The Party Scene

John Heginbotham (Choreographer) (he/him), originally from Anchorage, Alaska, graduated from the Juilliard School (1993) and was a member of Mark Morris Dance Group (1998–2012). He is the artistic director of Dance Heginbotham (founded in 2011), based in Brooklyn, NY, which has toured nationally and internationally. Heginbotham choreographed Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, Episode 1, Season 3 (2023 World Choreography Award nominee) and the Tony Award– and Olivier Award–winning revival of Oklahoma! (Daniel Fish, director), and he has created works for ballet and opera companies including the Washington Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, BalletX, Dutch National Opera, LA Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Cork Opera House (Ireland). Awards include a 2019 OBIE Award (Special Citation for Oklahoma! at St. Ann’s Warehouse), Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award (2014). Heginbotham is the director of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble, on faculty at Dartmouth College, and a founding teacher of Dance for PD®.

Christina Courtin (Violin, Voice, Arrangements and Orchestrations), a vocalist, violinist, and composer, released her first solo self-titled album in 2009 on Nonesuch Records and has since made several recordings under her own name, toured all over the world, and continues to have a thriving solo career. She has sung with such artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Béla Fleck, Sara Bareilles, Bright Eyes, The Knights, Bonnie Prince Billy, Bernard Fowler, Brooklyn Rider, and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. This summer, Courtin will be appearing with Laurie Anderson and Sexmob in Europe, playing violin and singing in the band. As a composer/performer, she premiered her “rhapsody on being giant proof” with The Knights at Carnegie Hall in spring 2025. Her song cycle for Aoife O’Donovan and full choir entitled Story of Stone was premiered in winter 2024 by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. In 2024, Courtin held the violin, viola, voice, and percussion chair of the Tony Award–winning Broadway show Illinoise. She is a founding member of the Brooklyn-based orchestral ensemble The Knights and is currently their programming director. Courtin plans to release a new solo recording in the spring of 2027 alongside frequent collaborators and friends Chris Parker, James Shipp, Michael LaValle, Bill Campbell, and Danny Fox.

Nathan Koci (Accordion, Voice, Arrangements and Orchestrations) is a composer, performer, and music director working across a variety of styles and disciplines, from theater to dance to improvised and experimental musics. As an accordionist, he has performed and recorded with Kyle Sanna, Sam Sadigursky, Dana Lyn, Guy Klucevsek, South African artist William Kentridge, Maira Kalman, John Heginbotham, Stew and Heidi, Alarm Will Sound, the Michael Leonhart Orchestra, the improvising chamber quartet The Hands Free (Caroline Shaw, Eleonore Oppenheimer, James Moore), and oral history folk trio And Friends (Elena Moon Park and Brett Parnell). As a seasoned music director and supervisor in theater and opera, he has conducted Tony Award–winning shows on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and internationally. Credits include the premiere of Courtney Bryan’s Suddenly Last Summer, Ritesh Batra and the Lazours’ musical adaptation of The Lunchbox, Sufjan Stevens and Justin Peck’s Illinoise, Anäis Mitchell’s Hadestown (1st National Tour), Daniel Fish’s reimagined Oklahoma! and Most Happy in Concert, and Ted Hearne’s The Source. He gravitates towards new works, having recently collaborated with William Kentridge on his latest multimodal theater work The Great Yes, The Great No as a musical arranger and performer.

James Moore (Acoustic Resonator Guitar, Banjos, Voice, Arrangements and Orchestrations) is a guitarist, composer, and bandleader who has earned the titles of “local electric guitar hero” by Time Out New York and “model new music citizen” by the New York Times. Moore enjoys an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral performer and collaborates in a range of music, theater, dance, and multimedia projects. He is a founding member of the raucous electric guitar quartet Dither and the sloppy-math/avant-grunge rock band Forever House.

