ABOUT
Mission Statement
LV Dance Collective is a Contemporary Fusion Bay Area based performing company, under the Artistic Direction of founders/choreographers Kao Vey Saephanh and Martha L. Zepeda. LVDC uses movement to inspire, to communicate, to overcome, and to educate. While focusing on creating works LVDC strives in the health of the mind, body, and soul through various creative initiatives including movement exploration, workshops, classes, and collaboration. Through movement one can do anything.
Company Bio
LV Dance Collective is a Contemporary Fusion performance company, located in the Bay area under the Artistic Direction of Kao Vey Saephanh and Martha L. Zepeda. LVDC was founded in January 2013, with several projects, beginning in 2006. LVDC was awarded the 2014 ChoreoProject Award for Best Choreography by sjDANCEco for their work, “Quest For Truth” and was the runner-up of Luna Dance Institute Choreofund 2. Choreography opportunities include: ODC Pilot 63: Concatenate; sjDANCEco Festival; Luna Dance Institute: Choreofund 1 and 2 and 20 Points of View; New Winter Choreographers Showcase 2013 at Dance Mission Theatre (San Francisco, CA); Guest Choreographers for the East Oakland Sports Center Introductory School of Dance (Oakland, CA); EOSC 2nd and 3rd Year Anniversary and Open House Celebration (Oakland, CA); A Holiday Tradition at the Dunsmuir Estate (Oakland, CA); and Guest Artist at Requisite Dance’s Home Season 2013 and 2014 (San Francisco, CA). In addition, LVDC was selected as one of this year’s RAW artists at the Garage (San Francisco, CA) and as guest artists for the 2014 PUSHfest (San Francisco, CA) and has been featured in the East Bay Express, the online publication of Teacher Magazine, and a variety of local newspapers and online publications including In Dance Magazine.
Meet the Minds
Saephanh and Zepeda met at San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 2001 during their freshman year. They both danced for the SFSU Dance Theatre (SFSUDT) and for the Nguyen Dance Company while they earned their respective BA’s in Performance and Choreography. Saephanh earned his Master of Fine Arts in 2009 from New York University (NYU), Tisch School of the Arts and Zepeda earned her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California (UCI), Irvine, Claire Trevor School of Performing Arts in 2010.
Kao and Martha have danced, choreographed, taught and travelled nationally and internationally for various performance projects while staying focused on the future of LVDC. LVDC uses movement to inspire, to communicate, to overcome, and to educate. LVDC strives to maintain health of the mind, body, and soul through various creative initiatives including movement exploration, workshops, classes, and collaboration. Their philosophy is: “Through movement one can do anything.”
Biography
Martha L. Zepeda (Co-Artistic Director, Co-Founder and Co-Choreographer of LVDC) is a Bay Area Native who is a choreographer, dance artist, and dance educator earning a Master of Fine Arts on a full scholarship from the University of California, Irvine in 2010 and a Bachelor of Dance with an emphasis in Performance and Choreography and a Minor in Kinesiology from San Francisco State University in 2006. The product of her MFA included a variety of choreographic works, international travel, and most importantly her thesis “The Experiences of Men en Pointe, Anthropometry, Ranges of Motion, and Injuries of Their Ankles and Feet”. While at UC Irvine she earned multiple travel grants and a Diversity Fellowship.
Martha has served as dance faculty at The Wooden Floor (which she holds very dear to her heart); the University of California Irvine; Fullerton Junior Community College; Images Dance Company; Orange County Children’s Therapeutic Arts Center; Elite Dance Studio; Mariner’s Square, Alameda Community College, San Francisco State University and more teaching various movement forms such as Modern, Jazz, Afro-Caribbean, Ballet, Hip-Hop, Latin Fusion, Contemporary, Choreography, Tumbling, Creative Movement, etc. She has toured internationally teaching, performing, and showcasing her rich and diverse repertoire throughout the South of Chile, Vietnam, Spain, and Ghana.
Martha has performed and worked with Layla and the Lotus International Dance Company, Epiphany Dance Company, DTM2 Improvisation Ensemble, Nguyen Dance Company, the Rainbow Arts Theatre, Sheron Wray, Pavel Zustiak, Lisa Naugle, Grete Gryzwana, Lee Wei Chao, Stacy Printz, Jose “Hollywood” Ramos, Paco Gomes, Susie Whipp, and Cathleen McCarthy.
Outside of her passion for dance Martha is an advocate of moving to live healthy, “moving hearts are healthy hearts”. Falling in love with a healthy movement lifestyle she also teaches various fitness classes such as Zumba, Ballet Barre, Water Aerobics, Boot Camp, and Swimming to name a few. She believes that “as long as you are moving you can do anything”.
Currently Martha is the Recreation Program Director of Cultural Arts at the East Oakland Sports Center in Oakland, California. Martha aspires to empower, inspire, and spread the love of a healthy mind, body, and soul through dance while communicating what words can’t share through the language of the soul; dance.
Kao Vey Sebastian Saephanh (Co-Artistic Director, Co-Founder and Co-Choreographer of LVDC) received his Master of Fine Arts in dance at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts in 2009. He received his Bachelor of Arts in dance from San Francisco State University in 2005. He is currently the co-artistic director of LV Dance Collective, and dancer for PUSH Dance Company and Kularts.
Allan Ulrich, dance correspondent for the SF Chronicle, described "Quest For Truth," one of his choreographic work, which was co-choreographed by Zepeda as filled with “intelligence and intensity” and “strikes sparks”.
His choreographic works have won many invitational opportunities and/or have been commissioned by, among others: the PUSHLab for PUSH Dance Company, PUSHFest, Boston Conservatory Dance Festival, Grace Cathedral: part of San Francisco Movement Arts Festival, ODC Take 5, ODC Pilot 63, San Francisco State University, SFSU Dance Theater, the College of Alameda, sjDANCEco ChoreoProject, sjDANCEco Santana Festival, LUNA ChoreoFund, The Garage RAW Artist, SafeHouse for the Performing Arts SPF8, American College Dance Festival, Dance Mission Winter Showcase, Center For Lao Studies, East Oakland Sports Center, Orinda Academy and Shawl-Anderson Dance.
Saephanh has been described by San Francisco Chronicle as a dancer who “moved with sinuous grace through the staging.”
His dance credits include dancing for PUSH Dance Company, Mark Foehringer Dance Project, Understudy Robert Moses’ Kin, Nguyen Dance Company, New York University Second Avenue Dance Company, UNUM Dance, Cathleen McCarthy, Annie Rosenthal Parr, Booke Notary, SFSU Dance Theater, Serene Dance Collective, and has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Beside being a Dance Artist, he is an Entrepreneur as well. Saephanh own a one person hair salon in San Francisco financial district called Salon KaoVey.
