FIRST THURSDAYS ART WALK Series

Laguna Dance Festival is proud to present the following 2023 Scholarship Recipients for our November 2 Art Walk:

Carissa Hsu, Abrianna Herring,

Natalia Reszka, and Drew Rosen

Carissa Hsu is a high school student at Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA), studying in the Ballet and Contemporary Dance Conservatory under the direction of Steven Hyde. She also trains at Premier Ballet School of Orange County under Nazgul Shinn, Marina Ten, and Gunta Liepina-Miller. She is grateful to have also worked with artist-choreographers Rauf “Rubberlegz” Yasit and Megan Guise. She is passionate about dance and has been since the age of six. Her goal is to pursue a dance degree and become a professional dancer.

Abrianna Herring is a freshmen at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) as a dance major. Herring began her training in all styles of dance when she was seven years old at Dancer’s Edge in North Carolina. She moved to Long Beach, California when she was eleven and continued to train at Elevation Studios in Signal Hill for the next seven years. She has attended several intensives such as Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, Debbie Allen Dance Academy, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet Academy. She was also a Radix Dance Convention Protege Runner-Up 2021 and 2022 as well as a Velocity Dance Convention Maximum Velocity Artist Runner-Up 2022 and 2023. She was given the opportunity to choreograph ten pieces on the advanced dance team at her high school and was also able to choreograph at Elevation Studios as a member of their pre-professional company, Off The Floor, and as a faculty member from 2021-2023. She recently joined the Cameron Lee Mentorship program where she will be training under Cameron Lee, professional dancer and choreographer. Her long term goal is to open a dance studio for underrepresented dancers.

Natalia Reszka began her training as a competition dancer at Tiffany’s Dance Academy in Livermore, CA. She has been able to attend intensives with Pacific Northwest Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. In 2022, she was accepted into the Colburn Dance Academy in Los Angeles, CA where she has been able to perform classical works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Merce Cunningham, as well as original works by Janie Taylor and Silas Farley.

Drew Rosen began his training five years ago at the age of twelve. He currently lives in Thousand Oaks, California, but commutes to San Diego to train with Danceology. Over the past two summers, he has attended the Netherlands Dans Theatre, Arts Umbrella, and Alonzo King Lines Summer Intensives. Rosen has also been awarded Top 3 Best Dance at the Dance Awards.

The event is free and the evening will consist of two different shows: at 6:30pm & 7:00pm.