Digby Dance - About Us

Toby Billowitz has lived in New York since 1996 and performed there and elsewhere with Jordan Fuchs, Kate Digby, Jill Sigman, Lynn Neuman/Artichoke Dance Company, Philippa Kaye, Martha Williams, Jonette Ford, Ben Munisteri Dance Projects, WORKS/Laura Glenn Dance, Mary Seidman & Dancers, Ali Kenner, Red Shift Dance, Noel MacDuffie, Mary Suk, Despina Stamos and Wen-Shuan Yang, Jill Meadows, Amalgamated Performance Group, Lostwax, Delicious Biscuit, Deborah Birrane/Unexpected Company (Seattle), Chamber Dance Company (Seattle), Alexandra Beller, Jon Zimmerman, Tony Silva Dance and Music, Christine Suarez, Amy Spencer, Earl Mosley, Dance First, Joanna Mendl Shaw, Holly Twining/Les Gilles Twining and Sean Curran, in no particular order. He spent eight years at White Mountain Summer Dance Festival as a resident company or faculty member. His own choreography has been seen in Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington, and in NYC at locations such as the LaMAMa Cafe, BRIC, and the Cunningham Studio, among others.

Tanya Birl is a native of Toronto, Canada where she began her dance trainingat The Dance Factory and Cawthra Park School of the Arts. She has also trained intensively at The Ailey school in NYC. Some of Tanya's credits include:the National Tour of the Lion King, Princess Cruise lines, Nathan Trice/ Rituals, and Helix dance project. As well as performing Tanya is a re-occurant choreographer for both Cawthra Park and the Dance Factory, and has been on the teaching faculty for Ailey camp.Tanya is excited to be performing with Digby Dance for the first time.

Summer Brown graduated with high honors from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a B.F.A. in Dance and a B.A. in History. While attending UCSB, she toured California for two years with the UCSB Dance Company and, among other acknowledgments, was honored with the Alice Condodina Performance Award. Upon graduating, she choreographed and co-produced Life on Canvas with Kathleen White. Since moving to the New York City area, Summer has worked with Richard Daniels, Katherine Howard, Larry Keigwin, RedWall Dance Theater, Natalie Desch, and is thrilled to be dancing with Digby Dance.

Erin Gottwald's very first dances were set to music by Smokey Robinson in her parents' living room. To compliment this creativity, she diligently worked on her technical proficiency at the Boston Ballet School for 11 years. During the summers, she studied modern dance and improvisation with Holly Fairbank. These early dance experiences have informed her current relationship with movement. Erin is a graduate of Bates College and received a BA Hons certificate from the London Contemporary Dance School. She has had the pleasure of dancing with an assortment of inspiring choreographers and companies including Nicola Hawkins, Prometheus Dance, Heidi Schweiker, Dandelion Dance Theatre, Vanessa Paige, and Randee Paufve. Her choreography has been presented in NYC at Spoke the Hub and Soundance at the Stable, and in Cambridge, MA at the Dance Complex. Erin has been inspired by her students at Berkeley Ballet Theatre, Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Boston Ballet, and Spoke the Hub. When she's not enmeshed in dance, you can find her attending to her duties as Webmistress at Monkey Business Camp or updating her blog. This is Erin's third season with Digby Dance and is so delighted that she may just improvise some ballet to Smokey Robinson to celebrate!

Maggie Husak formalized her study of movement while in high school in Houston, TX, and bounded her way to Providence, RI to study Urban Studies and Dance at Brown University. In addition to modern dance, Maggie studies yoga and West African dance. She also performs with the Nicola Hawkins Dance Company, Karen Murphy and Dancers, and Ipswich Moving Company.

Gary Lai, born and raised in the boogie-down bronx, has a varied movement background in gymnastics, martial arts, rock climbing, and now dance.He was the owner/operator of physical arts center, an incestuous breeding ground for all forms of movement arts located in williamsburg, brooklyn. Gary's life experiences range from getting live body piercings onstage, to getting his ass kicked in really bad movies, to pouting on a runway in milano, to teaching funny little kids gymnastics. He has danced for noemie lafrance on the side of a frank gehry building, in a sling for airelise (elise knudson), and on the floor for luis lara malvacias / full fat dance, wendy osserman dance company, and most recently digby dance, among others. Gary is attempting to work off of the corporate grid - teaching gymnastics and martial arts, and finding the oddest jobs from craigslist.org. all so that he can support his dance habit.

Kimberly Miller has been dancing for as long as she can remember. She studied at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, in Natick, and received her B.F.A. in choreography from Arizona State University. While in Arizona, she also performed and choreographed with Venture Dance Collective. She has recently returned to the Boston area and is excited to be apprenticing with Digby Dance, working as a massage therapist, and dancing and performing with friends.

Zack Winokur is currently a senior at Concord Academy where he is a member of the Dance Program and Dance Company directed by Amy Spencer and Richard Colton. Zack has most recently performed in David Parker and The Bang Group’s "Nut/Cracked" at the Dance Theater Workshop in NYC. He has also performed in works by Karole Armitage, Jeffrey Edwards, Spencer/Colton and with Dudley Williams in a special presentation of Alvin Ailey's "Reflections in D".