Sashay

1^st place:

Wendy Mike, Winged Victory 2019

2^nd place:

Su Kaiden Cho, Oyster and Pearl

3^rd place AND people’s choice:

Athena Genthner, Sarah Nejtek, and Alyssa Rose, Gothic Reign

The Luddites

A fusion dance troupe out of Colorado Springs, CO. Like their predecessors in moniker, they believe in devising plots at night, homemade lace, and a good old fashioned revolution, but prefer to save their fire for the dance floor.

DJ Gravity

“There are two kinds of music,” Duke Ellington famously said. “Good music, and the other kind.” While the jazzman may have been oversimplifying for the sake of a great quote, it can just as easily be said that there are two kinds of deejays. Turntablists, and the other kind. Mike DeWitt, aka DJ Gravity, falls squarely into the first camp. With two turntables and a crateload of scratch-worthy vinyl that can range from 70s krautrock to obscure dub to god knows what else, he’s never needed to rely on CD mix-decks or Macbooks full of Beatport downloads. There’s something to be said for skills.

Elizabeth Fluharty

For the last several years, Elizabeth has been learning and performing a variety of circus arts including partner acrobatics, aerial silks, aerial rope, and stilts. She performs regularly across the state for a wide variety of events. When she’s not performing, she’s teaching classes and camps at Springs Dance and the Millibo Art Theatre so she can share all of the crazy things she loves to do with this wonderful community.

Virgil Ortiz

Virgil Ortiz moves into a new era combining art, décor, fashion, video and film. One of the most innovative potters of his time, Ortiz’s exquisite works have been exhibited in museum collections around the world including the Stedelijk Museum- Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; Paris’s Fondation Cartier pour I’art Contemporain; the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian; the Virginia Museum of Fine Art; and the Denver Art Museum.

In October 2018, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center opened Revolution — Rise Against the Invasion, a continuance of Ortiz’s epic story arc, Revolt 1680/2180, a mash-up of Puebloan history interpreted with sci-fi fantasy iconography relatable to Native and non-Native youth alike. Its theme is one of justice, of reversing the oppression of the Puebloan world by the Spanish invasion. The events of the Pueblo Revolt are little known among most Americans today; however, it remains a vital part of Pueblo history.

Pueblo culture is reflected in the design components that reach past a traditional Ortiz sculpture and delves right into the world of high fashion. After a highly successful collaboration with fashion mogul Donna Karan, which Ortiz developed boldly patterned textiles based on his graphic decorative painting, Ortiz has since launched his own fashion and accessory lines. His designs are captivating, provocative, and edgy thus creating the high demand for his sharp laser-cut leather jackets, swinging taffeta skirts, cashmere sweaters and silk scarves echoing the voluminous contours and sinuous motifs of Pueblo pottery showcasing the richness of indigenous high fashion.

Gypsy Ames

An award winning designer for theatre, opera, dance and performance art, Gypsy Ames has designed over 340 productions during her career. Credits include The Girl of the Golden West for Theatreworks, and The Long Christmas Ride Home for The Colorado College.  Her performance art costumes have been exhibited in galleries and live art venues around the country. Recent pieces include Hope, part of the “Artists in Action” exhibit at the Manitou Arts Center, and The Starry Night, for The International Costumer’s Guild national competition in Charleston, NC, where it won a “Best in Class” award.  She was one of 4 featured artists included in the “Brilliant” galley exhibition and live art ramp show presented by the Gallery of Contemporary Art (GOCA). She is currently on the faculty of Colorado College, where she teaches costume design and designs productions for the Theatre and Dance Department.

Karen Holloway

Karen Holloway is an award winning apparel and costume designer. She has designed and built costumes for stage and film and loves to teach when the opportunity presents itself. She enjoys using beautiful fabrics, trims, and accessories in  her designs to tell compelling stories, whether in a stage production, dance performance, runway show, or wedding. Karen believes the costume is as vitally important as any other component in building a production.

She is a graduate of Colorado State University in Fort Collins and spent several years on the East Coast where she also studied courses at The Fashion Institute of Technology while working in the apparel industry. Karen has been featured in several magazine publications as well as involved in numerous fashion shows throughout Colorado and New Mexico as an organizer as well as a designer.