Eleonore Oppenheim (Bass, Voice, Arrangements and Orchestrations) is a genre-surfing musical polyglot. Her current projects as a performer-composer include big dog little dog (a duo with composer/violinist Jessie Montgomery), the avant folk-jazz supergroup The Hands Free (with James Moore, Caroline Shaw, and Nathan Koci), and Jessie Montgomery’s the Everything Band. She has commissioned an exciting new repertoire for solo bass, much of which can be heard on her album Home. As an ensemble player, she has been fortunate enough to have worked with some of her heroes including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Meredith Monk and in composer-led ensembles like Missy Mazzoli’s “bandsemble,” Victoire and Florent Ghys’ low strings and drums powerhouse Bonjour, with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and many other artists from the indie rock, jazz, klezmer, and folk worlds. In addition to writing and arranging music, she is a busy chamber musician, soloist, recording artist, and large ensemble player. Oppenheim enjoys working in opera and musical theater as well and has held chairs in the Broadway shows Oklahoma! (dir. Daniel Fish), Illinoise (dir./choreo. Justin Peck), Floyd Collins (dir. Tina Landau), several Off-Broadway shows, and performed as a sub on several other Broadway productions. She has performed many new operas on the Prototype Festival, with Heartbeat Opera, and elsewhere. Also a music educator, she directs an ensemble and teaches various classes at Special Music High School. She is an alumna of the Juilliard School, the Yale School of Music, and Stony Brook University.

Caroline Shaw (Arrangements and Orchestrations) is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She works often in collaboration with others, as producer, composer, violinist, and vocalist. Shaw is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Music, an honorary doctorate from Yale, five Grammys, a Tony nomination, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Shaw has written and produced for iconic artists and ensembles across the musical spectrum, including Rosalía, Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Tiler Peck, Nas, Kanye West, the LA Philharmonic, the NY Philharmonic, and others. Recent projects include Death of a Salesman on Broadway, Hedda Gabler at the Old Globe, Leonardo Da Vinci (Ken Burns/PBS), Fleishman Is in Trouble (FX/Hulu), Rosalía’s Lux and Motomami, Pastoral (Pam Tanowitz,) The Crucible (National Theatre), Partita (Justin Peck/NYC Ballet), Moby Dick (Wu Tsang), and Life (Gandini Juggling/Merce Cunningham Trust). Current touring projects include shows with Sō Percussion, Ringdown, Attacca Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, Graveyards and Gardens, Gabriel Kahane, Andrew Yee, and Kamus Quartet. Her favorite color is yellow, and her favorite smell is rosemary.

Paige Barnett Kulbeth (Performer) (she/they) is a Louisiana/NYC–based dancer and artist from Lafayette, LA, with a Chemical Engineering degree that has never been used from University of Louisiana (2017). Upon moving to Brooklyn, Kulbeth immediately began dancing with Dance Heginbotham, performing with musicians from Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, The Knights, and jazz guru Ethan Iverson. Notable performance venues include Jacob’s Pillow, La Jolla Music Society Festival, Scottsdale Arts, the Ringling Museum, and Bryant Park. Kulbeth has also danced for Karole Armitage in the Marc Jacobs Spring 2020 Fashion show and is currently cast as “Birdie” in Isaac Mizrahi’s annual production of Peter & The Wolf at Works & Process at the Guggenheim. When not dancing, she is always in development of her own choreographic works, experimental art events, and movement-based video art. www.vpbarnett.com

Mykel Marai Nairne (Performer) (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based freelance dance artist, administrator, and creative producer. Born and raised in New York City, Nairne studied at Alvin Ailey and graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Film and Media Studies. She joined Dance Heginbotham in 2018, and since then her freelance performance work has brought her to venues across NYC, including St. Ann’s Warehouse in the Off-Broadway revival of Oklahoma! (dir. Daniel Fish), the Whitney Museum of Art (2019 Whitney Biennial), Danspace Project, Brookfield Place, Marinaro Gallery, Astor Place (Joe’s Pub, Astor Alive!), The Space at Irondale, Bryant Park, and Symphony Space, to name a few. Nairne currently collaborates and performs with Dance Heginbotham, Monica Bill Barnes & Company, Faye Driscoll, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Studio Susan Marshall, Helen Simoneau Danse, and Megan Williams Dance Projects. MykelMaraiNairne.com | IG: @mykelmarai