DANCE. WORKFORCE. RESILIENCE. ADVISORY GROUP
With the launch of the Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR) Initiative in 2022, the DWR Task Force was established to advise and assist the Initiative on behalf of the organization and the dance field in the metropolitan area.
We learned a tremendous amount from that first iteration, and thus have restructured the Task Force to create two separate groups that will support the initiative moving forward. They are:
• the DWR Advisory Group with members from the creative sector that are based in New York City and the metro area that will focus on providing feedback on initiative activities, and
• the DWR Network, made up of participating entities and organizations supporting us in this work.
Advisory Group (2023–Current)
Abigail Levine, choreographer and writer
Abigail Levine is a choreographer and writer working in New York City. Rooted in dance, but moving across media—performance, text, drawing, sound—Levine’s work explores the poetics of our bodily work, how we record and value it. Her multi-year commissions, Redactions (Chocolate Factory Theater, 2022) and Restagings (Fridman Gallery, 2017-2019) have been supported by fellowships and residencies at MacDowell, Bogliasco Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Los Angeles Performance Practice, Target Margin Theater, and Center for Performance Research, and project and emergency grants from Foundation for Contemporary Arts and New Music USA. Levine collaborated with pioneering electronics composer Alvin Lucier on a staging of his Orpheus Variations (ISSUE Project Room, 2020) and performed with both Marina Abramovic and Yvonne Rainer in their retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art. Levine’s critical writing has been published in Documents in Contemporary Art, Art21, Women & Performance, Performance Art Journal (PAJ), and her creative works in Interim Poetics, La Vague Journal, and Imagined Theatres. Levine has taught in the Dance Departments at Wesleyan University and Florida State University and is currently on faculty at The New School and University of Texas at Austin’s UTNY program. She is a contributing editor to the Movement Research Performance Journal. Her latest work, Six Quiet Dogs, will premier in late 2024.
Andrea Arenasvazquez (Ace Fusion), CEO of Amargue Flow Dance Academy LLC, CEO Ace Fusion Entertainment LLC
Andrea Arenasvazquez (They/them/theirs) is a Non-Binary International Queer Entertainer also known as “Ace Fusion”. Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico & raised in Brooklyn N.Y. Growing up Ace was always working on their passion for Djing and dance, along with serving in the Marine Corps. Ace now manages their own business: "Ace Fusion Entertainment" and has built a Bachata Company in New York city called "Amargue Flow". Amargue flow is a Bachata company that aims to provide cultural and historical background & movement in Bachata dance. Ace is now traveling the world spreading awareness about LGBTQ culture & traditional social Dances. Ace is also the Founder of Fusion Experience, a dance company/ social that breaks gender norms within the Latin Dance community.
Antuan Byers, dancer, model, creative entrepreneur, and arts organizer
Antuan Byers (he/him) is a dancer, model, creative entrepreneur, and arts organizer. Basing his multidisciplinary practice in Lenapehoking, Manhattan, New York, he is using movement as a catalyst for societal change. As a freelance dancer, he regularly works with prestigious institutions as a performer and teacher; however, he shares his time building communities, creating resources, and finding innovative avenues to support his community.
BRAT , Dancer/Choreographer/Movement Director/Creator of Freelance Not Free Dance
BRAT (She/Her/Hers) is a pro choreographer/dancer with Grenadian-Nevisian roots living in NYC. Traveling to the West Indies and back again, she developed a love for dance from Carnival and family fetes. Realizing that she had been bitten by the dancing bug, BRAT's mother enrolled her in Harlem School of the Arts and other after school programs. Eventually, BRAT landed a scholarship to Dance Theater of Harlem's Community Program where she realized she wanted to be a dancer.
This love led her to attend Columbia College Chicago which helped her evolve greatly as a dancer.There she added more color to her movement palate by studying techniques like Bhyrata Natyam, Contact Improvisation, Capoeira, Popping, and Aerial Dance. While living in Chicago, she was homesick and wanted to connect with her West Indian roots. This longing eventually led BRAT to enter the Midwest Dancehall Queen Competition. She won.
