ARTISTIC STAFF

ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP

NICOLE CLARKE-SPRINGER
Artistic Director

Nicole Clarke-Springer began formal training under the guidance of Claudette Soltis (Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Joliet Ballet Society) and the Indianapolis Ballet Theatre under Dace Diodonis. She received her B.S. in arts administration-dance from Butler University in Indianapolis, where she was honored as Butler Ballet’s Outstanding Performer.

Shortly after graduating from Butler, Clarke-Springer found her dance home within the Deeply Rooted Dance Theater family—first as an apprentice and later as company member. As a member of DRDT, she had the opportunity to perform with Roberta Flack in Kevin Iega Jeff’s Flack, as well as Jennifer Holiday in the world-renowned Penumbra Theatre’s Black Nativity. She briefly left the company in 2007 to serve as adjunct professor in Western Kentucky University’s Dance Department. While there, she was asked to join the Clifton Brown Dance Company, performing on its tour to Istanbul, Turkey. The same year, Clarke-Springer returned to the Deeply family as program director of its Summer Dance Intensive. During this time, she began deepening her choreographic voice, creating and later setting works including Nine, Dounia, and Femme for the main and second companies. She also served as assistant choreographer to Kevin Iega Jeff for Congo Square Theatre’s Nativity for two years.

In 2013, Clarke-Springer joined Kevin Iega Jeff and Gary Abbott as the newest member of the Deeply Rooted Artistic Team and was named Deeply Rooted Dance Theater’s Emerging Choreographer for the program “Generations.” Among the critical responses to her work Hadiya were these thoughts from Lynn Colburn Shapiro, See Chicago Dance:  “a poignant memorial tribute…filled with…ritualistic gestures [that] carry a ceremonial theme…a living eulogy not only for the slain Hadiya Pendleton, but for all children who have lost their lives to violence.”

In August 2015, she traveled with Deeply Rooted to participate in JOMBA! Dance Festival hosted by Flatfoot Dance Company, where she set her ballet Until Lambs Become Lions on the host company.

In 2016, Clarke-Springer choreographed the opening number for the nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Show- Halloween Celebration. She teaches and choreographs throughout the country and has been on faculty as an adjunct professor at Chicago State University and Western Kentucky University and is currently on staff at Northwestern University.

Crediting Deeply Rooted’s mission, Clarke-Springer works to create an environment where artists participate in a process that is not only spiritually affirming but requires open and honest dialogue that leads to self-reflection, constructive feedback, and accountability to the work required. She was appointed Artistic Director of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater in September 2019.

ARTISTIC SUPPORT

RICKY DAVIS
Artistic Assistant

Ricky Davis was born and raised in Atlanta. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He Has attended summer courses at Atlanta Ballet and North Carolina Dance Theatre.After a semester at Marymount Manhattan College in New York, Davis was invited to join Columbia City Ballet as a trainee in 2011. He was promoted to the corps de ballet in 2012 and continued dancing with the company until 2014. He has also performed with Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company, Appalachian BalletCompany, Lawrence Ballet Theatre, and Nu-World Contemporary Dance Theatreand has recurring roles with Roswell Dance Theater as Snow King in their annual production of The Nutcracker.

RESIDENT CHOREOGRAPHERS

KEVIN IEGA JEFF

Kevin Iega Jeff is an accomplished dancer, award-winning choreographer, acclaimed artistic director, respected dance educator, and innovative executive leader. He creates transcendent works while inspiring those around him to foster extraordinary lives, onstage and off, through dance/art-making.

After 24 years of artistic and executive leadership, Jeff stepped down as artistic/executive director of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater in September 2019 to assume his new role as creative director of Deeply Rooted Productions, Deeply Rooted’s long-established umbrella organization. In his evolved role, he is leading the company’s newly formed Special Projects division and the development of a new home for the company on Chicago’s South Side. Deeply Rooted established its Special Projects division to create interdisciplinary works for expanded markets. Under Jeff’s leadership, GOSHEN, with music by Grammy Award winner Donald Lawrence, is the first special project in development. (Prior to the spread of COVID-19, GOSHEN was scheduled to premiere at the Broadway Playhouse in May 2020 in partnership with Quiet Waters Productions and Broadway In Chicago.

As an independent artist, Jeff collaborates on a wide range of professional and community-based projects across the country. His work has been featured in several films, including Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It; on television on The Academy Awards; and on Broadway in The Wiz and Comin’ Uptown. In 2005, the Juilliard School named Jeff one of its 100 Outstanding Alumni in celebration of the school’s centenary anniversary. He has also received recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Council for Culture and Art, Chicago Black Theater Alliance Awards, and the Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist program. Jeff has taught and lectured nationally and internationally at public and private schools, community organizations, universities, colleges, and cultural institutions, including Howard University, Purdue University, Point Park University, the Frye Museum, the University of Kansas City Missouri, the University of Chicago (UChicago), UMass, and the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. Led by Jeff’s vision to establish a state-of-the-art dance center with a division dedicated to African-American (Black) dance, Deeply Rooted received a 2018 grant from the Arts Work Fund of Chicago to support the planning of a South Side dance center in collaboration with UChicago, the Chicago Community Loan Fund, and Studio One.

