The 14 member UCSB Dance Company will present a richly varied concert of contemporary dance at the Hatlen Theater, UCSB on March 11-13, 2026. Six months in the making, the diverse program, “Convergence: into the center“, is an impressive showcase featuring premieres by four guest choreographers, one faculty member, and an emerging choreographer.
This concert is being created to tour to Europe in April 2026 as the senior dance majors in the Department of Theater and Dance reach the pinnacle of their four years at UCSB. The company will take its program abroad in April, touring to Istanbul, Turkey; Cologne, Germany; Poland and Prague, Czechia. This international tour is planned for April 13 – April 29 and the residencies include workshops, master classes, and performances in each city.
The UCSB Dance Company, a pre-professional dance company under the artistic direction of Delila Moseley, offers a broad spectrum of contemporary dance in this concert. Premieres by Seda Aybay, Ashley Lindsey, Monique Meunier, and Meredith Ventura take the stage alongside re staging of choreography by Joshua Manculich, Sophie Berls and Annalise Evans. The evening draws the audience into the radiant, resonant, virtuosic center of dance. Lighting design for the concert is by Michael Klaers.
Aura:
Monique Meunier, Associate Professor at UCSB, opens the concert with Aura, an
exploration of the essence of balletic and contemporary forms. Aura, choreographed for
five dancers en pointe, traces the evolution of a person from tentative beginnings to
embodied strength and self-possession.
Meunier was born in Hollywood, CA. Her father is Cuban and mother is Ecuadorian. As a young girl in Los Angeles, she earned spots in various commercials, music videos, sitcoms, and short films. At the age of 15, she received a full scholarship to attend the School of American Ballet in NYC. Miss Meunier was asked to join the New York City Ballet one year later. In 1996, she was promoted to soloist and reached the rank of principal dancer in 1997. There she performed numerous roles by Balanchine, Robbins, Martins, Wheeldon, and Forsythe, as well as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. In 2002, Meunier joined American Ballet Theater where she added the classics, Tudor, and Kylian to her repertoire. In 2007, she joined Complexions Contemporary Ballet under the direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson. Miss Meunier has staged Balanchine ballets for the Balanchine Trust and has served as rehearsal director for Karole Armitage.
The Rate in Which I Am:
The Rate in Which I Am, by Joshua Manculich , explores the velocity of modern life and its
impact on human connection. Inspired by a loved one that passed suddenly, the work asks
us to finally pause and realize where we are in the moment. Originally commissioned by
DanceWorks Chicago, The Rate in Which I Am won second place (out 150 works) at Palm
Desert Choreography Festival.
These re-stagings of Manculich’s work mark his second residency with the UCSB Dance Company. Manculich (BA, Point Park University; MFA, The Ohio State; M.Ed, Ohio University)– born in Windber, PA – started his dance training at the age of fourteen. In the summer of 2021, Joshua founded WhirlWind Dance, a professional contemporary dance company based in Columbus, OH.
Cadavre Exquis:
Meredith Ventura’s Cadavre Exquis, performed to songs by Edith Piaf, reimagines the
surrealist game of collective creation as a feminist ideal – an act of assembling fragmented
bodies, memories, and voices into a shared, living text.
Meredith Ventura is a choreographer, educator, and scholar whose work bridges concert dance, theater, and performance studies. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she also earned her M.A. and B.F.A. in Dance (cum laude). She holds an M.F.A. in Dance from Hollins University. Ventura is the Artistic Director of Selah Dance Collective and Novus Contemporary Ballet, two Santa Barbara–based companies.
Shedding:
Shedding, by Ashley Lindsey, explores the quiet power of release — the tension between holding on, letting go, and breaking free; between identity and transformation.
Ashley, a Los Angeles based choreographer has a career spanning more that two decades
across concert dance, film, television, fashion, and branded content. He performed with
Jose Limon, and Lar Lubovitch, dance companies. He has directed and produced dance films
and has shaped the technical and artistic development of dancers across university,
conservatory, pre-professional, and professional training programs. and appeared in
numerous film, television, and commercial projects. Ashley’s choreography has been
commissioned by Charlotte Ballet II, Limón II, Chapman University, UC Santa Barbara Dance
Company, Orange County School of the Arts, the University of North Carolina School of the
Arts, and Flight Path Dance Project.
Seda Aybay, guest choreographer from Los Angeles, will create a significant new work on
the UCSB Dance Company during a residency in January. Aybay is the Founder/Artistic Director/Choreographer of Kybele Dance Theater. Since emigrating from Istanbul/Türkiye, her choreography garnered recognition including the 2019 Cultural Ambassador of LA by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs. Seda was the choreographer for John Woo’s movie “The Killer”produced by Universal Pictures and Peacock. Her work has received many awards including New Century Choreography, McCallum Choreography Festival, Front and Main Dance Festival, Dance Under the Stars Festival and more.
Aybay was artist in resident at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, Santa Monica College, Marcus Residency at Washington University/St. Louis and Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center. She created works for Chapman University, LMU Fall Concert, Synapse Dance Theater, Windward School and more, Seda, graduated UCLA WAC, is a certified Horton teacher, while she also offers contemporary, composition and improvisational class as Tenure Adjunct Faculty at Santa Monica College and, recently, contemporary classes at Loyola Marymount University.
CALL FOR:/ call 4 is a quartet by Sophie Berls, exploring the performance of self across multiple geographies, whether online or face to face. Berls is restaging call 4 on UCSB Dance Company, having created the piece last year for Kinetic Lab in close collaboration with dancers Charlotte Brier, Ava Taylor, Avery Trask, and Lara van Digglen.
Berls is a senior at University of California, Santa Barbara, an apprentice with Santa Barbara Dance Theater, and member of UCSB Dance company. Berls is earning their BA in global studies alongside a BFA in dance and minor in French, having further pursued this curiosity at Sciences Po, Paris, last fall. A New Jersey native, they began their training at Core Academy of Movement in Mount Laurel.
We Were Light, by Annalise Evans has been restaged by her. An LA-based dance artist and choreographer, Annalise graduated in June of 2025 from UC Santa Barbara with her BFA in Dance and BS in Psychological and Brain Sciences. While at UCSB, she was in several student choreography productions and was an apprentice for Santa Barbara Dance Theater, performing in their 2024 production, “A Place For Us”.
The UCSB Dance Company is a pre-professional student dance company in the Department
of Theater and Dance at UCSB, under the direction of Delila Moseley. Now in its 34rd year, the company offers graduating senior dance majors the opportunity to perform and travel. Each year the company features works by guest choreographers, from contemporary choreographers to reconstructions of classic works of modern dance. These works showcase the strong technical training and concurrent artistic depth of the dancers.