This victory gave her the opportunity to compete in the International Dancehall Queen competition. Doors were opened afterwards such as choreographing and/or performing at BAM, Performa 19, Nasty Woman Art Exhibit, The Shed, VOGUE, Target, Coachella, VMAS, and The US Open. It also allowed BRAT the fortune of co-founding her dance crew, Queen Moves, which connects and empowers women through dance and starting her dance apparel line that focuses on the financial empowerment of dancers. BRAT communicates with the world through dance and she is forever grateful for this language.
Christopher Unpezverde Núñez, Choreographer
Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez is a Visually Impaired choreographer based in NYC. Núñez is a Princeton University Arts Fellow 22’, a Jerome Hill Fellow 22’, a Dance/USA Fellow 22’, and a Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art Fellow 18’. His performances have been presented by The Joyce Theater, The Brooklyn Museum-The Immigrant Artist Biennale, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Movement Research at The Judson Church, The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, CUE Art Foundation, and Performance Mix Festival, among others. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Art In America, The Brooklyn Rail, The Dance Enthusiast and The Archive: The Leslie-Lohman Museum bi-annual journal. He’s been an Artist In Residence at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Abrons Arts Center, Movement Research, and Center for Performance Research. In 2023, Unpezverde was selected by the magazine Art In America as one of the New Talent artists and was nominated for A Bessie, The New York Dance and Performance Awards in the Best Performer category. As a performer, his most recent collaboration include “Dressing Up for Civil Rights” by William Pope L, presented at MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art. Núñez was invited by the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs to share his story as disabled and formally undocumented during Immigrant Heritage Week 2020. Núñez received his American Citizenship in 2023 but continues to be an advocate for the rights of undocumented disabled immigrants.
Clarinda Mac Low, Executive Director
Artist and Arts Worker, Executive Director of Culture Push, Inc.
CLARINDA MAC LOW started out working in dance and molecular biology and now creates participatory events investigating social constructs and corporeal experience, and new institutional forms. She is also a design and technology professor and a former HIV/AIDS researcher and medical journalist. Mac Low is co-founder and Executive Director of Culture Push, an organization linking artistic practice, social justice, and civic engagement, and co-founder of Works on Water, supporting art working with waterways. Recent work includes: “Sunk Shore,” participatory tours of the future rooted in climate change data, in collaboration with dancer/historical marine ecologist Carolyn Hall; “The Year of Dance”, a self-ethnography of how unconventional kinship structures form in the NYC dance world; and “Free the Orphans,” investigating the spiritual and intellectual implications of intellectual property in a digital age. Residencies include Back Apartment Resident (CEC) (2019) Yaddo and Mount Tremper Arts (2012), MacDowell (2000, 2016). She received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant, 2007 and a 2010 Franklin Furnace grant. BA, double major in Dance and Molecular Biology, from Wesleyan University and MFA in Digital and Interdisciplinary Arts Practice from CCNY-CUNY. She has taught at NYU, CCNY-CUNY, Parsons School of Design, and elsewhere. Through the CRNY Artist Employment Program, she is an AIR at Genspace, a community biology laboratory in Brooklyn.
David King, Director of Education, The Apollo
David King is an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and administrator committed to youth development, cultural equity and creative storytelling. He advocates for sustainable access to the arts and education, and he supports the dignity of teachers, learners and arts workers. He is the Director of Education at The Apollo. Prior to that, he served as Program Director of School and Community Partnerships at Community-Word Project.
He is a board member and Co-Chair of the Advocacy Committee at the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable. He co-authored an advocacy campaign entitled Rebuild, Reconcile, Reimagine: A List of Demands for Centering Black Women’s Leadership in Arts Education, which was designed to impact pay equity, promotion, healing and more. He moderated a conversation with NYC Schools Chancellor David C. Banks on the progress made towards equity in access to sequential arts education alongside the lessons learned and future of arts in our schools.
