UW Dance Presents / Grad Lab Concert

The inaugural Grad Lab Concert debuts an evening-length work co-created and performed by UW MFA candidates Jake Bone, marco farroni leonardo, Alice Gosti, Jillian Roberts, and Tracey Wong. Through five distinct artistic perspectives, the piece weaves a vibrant tapestry of movement—exploring lineage, experimentation, and care.

About the Choreographers:

Jake Bone, originally from Dallas, Texas, is a dance artist, choreographer, educator, and arts administrator. He earned a BFA in Dance with honors from the University of North Texas, where he performed works by Bebe Miller and Kihyoung Choi. Jake performed and taught nationally and abroad as a company member with Doug Varone and Dancers from 2015–2025. He also served as company manager and tour manager and has set Varone’s repertory at universities across the country. As a freelance artist, he has worked with Bulareyaung Pagarlava, the Metropolitan Opera, among others. He is currently pursuing his MFA at the University of Washington.

marco farroni leonardo is a Dominican interdisciplinary artist based in Seattle, Washington. Grounded in embodied research and community-based stories, marco’s work explores themes of home, the body as an archive, the Black diaspora, and memory. Their work has been presented at numerous cultural and performance venues across Seattle, including Velocity Dance Center, Wa Na Wari, Base Arts Space, 10 Degrees Arts, Spectrum Dance Theater, The AIDS Memorial Pathway, River, and 12th Ave Arts. marco is a member of Black Collectivity, Wa Na Wari’s Seattle Black Spatial History Institute, and is currently a MFA in Dance Candidate at The University of Washington.

Alice Gosti is a transnational immigrant choreographer, curator, and hybrid performance artist who creates site-responsive rituals and live art installations exploring how history, politics, architecture, and place shape the body. She often makes work under the name of MALACARNE. Born in Perugia, Italy and raised by artist duo SANDFORD&GOSTI, she has worked between Italy and occupied Duwamish and Coast Salish land (Seattle) since 2008. Alice is currently pursuing her Master’s degree. Her work views the body as a site of resistance, a vessel for memory, and a portal for transmutation—inviting audiences into spaces of poetic resistance, collective dreaming, and radical care.

Jillian Amadi Roberts is a certified dance educator, choreographer, and performing artist from Washington, DC, with a decade of experience teaching, creating, and performing in New York City. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University, an MS from Touro College Graduate School of Education, and is currently an MFA candidate and pre-doctoral instructor in the University of Washington’s Dance Department. Jillian has taught technique, choreography, and cultural foundations of Black American street and club dance forms at Mark Morris Dance Center, Modega, NXGN West New York, House of Movement, PMT, and Peridance, and created commissioned work for Applause Dance Theater, Lakeside Academy of Dance, RAW Artists, Our Canvas, and MOPTOP Crew’s 35th Anniversary Showcase. She served as Managing Director of Mint Dance Company for seven years and Foundations Judge for Prelude New York’s Junior and Adult Divisions in 2025. Jillian has conducted workshops and lectures at Dartmouth College, Cornell University, Princeton University, Northeastern University, University of Colorado Boulder, University of California Riverside, Prelude Dance Competition, Billie, and Netflix.

Tracey Wong is a Teochew-American interdisciplinary dance artist that lights up and inspires spaces through her art. She was born and raised in Seattle, WA, in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. Tracey’s global presence in the dance world is marked by her multiple hats as a competitor, judge, teacher, choreographer, and performer. Throughout the past decade, she has won numerous national and international titles in competitions for Wh/aacking, Open Styles, and various categories in Ballroom, such as Performance and Hands. She would not be here today without the support of her loved ones and elders that have paved the way.