Photo of Stephanie Martinez above by Todd Rosenberg below by Cheryl Mann / Photo of Helen Simoneau by Whitney Brown / Photo of Yin Yue by Christopher Jones

About the Choreographers

Yin Yue

Yue Yin is an internationally recognized performer, choreographer and the founder and artistic director of YY Dance Company (YYDC). Yin studied at the prestigious Shanghai Dance Academy and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she received her MFA in 2008. 

Yue Yin was the recipient of the 2021 Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award. This prestigious award recognizes her innovation in choreography and education. She was the winner of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 2015 International Commissioning Project, winner of the 2015 BalletX Choreographic Fellowship, and winner of Northwest Dance Project’s 5th Annual Pretty Creatives International Choreographic Competition in 2013. Through these high-profile successes, Yin has received commissions from all three widely-recognized companies as well as other companies and organizations namely Gibney Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, Limon Dance Company, Alberta Ballet, Balletto Teatro di Torino, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, USC Kaufman School of Dance, Tisch School of The Arts, George Mason University, Rutgers University, Point Park University, West Michigan University, Juilliard School for Dance and more.

Yin founded YYDC, a NYC-based, non-profit contemporary dance company dedicated to the teaching, production and performance of original choreographic works by Yin. The company incorporates Yin’s signature FoCo Technique™ which represents a dynamic fusion of Chinese dance, folk and contemporary movement language into live performances and choreographic commissions as well as educational endeavors. Under Yin’s direction, the company has presented its work to live audiences on U.S. and international stages including Schrit_tmacher Festival (Germany), and Rassegna Musike (Italy), SummerStage in New York City, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, New York International Fringe Festival, The Open Door Dance Festival in Iowa City, Iowa, DancenowNYC at Joe’s pub and many more. In addition, YYDC has performed at venues such as International Choreographic Competition Hanover, BAM Fisher, Joyce SoHo Theater, Peridance Center, Lincoln Center Rose Hall, New York Live Arts and many others. In addition to performance, the company also re-staged repertories at universities, companies and dance studios around the world.

Helen Simoneau (aka Hélène)

Helen Simoneau is a choreographer and teacher. She has been commissioned by The Juilliard School, Charlotte Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, the Ailey School, BalletX, the American Dance Festival, and colleges, dance companies and festivals throughout the US and Canada. She was recently a Choreography Fellow at New York City Center and received a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship. She has also been a resident artist at Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYU/Tisch, and a fellow of The NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts, Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab, and the Bogliasco Foundation. She was awarded first place for Choreography at the 13th Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany, for her solo “the gentleness was in her hands.” Simoneau is originally from Luceville, a small village near Rimouski, in Eastern Québec.

Stephanie Martinez

Over eleven years of award-winning works, Chicago-based choreographer Stephanie Martinez moves her audiences along a journey guided by the physicality of her movement and honest storytelling. With original creations for Joffrey Ballet, Ballet Hispanico, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Charlotte Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Eugene Ballet, Nashville Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Kansas City Ballet, and National Choreographers Initiative among others, Martinez’s versatility expands the boundaries of contemporary ballet movement through her passion for marrying dance and theater as a means to construct intricate visual experiences. Martinez has created over 60 ballets on companies and collegiate programs across the country. In 2010, Martinez assisted Broadway legend Ann Reinking in setting the Fosse Trilogy, and in 2015 was awarded Joffrey Ballet’s “Winning Works: Choreographers of Color” commission and the Chicago 3Arts Award in recognition for her work as a female artist of color. More recently, Martinez was awarded an NEA grant for her premiere Bliss! at Joffrey Ballet. Designated “a chameleon” of choreography by the Chicago Tribune, Martinez’s psychologically revelatory works challenge the viewer’s notion of what’s possible.