David is an Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellow with The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI). He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, Artists Co-creating Real Equity (ACRE) and Creating New Futures. He was born and raised in New York City on ancestral territory of the Munsee Lenape, Canarsie and Matinecock peoples. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and earned a B.A. in Theatre from The City College of New York (CUNY). He appreciates those who contribute to the process.
devynn emory, multi-modal dancer/choreographer, director of devynnemory/beastproductions + sage
devynn emory is a choreographer/dance artist (devynnemory/beastproductions), dual licensed bodyworker (sage), Spirit channeler and registered nurse- previously practicing in the fields of acute/critical care, hospice, COVID and currently gender affirming surgery and integrative health. emory's performance company devynnemory/beastproductions finds the intersection of these fields, walking the edges of thresholds- drawing from their multiple in-between states of being, holding space for liminal bodies bridging multiple planes of transition, finding reciprocity practice as a constant decolonial practice. they are currently working on a trilogy centering medical mannequins holding the wisdom of end of life experiences. (deadbird + can anybody help me hold this body 2021, Cindy Sessions: Grandmother Cindy + Cindy Sessions LOVE, LOSS, LAND 2022, boiling-rain tbd). emory is a research group fellow at danspace 2020-2023, a recipient of the Onassis Eureka award, and 2022 Art Matters Artist2Artist awardee, a 2023 FCA award recipient and a 2023 USA Fellowship awardee. born on Lenape Land, emory is a reconnecting descendent of mixed Lenape/Blackfoot/settler ancestry.
devynnemory.com + deadbird.land
Duke Dang, Executive Director, Works & Process
Born at a UN refugee camp, Duke Dang immigrated to California growing up with Section 8 vouchers, food stamps, welfare, and attending Head Start. An inaugural Gates Millennium Scholar, he earned his bachelor’s degree in Art History at Boston University and master’s degree in Performing Arts Administration at NYU. He started at Works & Process as a paid intern in 2003 and has served as General Manager and now Executive Director. During his tenure, the organization’s budget has tripled, and a board designated endowment fund and cash reserve were created. Championing creative process from studio-to-stage, Works & Process LaunchPAD, with a network of residency partners spanning eight counties in New York and Massachusetts, provides sequenced and made-to-measure residencies with industry leading fees, transportation, health insurance enrollment access, 24/7 studio availability, and on-site housing, that culminate in public sharings with local communities. LaunchPAD projects are regularly presented as part of Works & Process programs at the Guggenheim, Lincoln Center, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, SummerStage, and Manhattan West. Works & Process commissions have been selected “Best of” by The New York Times and honored with a Bessie Award. Works & Process was nominated in 2021 and 2022 with the APAP William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence and Sustained Achievement in Programming and honored with the 2021 Dance Magazine Chairman’s Award. Early in the pandemic Works & Process pioneered and produced the field’s first bubble residencies, where artists could safely gather to create and perform together paving the way to reopening indoor and outdoor performances.
J. Bouey, Dance Artist, Founder of The Dance Union
j. bouey is a Black queer dance artist, choreographer, and performer who envisions the abolition of systemic oppression through performance, film, and community care practices. j. bouey founded The Dance Union Podcast and supported the NYC dance community during lockdown through initiatives like the NYC Dancers COVID-19 Relief Fund and The Dance Union Town Hall For Collective Action. They have presented their venues such as Movement Research, Judson Church, The Chocolate Factory, BRIC, CPR - Center for Performance Research and many more. j. bouey is a recipient of numerous fellowships and residencies, including the 2021-2022 Jerome Fellowship and the 2022/2023 Movement Research Artist in Residence. j. bouey is a current collaborator with nia love and has worked with renowned companies and artists like onCUE Chronicles, The Fabulous Waack Dancers, INSpirit Dance, Maria Bauman MB Dance, Viewsic Dance, Dante Brown | Warehouse Dance, AntionioBrownDance, Delirious Dance, Scorpious Dance Theater, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and has apprenticed with Emerge 125 under the artistic direction of Tiffany Rea-Fisher.
Laci Chisholm, Founder & CEO, Fit4Dance
Laci Chisholm, the founder of Fit4Dance, is a visionary leader, passionate dancer, and dedicated community advocate. With a string of prestigious awards and accolades to her name, Laci has been recognized for her exceptional contributions to the world of dance and her unwavering commitment to uplifting the community.
