Faculty Page

LUISA MESHEKOFF is co-founder and executive director of The Dance Project Inc. which provides dance education, rehabilitation, performances, mixed media, cultural events, and also produces educational documentary videos for national and local Public Access and PBS stations.

As a professional ballerina, Luisa has performed with the New York Baroque Dance Company, Joffrey Ballet, Joyce Tristler Dance Company, National Ballet de Lyon in France, and The National Ballet de Danza in Quito, Ecuador, and is considered on of only a dozen worldwide experts on 18th century movement and dance. She continues to work professionally as an Argentine Tango dancer.

Luisa became a master trainer in Gyrotonic® in the early 1990s and was involved in its development with founder Juliu Horvath during its beginnings in 1984. Luisa worked with Juliu while recovering from a dance injury from which she was told she would never recover. The results allowed full recovery with improved use of her body. Wanting every dancer to have these benefits, she began studying. Her training in rehabilitation is supplemented by study in Alexander Technique, Pilates, Floor Barre, and various Yoga traditions, including Iyengarand Hatha. She is also certified in E-stem electric acupuncture. Luisa has developed her own advanced system, called INTEGRATED STRUCTURAL AWARENESS,™ which interweaves these approaches.

Luisa offers seminars and private training in New York for Alvin Ailey dance theater and Sal Anthony’s Movement Saloon, and in Tampa, where she works with a variety of professionals: dancers, musicians, gymnasts, divers, swimmers, tri athletes, and anyone interested in high-level wellness and performance. Luisa has worked with
professional sports teams, including the N.Y. Mets, Detroit Pistons, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Tampa Bay Mutiny. She also works with individuals who have suffered severe spinal and brain injuries.

JOHN PARKS is a teacher, performer, choreographer, director and producer. Mr. Parks received training from the High School of the Perfoming Arts, Julliard School of Music, and the Martha Graham School. He was an acclaimed dancer and choreographer with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and has danced with, among others, the Anna Sokolow Company, and the Ruth Currier Company. Mr, Parks has appeared on Broadway and in films including "Rage in Harlem" and "Malcom X." He has served on the faculty at the American Dance Festival, Harvard Summer Dance Center, Florida Dance Festival, and Ann Reinking's Musical Theater Project. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Harvard Summer School, Ballet Company of Zimbabwe, the Alvin Ailey School and currently teaches at the Univerity of South Florida.

CECILIA ROSSEY (Choreographer) trained with Charles Weidman at Expression of the Two Arts Theatre in New York City. She also studied with Norman Walker (George Washington University), Crystyne Lawson (Ballet Center of Buffalo), and Anna Sokolow. After retiring from performing, Ms. Rossey choreographed and produced works for her own company in Porte None, Italy. Now she resides in Sarasota, Florida and continues to produce works for The Dance Project and other companies.

SCOTT KLUKSDAHL (Musical Director) is a professor of violincello at the University of South Florida and serves as an artistic director for the Faculty Chamber Players. An active performer and clinician nationally, his recent engagements included concerto performances with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and Tampa Bay Symphony, recital appearances at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Philadelphia Network for New Music, St. Petersburg Museum of FIne Arts, Costa Rica Festival Internacional de Musica, and performances of the Bach Suite Cycle in San Francisco and Lake Wakes. Mr. Kluksdahl has degrees from Harvard University and the Julliard School. He has taught at the Julliard Pre-College, the Eastern Music Festival, the Eastman Music Festival, the Elaine Kaufmann Center in New York, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

JUDSON GRIFFIN (Musician) serves regularly as concertmaster, soloist and chamber musician in New York with Concert Royal, The American Classical Orchestra, and Amor Artis. He has been guest soloist and concertmaster with the Dallas Bach Society and frequent soloist and conductor at the Connecticut Early Music Festival. THis season Mr. Griffin has been acting music director of the Clarion Music Society. His more than sixty recordings range from the seventeenth century to the present day.

LARRY KENT is Music Director of Florida Pro Musica, in addition to playing harpsichord and pian in solo and chamber settings. He made his European conducting debut in a rare performance of Gazzaniga’s Don Giovanni at Teatro Signorelli in Cortona, Italy, in 1996, and his Asian debut in the Peoples Republic of China conducting symphonies of Brahms and Mozart with the Xian Symphony Orchestra in 1998. Also an accomplished composer, Kent’s choral and instrumental works have received numerous performances on both sides of the Atlantic. While completing his doctoral studies he conducted two critically acclaimed performances of his one-act opera, Charlotte, which he composed to an original libretto by the late John Lawson, Jr., a noted Tampa attorney and wordsmith. Since co-founding Florida Pro Musica in 1998 with attorney George F. Gramling, III, he continues to explore both familiar and unfamiliar literature for chorus, chamber orchestra, and smaller ensembles.

Mr. Kent holds degrees in piano performance from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he studied piano with Carl Pfeifer and harpsichord with Lawrence Robinson, and from the University of Miami, where he was a student of Ivan Davis. He earned his doctorate from the University of South Carolina, where he studied composition with Dick Goodwin and conducting with Donald Portnoy and Manuel Alvarez. He has participated in master classes with Peter Phillips, Stephen Paulus and Libby Larsen, and was an original member of the Virginia Consort in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has also served as a Choral Scholar at Church of the Good Shepherd in Columbia, South Carolina, and sings and directs Florida Pro Musica’s annual Advent concerts of Gregorian Chant at Sacred Heart Church in Tampa.

Cellist JAVIER CABALLERO , born in Puerto Rico, received his Master’s Degree and Graduate Performance Diploma as a student of Rhonda Rider at the Boston Conservatory, where he won the 2005 String Department Honors Competition. Previously, he received his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of South Florida under Scott Kluksdahl. While in Tampa, he began playing baroque chamber music with Florida Pro Musica, in concerts and in a video on 18th century dance in collaboration with The Dance Project. A frequent freelancer, performances have taken Mr. Caballero from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall to clubs such as Ryles Jazz Club, Lizard Lounge and Makor in NYC. He has recorded with the Balmus Ensemble, the Tami Machnai Ensemble, the Tim Janis Ensemble, and with several Boston-area singers and indie rock bands. He has also performed with Diana Ross and the Supremes, Sarah Brightman, Mannheim Steamroller, and the Irish Tenors. He served as principal cellist of Tampa’s Mostly Pops Orchestra and is currently principal of the Worcester Collegium. Mr. Caballero has toured China and was featured on PBS and QVC. In December 2008, he was invited to take part in a two-week concert tour in Palestine and Israel as part of the Baroque Festival organized by the Al Kamandjati Music Center. In addition to performing in the Boston area and beyond, Mr. Caballero teaches strings for the Brookline Public Schools as well as privately.