Kathleen is a dance artist, teacher, improviser and choreographer based in San Francisco. She has been a member of Bebe Miller Company since 2002, collaborating on and performing in Landing/Place (2006 BESSIE Award for Ensemble Creation & Performance) and Necessary Beauty. She has worked with Sara Shelton Mann and Contraband since 1993 and been in collaboration with Stephanie Maher in Berlin since 2000. She was a member of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, sharing a 1999 Isadora Duncan Award for Ensemble Performance, and co-director of Hermesdorf & Wells Dance Company with Scott Wells, sharing a 1994 GOLDIE Award. Hermesdorf is the Artistic Director of La ALTERNATIVA (formerly known as MOTIONLAB) with musician Albert Mathias, creating and instigating deeply integrated dance and music and offering training, improvisation, performance and production for studio, stage, club and audio since 1998. Their classes and performance seasons have a home base at ODC School and Theater in San Francisco and they tour the world to universities, festivals and stages. They are currently in collaboration on MATCH with Delfos Danza Contemporanea (Mazatlan, Mexico) & BoanDanzAction (Cuba/Philadelphia); with Stephanie Maher and Yoann Trellu (Stolzenhagen, Germany) on Constant.Observed.State., and on Etranger with Laurent Lavolé and Trellu (Berlin). www.la-alternativa.us. Hermesdorf holds a BFA in Dance from Western Michigan University, as well as the 2007 Outstanding Alumni Award, and an MFA in Dance Performance & Pedagogy from University of Illinois/Champaign-Urbana. Her early training in Hawkins, Cunningham, ballet and jazz is now matched by extensive experience in the field and she performs, creates and teaches around the world.