Current Members: Who's Who

Renée Camus (Founder, Artistic Director) earned a Master of Arts degree in dance from American University with her lecture/performance, What Goes Around, Comes Around, comparing the Cancan and the Charleston. She also holds a B.F.A. in Musical Theatre from the University of Michigan. She is a member of the Ballroom Dance Company and teaches swing at Joy of Motion. She is also a lecturer in tap at American University in Washington, D.C., and at Montgomery College in Rockville. She has performed with companies such as the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, and toured with the show Dancing on Common Ground. She currently performs with Tappening, a rhythm tap ensemble; PedAntics, a clogging group; and the Culkin Adults Irish Dancers. She has worked with research materials and documentation at the Dance Heritage Coalition and the Library of Congress.

Renée began her studies at age 5 with ballet, jazz, and tap dancing, and eventually became involved with folk and country dances, including morris, sword, and English and Appalachian clogging. Renée has also studied Renaissance and Baroque dance, and has extensive experience in nineteenth and early twentieth century social dances, such as the Waltz, Polka, One-step, Fox-trot, Tango, Lindy Hop, Shim-Sham, and West Coast Swing. 

Alexander Bradley is Renee Camus' husband and dance partner. He has been involved in ballroom dancing since 2000, and since then it has become a huge part of his life. He joined Centuries in September 2001 and has assisted with the layout and design of Centuries' website and brochure, including creating its logo. When he is not on the dance floor, Alex is a professional graphic designer and freelance illustrator (primarily in fantasy and historical art for games) and web designer. He has two degrees in English, and he plans to use those too someday.

Liam Bryan, started breakdancing in North Carolina in the early 1990s before moving onto ballet, modern, and modern ballroom. He moved to Maryland in 2002 and slowly got involved in vintage dancing before joining Centuries in 2004. He is a computer programmer for The Richard Group.

Zeynep Dilli a.k.a. Morwen was born in 1978 in Ankara, Turkey, where she graduated from Bilkent University with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1998. Upon coming to Maryland, USA, in August 1998 to start graduate school, she joined Three Left Feet, a medieval/Renaissance dance/music troupe, where she took the character name Morwen. She started ballroom dancing and learning vintage dances in that same year. In 1999 she started taking contemporary ballroom dance classes with Karen Trimble, and lindy hop classes with Steve Bailey at the University of Maryland. Right now, she can't decide which is her favorite type of dancing.

Cora Dickson started to learn swing dancing and other vintage dances informally around the end of 1992. She also studied modern ballroom in 1994-1996 while living in a quaint countryside town in Japan. Most recently, she took Lindy Hop classes at the Clarendon Ballroom. Cora is the newest member of the troupe, joining Centuries in September 2004. She is a trade analyst for the federal government.
 

Breno Imbiriba got extremely interested in nineteenth-century dance styles, especially waltz, polka, and zwiefacher, and joined Centuries in 2003. Originally from the Amazon region of Brazil where he received his undergraduate physics degree, Breno studied String Theory in Sao Paulo, receiving his Masters in Science. In 1999, he moved to College Park to become a physics doctoral student at University of Maryland and is presently working on numerical simulations of black hole collisions at GSFC/NASA.  Being an active musician, his interest in vintage dance is complemented by his appreciation for the tunes themselves, one helping the other for a better performance.

Liana Olear started studying ballroom dancing at age 5 in Minsk, Belarus. She attended a music magnet school that included dance as well as music theory, instrumental music, and singing in its curriculum. After a hiatus following her move to the US, she started dancing again, learning English country dancing, swing, contra dance, and historical dance, and continuing to pursue her first love of ballroom dance. Liana has a BS in Computer Science from State University of New York at Buffalo.
  

Jeff Poretsky started dancing modern western square dance at age 8. Having found dance again, Jeff has been dancing social ballroom and modern western square dance since 1992. He has also done professional and semi-professional technical theater. Jeff is the Information Technology Director for The Studio Theatre.
 

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updated: 3/8/05