In January 2020, Newcity magazine recognized Jeff among the top 10 Players 2020: The Fifty People Who Really Perform for Chicago. That same month, Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed him to the City of Chicago’s Cultural Advisory Council of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.  

Speaking about his work, personal philosophy, and mission, Jeff shares: “I am made possible by the energies of Creation and influenced by those who have come before me. I am because they were and are. I am born liberated into the possibility of me and empowered by free thought. I pray to be respectful and courageous and to think wisely. I strive to analyze and dismantle oppressive thoughts and systems through forums that inspire human evolution with creativity. I want my work to grow truer, more focused, and relevant as time passes. My artistic practice is borne out of personal and human examination, and my desire to communicate authentically informs what I create. For me, dance/art-making is a perfect catalyst for revealing the genius inherited within our spiritual and cellular beings, reflecting who we are and who we strive to become.”

GARY ABBOTT

Gary Abbott began his career as a dancer in Atlanta, GA with Barbara Sullivan’s Atlanta Dance Theatre. There he developed his interest in choreography and created works for musicals presented by Jomandi Productions and The Clark College Players. Receiving a scholarship to attend California Institute of the Arts in 1979, Abbott studied with dance legends Crystine Lawson, Nicholas Gunn, and Mia Slavenska. Abbott later moved to Los Angeles where he danced with Lula Washington Dance Theatre and Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theatre.In 1985, Abbott was invited to dance with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble of Denver, CO where he was nurtured by Ms. Parker-Robinson to create several dances that are still a part of the company’s repertoire. His career there allowed Abbott to study with many great luminaries of the dance world. Among them are Katherine Dunham, Donald McKayle, Eleo Pomare, Donald Byrd, and Kevin Iega Jeff.

While residing in Denver, Abbott brought his choreographic talents to The Denver Center for the Performing Arts in the shows, Star Fever (based on The Bacchae by Euripides), and Don Quixote directed by Pavel Dobrusky. Abbott continued to work with Mr. Dobrusky at the Cleveland Playhouse, where he served as choreographer for the play Yerma by Federico Garcia Lorca. It was during his 10 years with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble that Abbott first visited Gillette, WY, and directed and choreographed a year-long project called Harambee. For more than 25 years, Abbott taught and directed artistic programming in the Gillette community. One of those programs is the “Performing Arts Workshop” (PAW) co-founded by Abbott, Jeff, and Suzanne Dowler and “Choose Dance” a program that brought dance to the community’s schools and at-risk youth organizations.

Abbott and Jeff, along with Linda Spriggs, Diane Shober and LaVerne Alaphaire Jeff founded Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (DRDT) in 1995. The company’s mission is to re-imagine and diversify contemporary dance by bringing together modern, classical, and African-American traditions in dance enable Abbott to continue to serve and grow as an artist. Abbott and Jeff’s artistic goals extend beyond just the dance world and into the world of musical theatre as well. From 2001-2003, Abbott served as choreographer and Jeff as director for Black Nativity presented by the Penumbra Theatre. In 2008 Abbott choreographed “Ballad of Emmet Till” directed by Oz Scott for The Goodman Theater in Chicago and in 2010 Abbott shared choreographic duties with Mr. Jeff, for “Aida” for the Bailiwick Theater of Chicago. In Kansas City, he has choreographed for three shows for Kansas City Repertory Theater. “The Tallest Tree in the Forest”, directed by Moises Kaufman. ‘Fences’ directed by Ron OJ Parson and “Fear City” directed by Chip Miller.

Abbott has had the privilege to teach and choreograph at many prestigious universities worldwide including special workshops in Vienna, Austria, and at Peridance Studios in New York City. He has taught and choreographed for Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga, Iliev Foundation in Bar, Montenegro, and Sofia, Bulgaria, Flatfoot Dance Theater at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa, Tianjin Conservatory, Tianjin, China, and conducting workshops in Shenzhen, China.

Abbott has been fortunate to choreograph works for Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Theater of Kansas City, MO., Dallas Black Dance Theater of Dallas, TX, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance of Denver, CO., David Taylor Dance Theater of Denver CO and others.

Along with his duties as Associate Artistic Director for DRDT, Gary Abbott also serves as Professor of Dance at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory.

JOSHUA L. ISHMON

Joshua L. Ishmon was born and raised in Gary, Indiana. He is a 2007 graduate of Emerson School for the Visual and Performing Arts, where he also studied with Ballet Chicago and M.A.D.D. Rhythms. After graduating, Ishmon joined Deeply Rooted Dance Theater in 2009, and he matriculated into the main company. He is now co-rehearsal director, co-founder, and producing director of Deeply Rooted’s Emerging Choreographers Showcase, in addition to continuing to dance with the company. Ishmon is also a member of Winifred R. Harris’ Between Lines (Denver) and Seamless Dance Theater (Kansas City, Missouri), a guest artist with Ballet Chicago and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and has shared the stage with Bobby McFerrin. Ishmon is always in pursuit of deepening his artistry and continuing to grow, and he pays homage to the amazing people whose shoulders he stands on.