Director
Diana Stanton received her M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her B.A. in Dance from the University of California at Irvine. Her choreography has been presented professionally in many venues including UC Irvine; CU Boulder; Boulder Jazz Dance Workshop; Dancers for Life, a benefit for AIDS at Riverside Community College; Cal Poly; Allan Hancock College; the LA Open Festival; and several American College Dance Festivals throughout the U.S. She is the founder and Co-Artistic Director of Variable Velocity Performance Group in San Luis Obispo, CA. In addition, Diana teaches at Cal Poly and World Rhythm and Motion Dance Studio, and has also taught at Cuesta College, Allan Hancock College, the Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts, CU Boulder and the Boulder Jazz Dance Workshop.
Assistant Director
Maria Junco is a professor in the Dance Program of the Theatre and Dance Department at Cal Poly. She currently serves as Assistant Director of Orchesis Dance Company, a position she also held from 1989-2000. Maria was Director of the Company from 2001-2008. She has a Master's degree in Dance from UCLA and is a Certified Movement Analyst. She has choreographed, performed and taught on both coasts of the U.S. and internationally.
Maria's credits include choreographing and performing for the Momie Michiko Modern Ballet Company in Sendai, Japan, the Bridge Dance Company in Mexico City, and independently for numerous American concerts. She has performed as a guest artist with the San Francisco Lyric Opera, the Mary Kay Bisignano-Vadino and Co. and Gretchen Schiller companies in Seattle, and with the Sarah Pearson Dance Company in New York City, where she also studied under scholarship at the Nikolais/Louis studio. In Los Angeles she performed for the Marion Scott and the Moving Arts Dance Companies, as well as appearing as a guest in the works of numerous independent choreographers. She has taught dance as a faculty member or guest artist throughout the West Coast, Florida, Mexico and Japan.
Designer and Technical Director
Howard Gee has served as the Orchesis designer and technical director for more than 15 years, working with hundreds of professional and student choreographers. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Design and Technical Theatre from the University of Utah and his Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Theatre from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Howard toured nationally with the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Co. as stage manager and lighting designer and taught at Morehead State University in Kentucky, before coming to Cal Poly in 1979.