The Directors
Victor Anderson began his career as a musician. He studied piano, composition and orchestration, but after seeing an American Ballet Theater performance of Anthony Tudor's "Pillar of Fire', he was immediately drawn toward dance. Within a few years, he had studied ballet intensively with several famous teachers, among them, Igor Schwezoff and Eugene Loring, the Diaghilev dancers, Theodore Kosloff, Maria Baldina, Vera Nemtchinova, and especially with Pavlova 's onetime partner, Aubrey Hitchins.
His interest in modern dance was awakened in the course of a professional appearance in Carnegie Hall with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. He soon thereafter took up his serious study of modern dance with longtime associates of Martha Graham, May O'Donnell and Gertrude Shurr, the latter having also been a member of the Denishawn and Humphrey-Weidman companies.
In addition to his studies in ballet and modern dance, he also worked under the direction of Jerome Robbins on Broadway before becoming a member of the May O'Donnell Dance Company. While he was a member of her company, he began his teaching career at the Grammercy School of Music and Dance, whose faculty also included such well-known dance figures as Robert Joff rev and Norman Walker. As a guest teacher, he has conducted master classes sponsored by the Oakland Dance Association, the Oakland Recreation Department, California Dance Educators, and the University of Arizona at Tucson.
Frank Shawl is the co-founder with Victor Anderson of the Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley. Frank has been active as a teacher, performing dancer and choreographer in the Bay Area for approximately 50 years. The Shawl-Anderson Dance Company was an active dance repertory group in the '60's and '70's and spawned many of today's prominent dance artists.
Prior to coming to the Bay Area, Frank performed mainly in New York City. He appeared in numerous Broadway and network television shows and toured throughout the United States and Canada. He appeared in concert with the late Charles Weidman and for over eight years with the May O'Donnell Dance Company. He returned to New York in the role of assistant to Miss O'Donnell, as well as having taught, directed, and performed in Amsterdam and throughout the Netherlands.
He has been the recipient of grants from the N.E.A. and California Arts Council, and in 1990 received, along with Mr. Anderson, the Isadora Duncan Award for Sustained Achievement in Dance. Also in 1990 they were awarded the California Dance Educators Association's "Heritage Award" and in 1991 Frank recieved the Isadora Duncan "Special Award" for the production of "Time Over Time" with June Watanabe and Marni Thomas-Wood. In 1993, he and Mr. Anderson were honored by receipt of the Oakland Parks and Recreation Department "Recognition Award" for their outstanding contributions to Oakland's dance community as well as to the OPR dance programs. In 2001, they received the Ruth Beckford Award for Extraordinary Contributions in the Field of Dance.
Jill Homan Randall is the Assistant Director at Shawl-Anderson. She started teaching at the studio in 2000 and helped grow the children's and teen modern program. In 2002 she co-founded with Midge Kretchmer the Summer Teen Modern Intensive, a pre-professional summer workshop for high school students. As a teacher, Jill has taught extensively in K-12 public schools throughout the Bay Area. From 2004-2006, Jill was Director of Education for the Lincoln Center Institute Program at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, a K-12 arts education program. In 2003, while at the Julia Morgan, Jill also co-founded the Dance IS Festival, a multigenerational dance festival.
As a performer, Jill performs in the work of Nina Haft & Company and has also danced for Martt Lawrence, Dana Lawton, Alisa Rasera, and Randee Paufve. As a dance writer, Jill's work has been published in In Dance, Teaching Artist Journal, and educator guides to accompany dance pieces on KQED's SPARK. Active in the dance community and in dance education, Jill served on the board of the CA Dance Education Association for 5 years and Dancers' Group for 3 years, and currently is on the Service-Learning Advisory Committee of Cal State East Bay.
Jill holds a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah. While at Utah, she was active in the Service-Learning Program and helped create the first service-learning course in the modern dance department. Jill recently created the website www.servicelearningindance.org and is currently conducting research on the status of service-learning in college dance programs.