The Team
Artistic Director
Brigette Dunn-Korpela
Brigette is a choreographer, performer, and educator at CalArts whose work centers Black diasporic memory, somatic intelligence, and trans-disciplinary performance. She developed the methodology of geotemporalecholocation to bring sound, place, and nonlinear time into the sensing body. Her recent projects merge dance, architectural costume design, spatial sound, installation, and AI-driven media to explore the body as archive and transmitter. She presents and collaborates
internationally and is committed to training 21st-century dance artists who can move fluidly across performance, technology, and community practice.


Joan Fricke | Artistic Associate
Joan Fricke is a Filipino-American, multidisciplinary artist. She weaves original songs with dance to further realize her storytelling and world building. Joan's work can be seen across genres, stage, and screen. She assisted Brigette Dunn-Korpela in choreographing South Coast Repertory's Alice's Wonderland, and shared the beginnings of a new work, Sowing Seeds, at L.A. Dance Project. Past collaborators include installation artist, Isabel Beavers, Grammy-Award winning musician and composer, Alex Wand, and composer Jaco Wong of C3LA Choir.
Joan is represented by DDO Artists Agency for Print and Commercial work.

Athena Lawton | Costume Designer
Athena Lawton is a Californian artist who explores identity and the body through costume. In 2015 they graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a BFA in Costume Design, where they met and began creating work with Brigette Dunn-Korpella. The two artists each immediately knew they had met a lifelong collaborator, and have been creating work for over 10 years now. Together, they developed the striking visual language that B.Dunn Movement has come to be known for in productions such as Dwija, Echo, Add Water + Stir, Black Market Value and Betrayal. The designs they have created together seek to defy expectations of dance costuming by using unconventional materials and techniques, heightened stylization, sculptural garments, and obscuring identity through the masking of performers. Athena has designed costumes for many award winning films including In Full Bloom directed by Reza Ghassemi and Adam Villasenor, Ascension directed by Ross Waschmann, Snake Eyes directed by Costa Ciminello, The Toll Road directed by Tom Riley, A.I. Mama directed by Asuka Lin and First Day Back directed by Deshawn Plair. Athena has also forged a strong career in commercials, theater, dance and television, including the new series For The Love of Jason on UMC. However, Athena’s most prominent work is in new media. Since 2018 Athena has been the Lead Stylist and Costume Designer for the League of Legends World Tournament. With over 100 million viewers, the tournament has a larger audience than the Super Bowl. Each year the show shatters viewership records and utilizes groundbreaking AR and hologram technology to create stunning visuals for the opening ceremony. They most recently designed the Costumes for the Sebastian Yatra Dharma World Tour, as well as his 2021 tour with Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin.

Nak Yong Choi | XR/AR Director
Nak Yong Choi (Or Nak like knock on the door) is a Korean-American director and story artist in the animation industry currently working as a concept artist for The Walt Disney Studios. His experiences include directing for Disney Jr., storyboarding on Angry Birds 2 movie, original series development at Cartoon Network, working as a story director at Portola Plush Co., working as an animation supervisor for a virtual reality short for the Crimes of Curiosity LLC on a Disney IP, as well as creating animations for a multidisciplinary performance for the B. Dunn Movement/Dance Theatre Company. When Nak is not busy sharing the aloha spirit and spreading empathy through animation, you can often find him under a palm tree singing on his ukulele and drinking guava juice.

Pete Korpela | Music Director
Pete Korpela is a Latin Grammy Award nominated percussionist. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1997 he has gained a reputation as a versatile musician in orchestral, latin, jazz, world, rock and pop music. The most notable touring & recording collaborations: Josh Groban (tours since 2011), Robbie Williams, The Lion King (2003-07 1st National Tour), Calle 13, Cirque Du Soleil, Marco Beltrami, Disturbed, Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), Jesse Carmichael (Maroon 5), Melody Gardot, Lizz Wright, LA Phil, Luis Conte, Seth MacFarlane, Ron Jones and Straight Outta Compton soundtrack. Performance venues include Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Hollywood Bowl, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Sydney Opera House and O2 Arena (London). Recent blockbuster film scores The Lion King Movie, Spiderman Far from Home, Men in Black International, StarTrek Discovery, Christopher Robin, Ferdinan, The Preditor, Ready Player One, Straight Out of Compton, and Ralph Wrecks the Internet. He also played in Oscar Academy Awards Ceremony 2019.