Driven by a desire to make a positive impact, Laci founded Fit4Dance ini 2014 with a clear vision in mind: to create a space where dance becomes a catalyst for personal growth, community building, and social change. Laci's passion for uplifting the community led her to design programs that cater to people of all ages and backgrounds, making dance accessible to those who may not have had previous opportunities.
Laci's dedication to uplifting the community extends beyond the studio walls. She actively seeks partnerships with local organizations, schools, and community centers, collaborating on projects that harness the power of dance for social change. Her efforts have not only enriched the lives of their students but have also had a profound impact on the broader community.
With her passion and expertise, Laci has garnered numerous awards and recognition including but not limited to the 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year by the SBA for the State of New York as well as the Women's Business Outreach Center, selected by American Express and IFundWomen for their prestigious 100 for 100 program, and the 2023 Lenovo Evolve Small Mentorship Contest. Her accolades serve as a testament to her exceptional talent, artistic vision, and relentless pursuit of excellence; however, Laci remains grounded and sees these awards as a platform to further her mission of creating positive change through dance.
With Laci at the helm, Fit4Dance is not just a place to learn dance—it is a sanctuary of inspiration, personal growth, and community empowerment. Under her guidance, the studio continues to flourish, providing a nurturing and transformative space for all who enter its doors.
Karesia Batan, Founding Executive Director, Queensboro Dance Festival
Karesia Batan is a Queens-based producer, dancer, and choreographer who founded the annual Queensboro Dance Festival (QDF) in 2014. Throughout her freelance dance career in NYC, she became increasingly compelled to the importance of community strength building among artists and audiences through dance, and recognized this uniquely complex need in Queens. Every summer, QDF presents about 25 all Queens-based dance companies of diverse cultures and styles, touring various indoor and outdoor public venues across Queens to make high-quality, local dance accessible to thousands of residents. In addition to QDF, Karesia has also established Queens-based programs DANCE SHORTS film screenings, and the Site Moves series in the LIC Arts Open. QDF has been acknowledged for its community impact in the first ever Create NYC Cultural Plan released in 2017 as part of a space and accessibility case study, and was a 2018 honoree of the Queens Pride organization with a Proclamation from the New York State Comptroller's Office Thomas P. DiNapoli and certificate from NYC Public Advocate Letitia James. In 2019, QDF was named the Best in Arts & Humanities with the Long Island City Game Changer award with certificate recognition from Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan.
http://www.queensborodancefestival.com
Kayla Hamilton, Artistic Director of K. Hamilton Projects
Kayla Hamilton is a Texas born, Bronx based performance maker, dancer, educator and cultural consultant.
Kayla is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Her past performance work has been presented at the Whitney Museum, Gibney, Performance Space New York, New York Live Arts and the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
Kayla co- developed ‘Crip Movement Lab’ with fellow Disabled artist, Elisabeth Motley-a pedagogical framework centering cross-disability accessible movement practices that are open to every-body. She has taught dance at Sarah Lawrence College, Virginia Commonwealth University and University of Iowa.
As a consultant, Kayla has developed and designed programming for disabled artists for the Mellon Foundation, Movement Research and The Shed.
As a dancer, Kayla was part of the Bessie award winning skeleton architecture, she has also danced for Maria Bauman, Sydnie L. Mosley and Gesel Mason.
Kayla is currently in the process of creating a future organization centering the work of BIPOC Disabled creatives and developing a new evening length performance set to premier in NY in 2024 (TBA).
Maria Bauman, Artistic Director of MBDance; Co-founder of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity)
Maria Bauman is a two-time Bessie Award winning multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. She is also a sought after public speaker and facilitator on race equity and community-building as and with arts. Her company MBDance's community engagement and performance-rituals particularly center Black Queer people without tragedizing or tokenizing us. Bauman is also co-founder in 2014, with Sarita Covington and Nathan Trice, of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), a grassroots organizing body of artists dismantling racism in our own practices and institutionally fields.
