Dance & Yoga

 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.

She began her training at Harkness House for Ballet Arts, a most amazing center for the arts during a remarkable era. 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 began working with Juliu as a means to recover from a dance injury she was told would end her career. 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 Iyengar, Hatha, and Katonah Yoga practices. She is also certified in E-stem electric acupuncture and Cranial Sacral therapy. Luisa has developed her own advanced system, called Integrated Alignment, which interfaces these modalities and her life experience.

Ms. Meshekoff offers workshops and private and group classes in New York for both Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and The Joffrey Ballet. In Tampa, 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 co-founder of The Dance Project Inc. His dance studies began at the age of five. He completed his formal training at the Mary Bruce Dance School, Syvilla Fort Dance Studio, High School of Performing Arts, The Juilliard School, Jacob’s Pillow Teachers Workshop, New Dance Group, Clark Center, and the American Dance Festival.

Throughout his distinguished career, Mr. Parks trained and performed with numerous renowned artists and companies, including Alvin Ailey, José Limón, Donald McKayle, Anna Sokolow, Pearl Primus, Percival Borde, Mary Anthony, Eleo Pomare, Ruth Currier, Rod Rodgers, Sun Ock Lee, Louis Johnson, Martha Clarke, Babatunde Olatunji, Nina Popova, Joan Miller, June Dunbar, Chuck Davis, Lucas Hoving, Alfredo Corvino, Billie Kirpitch, Norman Walker, and still many others.

He served as assistant to the choreographer, dance captain, and performer in the seven Tony Award–winning Broadway production, The Wiz.

Parks founded his own company, Movements Black Dance Repertory Theatre, dedicated to the Civil Rights and Pan-African movements, before joining Alvin Ailey. He has performed, taught, and lectured throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Africa, and China. Relocating to Tampa, Florida, he accepted a faculty position at the University of South Florida, where he directed, choreographed, and produced works for both theater and community organizations.

For over 30 years, as a valued faculty member at USF, his collaborations with community arts organizations such as Taproot, Inkwell, and the Arts Legacy Program at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts.

Mr. Parks is dedicated to promoting dance and the arts as a healing modality through his work with the International Arts + Mind Lab of the Brain Science Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Currently his work is on display at the Whitney museum and New York Library Public Digital Collection, New York, NY.

GINA BUNTZ  teaches and choreographs throughout the world with international sponsorship from the United States Information Agency’s Arts America Program, the National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer’s Exchange Program in France, and the Olympic Arts Festival in Korea. Her work has been presented at the Korea Dance Festival, the American Dance Festival, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine.

She has taught and choreographed for the Dance Theatre of Harlem School in New York City, the new World School of the Arts in Miami, the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, University of Michigan and the Haitian-American Dance Academy in Port-au-Prince.

Gina has also taught company classes for Lulu Washington, Body Traffic, and is currently working on a project developing totemic movement and cellular moment.

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.

Marissa Iglesia