Meet the Artists

William Brewton Fowler Jr. is a Christian freelance dancer and emerging choreographer from Augusta, Georgia. Throughout his career, he has worked with companies such as Zaccho Dance Theatre, Gallim Dance, Company SBB, dawsondancesf, Eight/Moves, SFBATCO, Joe Goode Performance Group, Deborah Slater Dance Theatre, Alex Ketley’s The Foundry, and Concept o4. William has also participated in works under the direction of artists such as Maurya Kerr, Melecio Estrella, and Destiny Muhammad. As an emerging choreographer, he dedicates his creations to his faith and recently created a solo, Gentleness in His Hands, during his 2024–2025 fellowship with Zaccho Dance Theatre’s Black Futures residency. William has received an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance in the Individual category (2023–2024) for Zaccho Dance Theatre's THE PEOPLE'S PALACE.

www.brewtondance.com
Instagram – @wilferoni and @brewtondance

Jenelle Gaerlan (she/they) is a multi-disciplined dancer, performance artist, teaching artist, and choreographer based in San Francisco, California, by way of Portland, Oregon. Since graduating from her pre-professional training program in 2019, Jenelle has taken on professional contracts in both concert and commercial dance capacities, including work with Nike Inc., DarVejon Jones Dance Ensemble, BodyVox Dance Company, Soulskin Dance, Robert Moses’ KIN, Red Bull Dance, the Embodiment Project, KULARTS Inc., the San Francisco Symphony, and Concept o4.

Jenelle is an alum of The School at Jacob’s Pillow (Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship 2023) and has recently done work as Creative Communication Instructor for Alvin Ailey’s youth summer program, AileyCamp, held each year at UC Berkeley. She is currently the Co-Artistic Director of ODC Seeds Youth Company and has also taught weekly classes at Alonzo King LINES Ballet (SF Dance Center). Additionally, Jenelle has been a multidisciplinary teaching artist in Robert Moses’ KIN’s former educational outreach program, Bootstraps: Lyric Legacies, and has facilitated house dance workshops at Stanford University, the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, CA, as well as the University of San Francisco.

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 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. He 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, and in 2024 he received the Gerbode Dance Award.

Livanna Marissa Maislen is an immersive dance-theatre performer (Sleep No More; Emursive Productions; Company SBB; Francesca Harper Project; Collective Attention SF; 13th Floor Theater) and yoga-movement instructor with roots in New York and the Northwest. She was Dancer and Rehearsal Assistant for Nick Cave's Bessie Award-winning show The Let Go, Nona Hendryx & Carrie Mae Weems' Refrigerated Dreams, and Austria’s Bregenzer Fruehling’s Tanzfestival. Maislen has performed internationally and has worked with Nicole von Arx, Yin Yue, Karole Armitage, Liss Fain Dance, the San Francisco Opera, and the Seattle Opera. She holds a master’s degree in Somatic Psychotherapy from CIIS, where she worked at The Center of Somatic Psychotherapy in San Francisco.

Kelsey McFalls, originally from Syracuse, NY, trained at American Ballet Theatre, LINES Ballet, and American Repertory Ballet. She has been honored to work with Concept o4, Amy Seiwert's Imagery, PARA.MAR Dance Theatre, Ballare Carmel, Sacramento Ballet, Dance Theatre of San Francisco, Company C, Kambara + Dancers, American Contemporary Ballet, and American Repertory Ballet, among others. In 2023, she received an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for her performance in Natasha Adorlee’s duet Blooming Flowers and the Full Moon. In addition to working as a freelance dancer, Kelsey is a nonprofit development consultant and grant writer.

Ryan Rouland Smith (he/him) holds a BFA in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2014, Smith became a member of New York-based Kate Weare Company, performing in and originating roles in such works as Dark Lark, Unstruck, Marksman, and Praise. In 2019, while dancing in New York, Smith had the pleasure of working with Stefanie Batten Bland on Look Who’s Coming to Dinner. Following the collaborative process between Kate Weare Company and ODC, Decameron/Up For Air, Smith joined ODC/Dance from 2021 to 2025. While there, he danced in and originated works by Sidra Bell, Mia J. Chong, Sonya Delwaide, Catherine Galasso, KT Nelson, Dexandro Montalvo, Kimi Okada, Amy Seiwert, and Brenda Way. Ryan Rouland Smith is a freelance dancer, educator, and choreographer in the Bay Area, currently dancing for Mark Foehringer Dance Project|SF and Sharp & Fine. This is his first collaboration with Concept o4.

Creative Collaborators

Sincere thanks to Dave Robertson (Lighting Design) and Aaron Simunovich (Production Support) for their essential expertise and assistance in developing and testing the theatrical elements of this work-in-progress showing.