— Cassell
Yo-EL Cassell was born in Schenectady, NY with a nerve deafness and discovered that movement at the age of 3 was his organic expressive channel for his personal and creative identity. Instead of his hearing loss getting in the way, he allowed the loss to gratefully show him the way of connecting to all of the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) of human life. His mission, as a performer, director, choreographer, movement director, educator, mentor, and human being, is to provide the same accessible physical entry point to other’s inner selves that he supportively received as a child and throughout life.
A recipient of the Lotte Kaliski Award for Gifted Artists, Yo-EL Cassell is currently Head of/Assistant Professor of Movement at Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre. He was formerly Resident Choreographer of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company.
His previous teaching experience also includes the NY Acting School for Film and Television, Harvard University Dance Department, New England Conservatory, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Sunshine Cottage School For Deaf Children, Celebrity Series of Boston, Commonwealth Shakespeare Apprentice Academy, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference, Boston Ballet, Dance Complex, and Skidmore College, where he served as a guest teaching artist/choreographer in residence for three years.
His teaching for movement practice, through a thoughtful fusion of various movement and theatre approaches, stresses the importance of incorporating personal identity with an integration of a strong technical foundation. Thus, balancing the importance of owning, in equal measure, the ecstatic and informative self in and outside the walls of movement study.
— Cassell
Cassell has choreographed and directed movement for Comedy of Errors, All’s Well That Ends Well, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Coriolanus, King Lear, Love Labours Lost, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night andOthello for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttimefor SpeakEasy Stage Company (IRNE Award Nomination); Lilly’s Revengefor American Repertory Theatre; The Understudy and Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Playfor Lyric Stage Company of Boston; Sound of Music for Nantucket Dreamland Theatre; Kiss Me, Kate (featuring Kerry O’Malley and Marc Kudisch), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Boys from Syracuse, Symphonic Shakespeare, Footloose and Fancy Free (Movement Director/Curator), andUrban Sprawlfor Boston Landmarks Orchestra/CSC; Sunlight Interior, Sweet and Sour, and The Distance Between for Walnut Hill School for the Arts; A Little Night Music, Alcina,and Orpheus in the Underworldfor Boston Opera Collaborative; Sunlight Interior for San Antonio Repertory Ballet; Full-Noon Trill and Gravitate for Skidmore College; Die Fledermaus for New England Conservatory, Laughs in Spanish(Intimacy work) for Boston Playwrights Theatre and The Me I Didn’t Know as well as Moonglow Part 2 for Across the Ages Dance.
He has also produced, choreographed and directed the acclaimed Off-Broadway original production of Moonlight Interior at New York’s Sande Shurin Theatre, featuring the music of singer songwriter Jann Klose.
Additional experience includes direction and movement direction for Boston University’s Wheelock Family Theatre’s production of Gooney Bird and Her True Life Adventuresas well as choreography and movement direction for the feature films Cultivating Stillness andWhat Alice Found (Miramax).
Cassell also was artistic director and choreographer of YC Movement Theatre in NYC. Currently he is artistic director and founder of Ensemble 360, a physical-theatre ensemble comprising male actors, dancers, and musicians whose mission is to highlight the importance of storytelling through movement.
In 2017, along with BU School of Theatre Director Jim Petosa, Yo-EL developed InMotion Theatre, an Initiative that highlights storytelling, either via an original work or an adaptation, primarily through the lens of many diverse approaches of movement, including design and music. Thus far, he conceived, developed and directed two productions for the Initiative, The Journey, a physical play in two acts in response to Herman Melville’s Moby Dickand Sena Jeter Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife as well as Sunlight Interior, a physical play in one act in response to the art works of Edward Hopper and Rene’ Magritte. Both productions were interdisciplinary in nature, incorporating puppetry, shadow play, live music and installation work.
He has also created devised work with male urban youth for a program he founded, entitled Boys in Motion, for Boston Ballet’s community engagement performance at Boston’s Strand Theatre in Dorchester (Three, Esfera, Chairs in Motion).
Cassell was Program Manager for Boston Ballet’s nationally acclaimed Citydance, a program providing free access of movement education to over 3,000 public school children in Boston and the North Shore. He also served as curriculum development/teaching specialist for their BB’S Taking Steps and community engagement programs.
His community engagement experience also led him to partner up with Celebrity Series of Boston as a guest artist, supporting accessibility through movement practice in various communities throughout Boston.
Cassell was Assistant Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer for The Shadow Box Theater in NYC, as well as Student Engagement Manager and creative producer for ArtsEmerson at Emerson College’s Office of the Arts. The position focused on creating innovative experiences in providing student accessibility to world-class theatre programming.
For BU’s School of Theatre, he oversees, co-create and develops the movement curriculum for undergraduate and graduate students as well as generally partners with the movement faculty with administering and applying the curriculum and expansive learning opportunities. He is also Co-Chair of the dance minors track for the School of Theatre. He is on the committee for the School of Theatre’s performance season selection and has served on the committee for the search of the College of Fine Arts Dean and the School of Music Director.
PHONE: 917-538-3690
EMAIL: ycassell@aol.edu
Cassell is a recipient of an IRNE Award Nomination for his movement direction of SpeakEasy Stage of Boston’s production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Nighttime. He is also the recipient of The Kennedy Center Thought Leadership fellowship, Silo Guest Artist Residency fellowship, Summer Stages Dance fellowship, the Jan Veen Scholarship, and the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) Creative City Community Partner grant. A member of StageSource, he is also a member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Association of Theatre Movement Educators (ATME), and has published an article for HowlRound, a free and open platform for theatre makers worldwide.
Cassell has been invited as a keynote speaker for the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts’ Innovation and Creativity Conference, and as a guest artist for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference in Las Vegas. Cassell was also a guest panelist for Boston University’s Performing Arts and Disability Leadership, Inclusion and Training Conference sponsored by BU Arts Initiative Office.
As a performer, Cassell has appeared in Shining Time Station with Ringo Starr (PBS, Debut Episode), Anatomy of a Ballet (Independent Film), A Christmas Carol at McCarter Theatre (Scott Ellis, Director/Rob Marshall, Choreographer), La Fille mal gardée, Orfeo ed Euridice (Virginia Opera/Darko Tresnjak, director), Ahab’s Wife, and The Urban Nutcracker. He was also a member of The American Mime Theatre, The Pearl Lang Dance Company, Spencer/Colton Dance, Heidi Latsky Dance, Chen and Dancers, Dance Compass, and Palissimo Dance Theatre in which he was featured in their acclaimed Off-Broadway production of Blind Spot at PS122 in NYC. His training includes Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, Paul Taylor School, American Repertory Ballet, Connecticut Ballet, Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy, Alvin Ailey School, The University of the Arts, and Mercer County High School of Performing Arts, from which he is an alumnus. He was also an apprentice at The American Mime Theatre.
— Cassell