In 2021, Bauman was a BRIClab Fellow, granted a Petronio Residency Center award and a Red Tail Arts Fellow. She was a 2020 Columbia College Dance Center Practitioner-in-Residence, 2019 Gibney Dance in Process residency award winner, 2018-20 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, 2017-19 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and was the 2017 Community Action Artist in Residence at Gibney. She's been recognized by Dance NYC's Dance Advancement Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council and Jerome Foundation. While formal accolades are affirming, some of the best approval Bauman has gotten for her dance work was from a group of Black and Brown queer teenagers at camp in Connecticut who, upon seeing her dance exclaimed "Oooo, she bad!”
Key areas: Concert dance & choreography; undoing racism in the arts & beyond; intentional dialogue facilitation; entering, building & exiting community methodology
Photo credit: Felicita "Felli" Maynard
maura nguyễn donohue, Director, MFA in Dance, Hunter College/CUNY
maura nguyễn donohue (she/they/mom/bruh) is director of the MFA in Dance at Hunter College/CUNY. Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in the US, her ongoing Tides Project uses reclaimed plastics to examine the legacy of bodies ecological and diasporic. From 1995-2005, she was commissioned and presented in NYC at venues that now have new names and toured the US, and to Canada, Europe and Asia with maura nguyen donohue/inmixedcompany. She tours the world playing mortals, monsters and goddesses in La MaMa’s Great Jones Rep Co since 1997, co-curates/produces the estroGenius festival for femme, trans, non-binary, non-conforming artists, and has served on a variety of Boards and Artist Council’s such as the Congress on Research in Dance (now Dance Studies Association), Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Movement Research, DanceNow, The Field, and currently for the NY Dance and Performance (Bessies) Awards Steering Committee. They write for Culturebot, wrote for the inaugural issue of Gibney's "Imagining" Journal, edited by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, was writer in residence for Danspace Project's 'Dream of the Audience' Platforms in 2021 and 2022, Dance Studies Association’s recent “Dancing in the aftermath of Anti-Asian Violence,” as well as a variety of academic presses. Thanks to the ancestors and offspring for keeping the path clearly lit.
Meredith Tannor, Policy Director, Freelancers Union
I've always found myself in the arts and as a native New Yorker, I thrive in spaces with creative and driven people. After graduating from Frank Sinatra School of the Arts with a degree in film, I put my technical skills to use in computer science where I was one of the only women admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study computer science in my year.
After working in the tech industry for nearly a decade, I decided to pursue my original passion for arts and public policy. I have since become the policy director of the national Freelancers Union, which advocates on behalf of the 63 million freelance workers across the U.S. My work takes me to around the country where I run policy campaigns to get dancers, graphic designers, writers, musicians, filmmakers and so many more access to equal pay and labor rights.
Pavan Thimmaiah, Director of PMT House of Dance
Pavan ‘PMT’ Thimmaiah, founder of PMT House of Dance (est. 2001), is an award-winning artist who broke with tradition to realize his dream of becoming a professional dancer. Pavan has since enjoyed a career highlighted by being the first Indian American to choreograph for a major recording artist and for network TV. He has been featured in Dance Teacher Magazine, Dance Magazine, NY Times, Dance Europe, The Dance Gazette, Staten Island Advance & more.
Pavan is best known as the resident choreographer for the Today Show since 2010. Additionally, Pavan has choreographed for artists Vanilla Ice, Macy Gray, Harry Connick Jr, Alex Feder, Matt Palmer, Zia Victoria, Apache Indian & others. His other choreography credits include New Year’s Eve in Times Square, 1st Place Apollo Champion (choreographer), Conan O’Brien, Comedy Central & MTV and NBA halftime shows since 2014. He choreographed the first ever NY Fashion Week Runway show at the USS Intrepid for fashion designer Chi-Zhang.
Pavan’s proudest achievements have come through his work with the dance community as a practitioner, teacher and leader. He helped usher in Sessions and Jams as essential elements of dance education – with culture and history centermost in that effort. Those sessions are world renowned as a creative space for dancers to express, create and train. His partnerships with legends like Ken Swift, Don ‘Campbellock Campbell and James ‘Cricket’ Colter created opportunities for the Street Styles at a time when stereotypes lead many to avoid these types of events and classes. As a teacher and practitioner, he has proudly ushered in countless dancers, of all levels, to experience the culture and energy of Hip Hop.
