About High Release
HIGH RELEASE DANCE was founded in 1994 by a group of modern dancers seeking to pursue their own artistic visions and performance opportunities in a collaborative environment while still having time for families, careers, and other pursuits. The group's current focus is on creating new works and presenting pieces in different performance venues. While primarily based in modern dance, the group explores a range of dance styles, with each member acting as both choreographer of her own works and dancer in other choreographers' pieces. High Release is unique in that the group has no director, but works as a completely democratic organization in which each member has equal voice and contributes her particular talents.
High Release pieces range from highly abstract modern compositions through intricately designed jazz routines, lyrical movement poems, improvisations, and theatrical works that create a sense of place and plot with unique characterizations. While mood ranges from the dark and serious to the light and humorous, throughout the work is a distinctive High Release "flavor" characterized by dynamic, energetic movement.
Dancers in High Release are involved continuously in developing new work. The group performs a full-length concert of new works once every two years, as well as showing new pieces and works in progress in a number of group shows. High Release has performed in such productions and venues as DanceVisions, sjDANCEco's ChoreoProject, Bay Area Dance Week festivals, Berkeley's Eighth Street Studio, the San Jose City College Choreographers' Collective, the Brady Street Studio, Stanford's Mary Edith Alumni Dance Concert, the Santa Cruz Dance Series, and the 21st Century Dance Collaboration at the Marin Civic Center.
REBEKAH ALTMAN spent her youth at L'Ecole de Danse in Annapolis, MD studying ballet, lyrical, and Graham modern with Barbara Easter Winner and Carol Wheeler. Falling in love with modern, she studied Graham, Pilobolus, Taylor, Jump Rhythm Jazz Project and ballet in the Visiting Artists Program at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in VA under Pam Risenhoover. After receiving a BA in performance, plus gaining backstage theater work, she returned home and enjoyed co-choreographing liturgical dance, teaching modern to kids at L'Ecole de Danse, and performing alongside younger dancers. After a break to focus on motherhood, she resumed dancing in 2013 with Anne-Lorraine Bahi at Harmony Dance Center, discovered Zohar Dance, and joined High Release in 2017.
MARCY AUERBACH-UNAL has been dancing since she was a little girl. She attended the Fine and Performing Arts High School in New Jersey where she learned and performed ballet, jazz, and modern dance. During college, she was vice-president of a student-led dance group where she fundraised, performed, and choreographed while obtaining her bachelor's degree in biology. She danced with Kelly Donovan & Dancers in Boston, and more recently performed in San Francisco's Carnival with Tania Santiago. While a grad student in NYC, she co-founded Danza Washington Heights in northern Manhattan under the partnership of DanceNOW[NYC], producing outdoor dance events while promoting local artists. Marcy is a virologist and yogi. She joined High Release in 2010.
VIRGINIA BOCK grew up in New Zealand where she studied ballet and modern dance from an early age and taught dance in various schools and communities. She earned a diploma in dance teaching from the New Zealand School of Dance, where she studied modern dance with Liz Davey and Limón Company alum Louis Solino, and performed and choreographed with the student company. In the Bay Area, Virginia has performed with Jeannine Charles' ArtistEDGE, Lisa Burnett, Karin Moriarty, and Laura Zweig. Virginia has two teenagers and has found her third act working in higher education. She joined High Release in 2006.
NATASHA CARLITZ trained as a child with former Nikolais dancer Grace Butler, and performed with SMDC and CHORD. She has studied dance in California, London, Amsterdam, Massachusetts, and Maine, including workshops on improvisation and choreography with Pilobolus founder Jonathan Wolken and aerial dance in the Sierras with Bandaloop. Natasha founded the Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble in 2005; NCDE presented its first concert in 2006 in collaboration with High Release and the internationally acclaimed California Guitar Trio and has since produced an annual Bay Area season. Invited to represent the United States at the Egyptian International Modern Dance Festival in 2010, Natasha led a master class with Egypt's national dance company and NCDE presented evening-length concerts in Cairo and Alexandria. A member of High Release from 1998 through 2005, Natasha rejoined the company in 2011.
MINDY CHANG is drawn to creative expression at the intersection of art, music, and movement. She grew up learning Chinese traditional folk dancing in Illinois and later expanded into lyrical and blues/fusion dancing in the Bay Area. She joined the Lily Cai Chinese Dance Company in 2014, performing contemporary works around San Francisco and on tour. Since joining High Release in 2024, she has enjoyed the opportunity to venture into choreography.
YUNA CHOI grew up studying ballet in the Bay Area and explored other dance styles through high school. While majoring in dance at the University of Santa Barbara, she dove into modern technique ranging from Shen Wei to Horton. After graduating, she continued to find avenues for dance through teaching and taking classes. She currently is a third grade teacher passionate about incorporating movement in the classroom. Yuna joined High Release in 2022.
