TETON VILLAGE, Wyo. — For over a decade, the Wyoming Arts Council has been looking for the best possible way to highlight the stand out artistry of the Wyoming Performing Arts Fellowship recipients. Fellowship categories include Performing Arts in Music, Native Art, and Performing Arts in Theatre and Dance, with each recipient receiving a $3,000 award based on their submitted portfolio of work in their respective field. A newfound collaboration with the Grand Teton Music Festival will showcase the five 2022-23 artists this Saturday at Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village.
“After conversations with the great team at the Grand Teton Music Festival, we recognized our alignment of supporting Wyoming artists and presenting performances of high artistic quality,” said Michael Lange, Executive Director for the Wyoming Arts Council. “We couldn’t be more excited to work with the Grand Teton Music Festival to present the first ever Wyoming Performing Arts Fellowship Concert at Walk Festival Hall.”
The two recipients of the Performing Arts Fellowship in music are Ron Coulter of Casper and Julie Huebner of Sheridan. Coulter is a percussionist, composer, and improviser. He has presented at over one hundred universities and toured internationally appearing in forty-nine U.S. states, Europe, Canada, and Japan with artists such as the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and David Murray. Ron has composed 400+ compositions for various media and can be heard on 80+ recordings.
Huebner is a vocalist, songwriter and co-founder of Americana quartet The Two Tracks. The group has released three albums since 2016 and have a fourth on the way this August. Huebner’s expressive Americana-style music incorporates elements of many genres often paired with soulful harmonies, catchy melodies and a groovy rhythm section. She has toured nationally, and most recently, performed for the World Expo in Dubai.
Native Art recipient is indigenous singer-songwriter Christian Wallowing Bull of Lander near the Wind River Reservation. With familial relations to the Wind River, and as an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, his heart as a storyteller is to represent his own indigenous roots, and to bridge perspective and healing to the lives of those indigenous, as well as non-indigenous. Ever since the humble beginnings of his first album release, Warrior (2020), he has been growing his audience with a voice like thunder. His song “Orchard” was featured on a compilation album of Wyoming songwriters, The WyoFolk Project (2023).
The two recipients of the Performing Arts Fellowship in theatre and dance are Francesca Romo and Michaela Ellingson, both Jackson residents. Born in London, Romo is Contemporary Dance Wyoming’s Associate Artistic Director and Dancer. After graduating from the Royal Ballet School and London Contemporary Dance School, she danced for The Richard Alston Dance Company 2003-2006. While on tour, she fell in love with the U.S., and moved to New York to cofound the Gallim Dance Company in 2006. She has toured and created work both internationally and nationally and now resides at Dancers’ Workshop in Jackson Hole where she dances, teaches, mentors, and is an integral part of wellness programming.
Multi-instrumentalist Sheena Dhamsania will join Romo. A former Jackson resident now residing in Oakland, California, Dhamsania composed music for the choreographic works.
Ellingson began her training at Dancers’ Workshop in Jackson. She received her BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase, performing work by Doug Varone, Netta Yerushalmy, Mark Morris and others. She received her MA in dance from the London Contemporary Dance School where she danced with EDge Postgraduate Company. She had the opportunity to tour in Europe and performed work by Itamar Serussi, Robert Clark, Eleesha Drennan and Siobhan Davies. She also performed with multidisciplinary companies Bittersuite and Flavour & Some, and made a series of her own solo choreography. She has been a member of Contemporary Dance Wyoming for seven seasons, performing work by Babs Case, Francesca Romo, Gina Patterson and Luke Dakota Zender. Michaela is also a Pilates instructor, dance teacher and the Junior Company Director at Dancers’ Workshop.
Grand Teton Music Festival and Wyoming Arts Council present Wyoming Performing Arts Fellowship Concert, 6-7:30 p.m. Saturday June 10 at Walk Festival Hall. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. GTMF.org.