PMT Dance Company, his performance group, has presented original work for The International Dance Festival, the Bollywood Movie Awards & for Sundance Channel’s “Young Revolutionaries” - performing across the US & Canada. As an educator, he has helped students at New School University, UC Irvine, Peridance, Joffrey Ballet, NYU, Alvin Ailey Extension, PMT & schools nationwide.
Pavan is also the founder of the Dance Studio Alliance NYC - an advocacy group of Dance Studios and NYC Arts Institutions - advocating for dance organizations & arts workers.
https://www.pmthouseofdance.com/
Peter Alfred Elizalde, Artist, Choreographer, Nightlife professional, Director of Membership & Communications at NY4CA
Peter Alfred Elizalde is a Filipino/a/x/? nonbinary dance artist, choreographer, and nightlife professional residing in Lenape-Canarsie land currently known as Brooklyn, NY. They currently dance on stages and not stages throughout the 5 boroughs and abroad and are delighted to bring their brand of queer magic and unfiltered emotion into their work in and out of performance settings.
Their current work-in-progress dance piece is titled "the discotech is where i go to experience unmatched joy and profound sadness" and offers a glimpse into personal queer and trans narratives in nightlife and the underground and explores the possibilities of nightlife as a portal to community care and queer liberation.
Yanira Castro, Artist, a canary torsi
Yanira Castro is a Puerto Rican born interdisciplinary artist living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). Since 2009, she has made participatory performances and interactive installations with a team of collaborators under the moniker, a canary torsi. Her work is rooted in communal construction as a practice of radical democracy and invites the public into co-creation. Castro is the recipient of the 2022 Herb Alpert Award for Dance and has received two New York Dance & Performance (a.k.a BESSIE) Awards for Outstanding Production, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship as well as various commissions, residencies and national project grant awards. She has been commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, New York Live Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Abrons Arts Center, Danspace Project, The New Museum, ISSUE Project Room, The Invisible Dog Art Center, The Chocolate Factory Theater, and EMPAC, among others, and has toured nationally and internationally. She has received residency support for her work including MacDowell, Yaddo, IN_Residence @ Dancehouse (Australia), LMCC’s Extended Life program, Gibney Dance Center’s DiP program, Choreographic Fellow at Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Artist Ne(s)t (Romania), and Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio, Italy). She is one of the co-authors of “Creating New Futures,” collectively-written documents drafted as calls-to-action to address deep-rooted inequities in the performance field.
Photo credit: Josefina Santos
Task Force (2022–Inactive)
Alex Rodabaugh, Dancer, Choreographer and Performer, Treasurer of Dance Artists' National Collective
Alex Rodabaugh is a choreographer, dancer and performer based in NYC. Alex most recently performed in Moriah Evan's REPOSE. Alex has worked with artists such as Simone Forti in The Work Is Never Done at MoMA, Miguel Gutierrez, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Tess Dworman, Derek Smith and Bailey Williams among others. Alex's work has been shown at Movement Research at Judson Church, Draftworks, Double Plus at Gibney, PRELUDE, American Realness and Dance and Process at the Kitchen. Alex is currently working on the premiere of Break-Up Tunnel Vision Infinity, 3rd Edition in Lima, OH, his hometown, next year. Alex is a co-founder and the Treasurer of Dance Artists' National Collective.
Photo credit: Alex Rodabaugh
Antuan Byers, dancer, model, creative entrepreneur, and arts organizer
Antuan Byers (he/him) is a dancer, model, creative entrepreneur, and arts organizer. Basing his multidisciplinary practice in Lenapehoking, Manhattan, New York, he is using movement as a catalyst for societal change. As a freelance dancer, he regularly works with prestigious institutions as a performer and teacher; however, he shares his time building communities, creating resources, and finding innovative avenues to support his community.
