Craft Works Workshops

Natasha Adorlee is an Emmy Award-winning choreographer, filmmaker, and composer whose multidisciplinary work spans stage, film, and immersive performance. Her work has been commissioned by Tulsa Ballet, BalletX, Kansas City Ballet, Richmond Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, and companies internationally. She choreographed and produced A Peanuts Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony, and her original music has been featured by Pixar Animation Studios. Her films have received numerous international awards, and she is currently creating a new full-length The Ugly Duckling for Tulsa Ballet II. Adorlee is a UC Berkeley graduate and former ODC/Dance company member. Visit natashaadorlee.com to learn more.

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. 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. 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. Way holds a Ph.D. in aesthetics and is the mother of four children.

Kimi Okada 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 was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Largely New York, which she co-choreographed with Bill Irwin, received a 2014 Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Choreography for ODC’s Two If by Sea. and a Dance Magazine award for service to the field.  Since 1996, Kimi has served as director of the 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  teen company,  the ODC Dance Jam.

Margaret Jenkins is the founder and artistic director of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, now in its 53rd season. A choreographer, performer, teacher, mentor, and creator of innovative community-based programs such as CHIME (Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange) and Encounters Over 60, Jenkins has been a leading force in contemporary dance for more than five decades. She has created works with distinguished artists across disciplines, including Paul Dresher, Rinde Eckert, Naomie Kremer, David Lang, Alexander V. Nichols, Michael Palmer, and Yoko Ono. In addition to annual seasons in San Francisco, her company has toured extensively throughout the United States and internationally. Jenkins’s cross-cultural collaborations with artists and companies in India, China, and Israel, along with her multidisciplinary creations, have been central to her artistic practice. Following the premiere and touring of Wheel in 2025, she looks forward to premiering Foolish Fires in October 2026. Visit mjdc.org to learn more.Margaret Jenkins is the founder and artistic director of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, now in its 53rd season. A choreographer, performer, teacher, mentor, and creator of innovative community-based programs such as CHIME (Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange) and Encounters Over 60, Jenkins has been a leading force in contemporary dance for more than five decades. She has created works with distinguished artists across disciplines, including Paul Dresher, Rinde Eckert, Naomie Kremer, David Lang, Alexander V. Nichols, Michael Palmer, and Yoko Ono. In addition to annual seasons in San Francisco, her company has toured extensively throughout the United States and internationally. Jenkins’s cross-cultural collaborations with artists and companies in India, China, and Israel, along with her multidisciplinary creations, have been central to her artistic practice. Following the premiere and touring of Wheel in 2025, she looks forward to premiering Foolish Fires in October 2026. Visit mjdc.org to learn more.