ELENA GRINDLEY has danced for twenty years in Menlo Park. She has studied with Ronnie Brosterman and Gail Abrams at Scripps College and holds a degree in Creative Arts from San Jose State, where she studied with Gary Masters. Elena has performed in Claremont, Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Jose State, San Jose City College, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, DanceVisions, and her grandparents' living room. She has delved into modern, ballet, hip hop, capoeira, West African, Middle Eastern, and funk. Elena joined High Release in fall 1999.
LAUREL HUGHES HOWARD began dancing at DanceVisions at the age of three under the tutelage of Laura Zweig with modern dance, and later delved into ballet, jazz, lyrical, and hip hop. She studied dance at Occidental College, performing and choreographing for the Occidental College Dance Production, studying ballet under Francisco Martinez, and taking contemporary, jazz, and swing classes in and around Los Angeles. After college, Laurel returned to the Bay Area to pursue a degree in education and reunited with the dance community at DanceVisions and Groovitude Dance, regularly performing with Laura Zweig's adult dance group. Laurel is currently a high school teacher and is excited to dance with High Release after watching their work for years.
I-HENG MCCOMB started school when she was 4 years old and never left. In kindergarten, she wrote in her Me Book that she wanted to be a "mommy and a teacher" when she grew up, so three children, three grandchildren, and many thousand students later, here she is. What she didn't foresee then was that somewhere around the turn of the millennium, she would start dancing regularly and never stop. I-Heng joined High Release in 2006.
HIDEKO SAKAMOTO studied tap and jazz dance in college, and then learned modern dance from Hideaki Ryo, former Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble dancer, to help with a chronic backache from her desk work as a software engineer. This not only fixed her back but transformed her life. Dancing became a much more regular routine after Hideko moved to the Bay Area and became a mom to twin boys. She would like to thank Joyce Aranda, Lisa Burnett, Alex Flores and Dottie Lester-White for their enthusiastic dance instruction, and artistic and creative inspiration.
YSABEL SANCHEZ joined High Release in 2023. Growing up, Ysabel experienced many years of High Release performances while she was dancing with Laura Zweig, and is very excited to perform with the company itself for the first time! Previously, she danced with the Foothill Dance Company, under the direction of Bubba Gong, where she had the opportunity to participate in local showcases, dance in the opening act of the Sant Francisco Chinese New Years parade, the Palace of Fine Arts in SF, and more. Outside of dance, she manages the Dance Theatre Shop in Mountain View and is an avid reader.
MARICIA SCOTT has been dancing since she was about five years old. She took ballet for a number of years at Riverside Ballet Arts, then joined the dance team at her high school, where they won an international dance competition in Japan during her junior year. She danced primarily modern in college and received a minor in dance. After college, she was a member of the dance group Dogpatch Superstars for a few years while working as a software engineer/lead. Injuries and children took her out of the dance world for a while, but she is excited to be back and dancing with High Release, which she joined in 2024.
CORINNE SELVIN started dancing at age five at The Joy of Dance studio in San Jose. She learned ballet and tap from Ms. Joy and later added on jazz, lyrical, and hip hop. She also taught weekly children's classes during her last two years of high school. At UC Santa Cruz, she double majored in Environmental Studies and Earth Sciences. She always chose to take the late night lab classes so she could continue taking dance classes during the day. Since returning to this side of the hill for work, Corinne has dabbled in different dance classes throughout the Bay Area. She joined High Release in 2023 and is grateful to have found such a warm dance community.
TRACEY STANELUN began ballet lessons as a little girl and nurtured her skills at home, dancing and singing along to recordings of Broadway musicals. She performed through high school with the State Ballet of Rhode Island, then discovered modern dance at Smith College where she received a BA in Dance. In Boston she performed in the works of Peggy Brightman (Choreodance), Nicola Hawkins, and Marcus Schulkind. She has had fun introducing ballet to elementary school kids in rural Kenya and India. Tracey joined High Release Dance in 2010 when she moved to the Bay Area, and has enjoyed exploring choreography in addition to dancing in the company.
ERIKA TINGEY started studying dance at age 6 with Grace Butler, and continued through college where she studied with Libby Nye and Risa Steinberg, former members of the Limon dance company. In 1994 she graduated from Mills College with an MFA in Choreography, and went on to dance with Jennifer Brightbill and the Pneuma Dance Company. For a year she was a performing member of the San Francisco Taiko Dojo. Her work has been seen in High Release, DanceVisions, and Choreographers' Collective performances, as well as the Marin 21st Century Dance & Music Collaboration and "Assemble Emotion," an AIDS fundraiser in San Francisco. Erika joined High Release in 1999.