Alum Gregory Dawson Takes Risks in World Premiere Choreography

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE -- Perhaps Dawson was blinded by the sparkle of his other talents. Raised in Chicago with 14 siblings by parents who insisted the children receive college educations, Dawson studied Italian at Southern Illinois University, and came to San Francisco to pursue advanced Italian at San Francisco State. He owns a second home in Italy, and is a serious artisan of mosaics. He would have been happy to devote himself to languages or the visual arts. But immediately, his dances struck people. “Which Light in the Sky Is Us,” created in 2008 for Company C Ballet, scored an Isadora Duncan Award nomination for best choreography. Soon, Denver’s David Taylor Dance acquired one of Dawson’s ballets and commissioned another, and Dawson found himself at the helm, importing gutsy dancers he had developed through the Lines Training Program.