Ruby Chen is 17 years old and a senior at Lowell High School. She started dancing when she was 8, mainly focusing on contemporary and ballet. She has been dancing at ODC for the past 9 years, and first joined the Dance Jam in 2022 as a freshman. In these years, Ruby has performed in ODC’s The Velveteen Rabbit for 4 years, and has received various outside training. She greatly appreciates the mentorship and opportunities the Jam has given her, and is forever grateful for the family she has found at ODC.
ODC’s teen contemporary dance company is directed by ODC School Director, Kimi Okada, and Associate Director Doug Gillespie. The Dance Jam was founded in 1996 to offer technical/creative training and performance opportunities to talented and committed young dancers. There are currently 6 members in the company, selected by audition.
The Jam has a rigorous training program, taking seven classes per week, cross training in contemporary, ballet, composition/choreography class, Pilates, and special classes in world dance and street forms. Many Jam members go on to have careers in the professional dance world.
With guidance from ODC staff, the Dance Jam self-produces their own home season at the ODC Theater, richly expanding their skill sets and understanding of what happens offstage as well as in the studio and onstage to create a season. They carry these skills forward to whatever career path they take.
ODC Dance Jam 2025/26 Season: April 4-5, 2026
The ODC Dance Jam season features a world premiere by Doug Gillespie. Repertory works include Deep Ascent, choreographed by Babatunji Johnson, Specifically Particular, choreographed by Dexandro Montalvo, Foreign Postmark, choreographed by Kimi Okada, and the ODC/Dance company repertory piece Breathing Underwater, choreographed by Brenda Way.
ODC Dance Jam 2026 Presents: Reminiscence
Dance Jam members
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Ruby Chen
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Nina Delos Reyes-Webb
Nina Delos Reyes-WebbNina Delos Reyes-Webb is 15 years old and a sophomore at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts where she studies dance. This is her first year in the Jam but she has been dancing at ODC since she was 2 years old. She started her training in mostly ballet, but in the past few years, she has discovered her passion for contemporary and choreography, which she is excited to explore in the Jam. Nina is very grateful for the opportunities she’s been given and is so excited to perform with her fellow Jam members! When she’s not dancing, you can find her in the kitchen, baking, or finding something to snack on.
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Ella Ford
Ella Ford ODC Dance Jam MemberElla Ford is 17 years old and a Senior at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts. She has been dancing at ODC since she was 3 years old, and has always had a passion for performing of any kind. She spends her time at school singing jazz, opera, and choir. In the past Ella has performed in ODC’s The Velveteen Rabbit for 6 years, and sung at SF Jazz and Freight and Salvage. She has participated in Alonzo King LINES summer intensive for three years, and continues to be a part of ACT’s high school Cabaret program, and performed as Persephone in Hadestown this past summer. Ella loves to watch her fellow Jamer’s grow, and is so grateful to have had Jam be such a large part of her High School experience. She can't wait for her fourth and final season in the Jam!
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Ever Keegstra
Ever Keegstra ODC Dance Jam MemberEver Keegstra is 17 years old and a senior at Jewish Community High School. She started her dance training at the age of 3, primarily focusing on contemporary and ballet, but dabbling in hip hop, tap, and acro. Ever has been dancing at ODC for 9 years, and this is her fourth year in the Dance Jam. She has also attended Joffrey Ballet School’s summer intensive for 3 years in a row. On the weekends, she enjoys assisting ODC’s creative youth classes, and has done so since she was freshman. She is so grateful that she has been able to give back to the community that raised her, and that she continues to be a member of ODC’s beloved Jamily.
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Rylan-Christian Pon
Rylan-Christian PonRylan-Christian Pon is 17 years old and a senior at Oceana High School. He has danced since the age of 7, primarily focusing on contemporary, but exploring other styles as well. Following his training at Spindrift School of Performing Arts, this is Rylan’s fourth year with ODC and second season in the Dance Jam. He is deeply grateful for the incredible opportunities offered by the company and can't wait to perform in his final year with his Jamily.
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Natalie Rovner
Natalie RovnerNatalie Rovner is a 16 year old junior at Lowell High School. She started dancing at ODC when she was 6, primarily in ballet but later incorporating contemporary as well. She is excited to be joining the Jam for her first year and is extremely grateful for opportunity to be a part of it. She looks forward to getting to work with her fellow company members and directors. Outside of dance and school, you can find her acting, reading, and baking in any of her sparse free time.
DOUGLAS GILLESPIE is a Brooklyn-based Dance Artist passionate in the making, teaching and embodying dance as an art form. He teaches at colleges and dance centers around the world, including Festival Danza Urbana and Piroutteando in Mexico, The Juilliard School, NYU Tisch Summer Program, ODC dance, Mark Morris Dance Group, National Taiwan University of the Arts and Gibney Dance Center in New York. Gillespie is an avid dance maker; in 2023 he premiered Squid a duet co-choreographed with long time dance partner Leslie Kraus for the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum. Douglas' company choreography includes works for the Teoria De Gravidad company of Monterrey, Mx., Limon Professional Training Program and Sarasota Contemporary Dance. Gillespie has created his own student commissions for Piroutteando, Guadalajara, Mx., SUNY Brockport, Florida Southern College, Cleveland State University and Santa Fe College; two of his works have been showcased at American College Dance Association. Gillespie has also premiered two international self-choreographed solo projects. Currently dancing as a performer in Life and Trust, Emursive's 2024 premiere large scale-immersive dance project and performing with Company SBB, Stefanie Batten-Bland. Douglas was a performer for David Dorfman Dance from 2018-2021 and an originating member, creative contributor, rehearsal director and choreographic assistant for Kate Weare Company from 2007-2021. Gillespie has performed in Punchdrunk Emursive’s Sleep No More and Third Rail Projects’ Then She Fell. Gillespie was born in San Diego, raised in Jacksonville, Fl. and received his BFA in Dance from Florida State University in 2005.
