Health, a non-profit farm in Hugo, MN, that reconnects Native people with indigenous foods and medicines. Wilson has a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Minnesota and over 20 years working in senior management roles at various local nonprofit organizations. Wilson is the author of two award-winning books that focus on issues of assimilation, historical trauma, and cultural recovery: Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past; and Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life. As a 2013 Bush Foundation Fellow, Wilson focused on indigenous seed preservation. Wilson is also a Master Gardener and a founding member of the Indigenous Seed Keepers Alliance.