— BESPOKE LAB —

In The Lab this Fall 2023:

CATS at PERELMAN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

By arrangement with The Really Useful Group
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot
Choreographed by Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles
Directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch

ARTURO LYONS - Choreographer

Arturo Lyons (aka NY Father Icon Arturo Miyake-Mugler) is a choreographer based in New York. Finding dance in school at a young age, he’s studied Hip Hop, Vogue, Reggae and Street Jazz, and combined them to form his own signature style as well as learning music as a DJ and creating dance tracks of his own.

He has choreographed for multiple New York showcases: The Carnival Choreographers Ball, Sybarite: Love Is Love, The Doll House Sirens After Dark, and Dance Harlem as well as produced an off-Broadway show Vogue 4 Your Life which premiered in Fall 2019 aimed to showcase vogue on a broader scale with an aim for a worldwide tour.

Recently, Arturo joined HBO Max’s new hit show Legendary as a choreographer in its pilot season and returned leading the House of Miyake Mugler to victory as the $100,000 Ultimate Superior House on Season 2. In June 2021, Arturo performed for WNBA’s NY Liberty Pride Night Half-time show and with Madonna for an exclusive Pride event in New York City.

OMARI WILES - Choreographer

Ousmane “Omari” Wiles is an African American West African and Vogue dancer. Wiles is best known as, legendary Omari NiNa Oricci, founder of The House of Nina Oricci [est. OCT. 2019] and Creative Director of LES BALLET AFRIK dance company.

Wiles was born in West Africa Senegal. He began his training in West African dance at the age of 6 years old, under the tutelage of his mother and father, who owned a dance company. Wiles joined his mother (Marie Basse Wiles) and father (BaBa Olukose Anthony Wiles) and became the assistant director of the family company, The Maimouna Keita School of African Dance. Working with master African dancers, Ousmane evolved the skills needed to teach the art of traditional African dance. Venturing further into the world of dance, Wiles found himself learning, training and falling in love with other styles such as Hip-Hop, House, Modern, Jazz, and Vogue.

Through his involvement with the ballroom scene, his love and passion for Vogue (dance) grew. As his notoriety in the ballroom scene grew, it began to grow outside of the ballroom scene as well. Wiles has had the opportunity to work with many artists, featuring his range of dance. His choreography has been featured with Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, John Legend, Jidenna, and Rashaad Newsome and he has worked as a featured dancer, showcasing Afrobeats (with Goldlink, Jidenna, Maleek Berry, and Wunmi), West African dance (with Janet Jackson, Beyoncé, and Forces), and Vogue (with Rashaad Newsome, Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Jennifer Hudson). Wiles has been published in Dance Magazine “Top 25 to Watch”, Korean Vogue, in a spread featuring Naomi Campbell, The Observer, Dance Mogul Magazine, and The New York Times. Wiles also appeared with his house (the house of Nina Oricci) as a contestant on Legendary Season 2 on HBOMax.

Wiles is now evolving his own style of dance with his company LES BALLET AFRIK, blending African, Vogue, Modern, and House as one. He and his company have performed at the Joyce Theater, the Guggenheim, and the New York Metropolitan Museum.

ZHAILON LEVINGSTON - DIRECTOR

Zhailon Levingston is a Louisiana-raised storyteller, director, and activist. He is a Board Member for the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which he co-created, and teaches the Theatre of Change course at Columbia University.

He is a Music Mentor Fellow and has done work with Idina Menzel’s A Broader Way Foundation. His directing credits include: Neptune (Dixon Place, Brooklyn Museum), The Years That Went Wrong (Lark, MCC), The Exonerated (Columbia Law School), Chariot Part 2 (Soho Rep., for The Movement Theatre Company), Mother of Pearl (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center). He is the associate director of Primer for a Failed Superpower with Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin, and Runaways at The Public Theater with Sam Pinkleton. Most recently, he directed Chicken & Biscuits which premiered on Broadway in 2021 and Patience which premiered at Second Stage UPTOWN Summer of 2022. Zhailon is also the former resident director at Tina: The Tina Turner Musical on Broadway and the associate director of Hadestown in South Korea.

Photo by Matt Murphy.

BILL RAUCH - DIRECTOR

Bill Rauch is the inaugural artistic director of PAC NYC.

His work as a theater director has been seen across the nation, from low-income community centers to Broadway in the Tony Award®-winning production of Robert Schenkkan’s All the Way and its sequel The Great Society, as well as at many of the largest regional theaters in the country. His other New York credits include the world premiere of Naomi Wallace’s Night Is a Room at Signature Theatre, the New York premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House at Lincoln Center Theater, and a site-specific Occasional Grace in multiple Manhattan churches for En Garde Arts.

From 2007 to 2019, Bill was artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), the country’s oldest and largest rotating repertory theater, where he directed seven world premieres and 20 other plays including several by Shakespeare as well as innovative productions of classic musicals including a queer re-envisioning of Oklahoma! Bill is also co-founder of Cornerstone Theater Company where he served as artistic director from 1986 to 2006, directing more than 40 productions, most of them collaborations with diverse rural and urban communities nationwide.

Photo by Matt Murphy.