BABATUNJI JOHNSON was born in Portland, Oregon and grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii. Though never formally trained as a child, Babatunji was always moving his body to the beat. At the age of 15, he discovered the art of hip hop. Following over a decade of self-taught street performance, he has developed a unique approach to various styles of hip hop such as breaking, popping, and krump. While cultivating his own movement language, Babatunji simultaneously trained in ballet, modern, and contemporary. Babatunji has performed with Lines Ballet, Post Ballet, SFDanceworks, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Misty Copeland. In 2015 Babatunji was given a Princess Grace Award, as well as a Chris Hellman Award for his outstanding achievements and promise in the world of dance.
DEXANDRO MONTALVO, born and raised in New York, is a director, choreographer, dancer, and educator. A professional dancer with various different dance backgrounds and companies, his choreographic commissions include works for ODC, RMK, LINES Ballet Training Program/Summer Program, The Black Eyed Peas, DanceWorks Chicago, MINI (USA), Mini Amp Live, SF Ballet School, Concept o4, Dance Mission’s Dance Brigade, Sleepy Hollow Performing Arts Center, Cardinal Ballet, University of SF Dance Ensemble, Marin School of the Arts, & the ODC Dance Jam. Montalvo and his choreography have appeared on the MTV, BET, Telemundo and Fox networks. Montalvo is a past Artistic Director of the Dance Theatre of San Francisco. During his tenure DTSF won two of the four Isadora Duncan award nominations including “Outstanding Choreography” for his ballet, “Pent”. Additionally, he was awarded a 2019 Saint Louis Inner Circle Award for “Such Sweet Thunder”, won an Izzie Award for his choreography in “Art Behind Bars” in 2014 and was nominated for another with “Impulse” in 2015. As a dance educator, Montalvo was co-director of ODC’s Dance Jam and currently teaches at SF Ballet School, YAGP, USF, Dominican University of California, LINES Ballet Training Program & ODC. Dexandro serves as an ongoing choreographer for ODC/Dance.
BRENDA WAY (Founder and Artistic Director) received her early training at The School of American Ballet and Ballet Arts in New York City. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of ODC/Dance and creator of the ODC Theater and ODC Dance Commons, community performance and training venues in San Francisco’s Mission District. Way was instrumental in forming an inter-arts department at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in the late 1960’s before relocating to the Bay Area in 1976.
She has choreographed more than 100 pieces over the last 53 years. Among her commissions are Unintended Consequences: A Meditation (2008) Equal Justice Society; Life is a House (2008) San Francisco Girls Chorus; On a Train Heading South (2005) CSU Monterey Bay; Remnants of Song (2002) Stanford Lively Arts; Scissors Paper Stone (1994) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Western Women (1993) Cal Performances, Rutgers University and Jacob’s Pillow; Ghosts of an Old Ceremony (1991) Walker Art Center and The Minnesota Orchestra; Krazy Kat (1990) San Francisco Ballet; This Point in Time (1987) Oakland Ballet; Tamina (1986) San Francisco Performances; Invisible Cities (1985) Stanford Lively Arts and the Robotics Research Laboratory. Her work Investigating Grace was named an NEA American Masterpiece in 2011.
In 2024, Way was inducted into the California Hall of Fame and is being featured in the NY Public Library’s Jerome Robbins’ Dance Division Oral History Project. Her work was selected by the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2010 to represent the US in a tour of Southeast Asia, as part of the inaugural DanceMotion touring program sponsored by the US Department of State. She is a national spokesperson for dance, has been published widely, has received numerous awards including Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for both choreography and sustained achievement, and 40 years of support from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a 2000 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2009, she was the first choreographer to be a Resident of the Arts at the American Academy in Rome, and in 2012, she received the Helen Crocker Russell Award for Community Leadership from the SF Foundation. She is currently involved in helping to reimagine the future of the San Francisco Arts institute campus. Way holds a Ph.D. in aesthetics and is the mother of four children.
KIMI OKADA (Associate Choreographer, Director of ODC School) is a founding member of ODC. Her work includes more than 30 choreographies for ODC/Dance, as well as commissions and collaborations with Geoff Hoyle, Bill Irwin, Julie Taymor, and Robin Williams. She has choreographed productions for the American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco, Yale Repertory Theater, the New Victory Theater in New York, the Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis, Theatre for a New Audience in New York, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the American Music Theater Festival, the Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Los Angeles Theatre Center, the Pickle Family Circus, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
She was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Largely New York, which she co-choreographed with Bill Irwin. She received a 2014 Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Choreography for ODC’s Two If by Sea. Since 1996, Kimi has served as director of ODC School, which she has brought to the forefront of international and national dance education for youth and adults. She has been honored with a California State Legislature Assembly Resolution for choreographic and community contributions. She also directs ODC’s pre-professional teen company, ODC Dance Jam.
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