April Biggs, April Biggs, Dance Artist; Disability+ Working Group Member, Creating New Futures
April Biggs is a Southern, queer, disabled dance artist, writer, and disability access consultant who works on the stolen lands of both the Kiikaapoi (Milwaukee, WI) and the Lenape (NYC) peoples. April is the inaugural recipient of the 2022 A-Ibanez Dance Artist Residency (VA), and was a 2020 Dance/NYC Disability.Dance.Artistry.Dance and Social Justice Fellow. She has been making, collaborating, improvising and teaching dance for 25+ years, and has presented dance work in venues across NY including Movement Research, DTW, Dixon Place, the Merce Cunningham Studios, and the ALT Theatre. April’s pedagogy and advocacy work follows a Disability Justice framework centering the most marginalized and celebrating the nuanced, full and exquisite experiences of disabled people. She holds an MFA in Dance from Ohio State University, an MFA in Poetry from The New School, and a BFA in Dance from Florida State University. April teaches both in community settings and academia, most recently at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University at Buffalo, and Ohio State University. She is the Disability Consultant to Rutgers University’s Integrated Dance Minor, a Phase 2 & 3 member of Creating New Futures’ (CNF) Disability+ Working Group, and an Envisioning Coordinator for Dance Artists’ National Collective (DANC). She serves on the Artistic Advisory Board of The Field Center and on the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) Dance & Disability Task Force.
Photo credit: Tim Bohannon
Carla Hoke-Miller, Director of Theatre Programs and Partnerships
NYC Mayor's Office of Media & Entertainment
Carla Hoke-Miller is Founding Director of Theatre Programs and Partnerships at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. She has collaborated with government colleagues and those in performing arts on 50 theatre partnerships and initiatives to further diversity and create career opportunities within the industry. Among them is Made in NY Stagecraft Bootcamp in Roundabout Theatre's Theatrical Workforce Development Program, Broadway in the Boros/Off Broadway in the Boros outdoor performance series, and JanArtsNYC Festival partnerships in association with APAP. Hoke-Miller proposed and oversaw the 2019 ground-breaking report, All New York’s A Stage: NYC Small Theater Industry Cultural and Economic Impact Study. Her efforts ensure performing artists and organizations are included in government funding streams and receive recognition through multi-agency initiatives, and she assisted in building designated vaccination/testing sites for arts worker safety while aiding industry pandemic recovery. A cultural programs NYC government veteran, Hoke-Miller's background is in theatre studies, playwriting, production, political science and urban studies. She developed a juried arts awards and leveraged government funding for artists in Manhattan Borough President's David N. Dinkins Office, leading to a pivotal position in Mayor Dinkins’ Administration. Her work includes funding education reform, real estate preservation, museum publicity, new media, and social justice policy.
Charmaine Warren, Performer/Writer + Founder/Artistic Director,
Black Dance Stories & Dance on The Lawn: Montclair's Dance Festival
Charmaine Warren is a performer, historian, consultant and dance writer. Warren began the online series "Black Dance Stories" in June 2020. She is the founder/producer and artistic director for "Dance on the Lawn:" Montclair's Dance Festival, and the Producer of DanceAfrica at BAM. Warren has been a co-curator for Harlem Stage's dance series, EMoves for 11 years, and the lead curator for Dance @ Wassaic Project Festival for nine years. She currently writes on dance for The New York Amsterdam News, sometimes Dance Magazine and other magazines and journals. Warren is a 2017 Bessie Award Recipient for "Outstanding Performance" as a member of Skeleton Architecture Collective.
Warren generally lectures on western dance history, the Black tradition in American dance and Jamaican dance. After performing for many years with major New York dance companies, she joined the internationally known, New York-based, dance/theater company david rousseve/REALITY in 1989 - 2000.
Chikako Yamauchi, Member
ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity)
Chikako Yamauchi is participating in the DWR Task Force as a representative of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), an intergenerational, multi-racial group of artists and cultural workers committed to organizing for racial equity in the influential realms of art and culture. Chikako joined ACRE in 2015. Members of ACRE are united by the foundational anti-racist principles of The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond.
A couple careers ago, when Chikako was a dancer, she performed across the US and internationally with companies including Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre, Bludance Theatre, Chen & Dancers, David Dorfman Dance, Fly-by-Night Dance Theatre, and Momix Inc. among others. Chikako worked in arts administration as company manager for Donna Uchizono Company, projects with Wally Cardona, marketing and box office at the Fine Arts Center at UMass/Amherst, and with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at UH Manoa on the planning phase of an international conference on dance in Oceania. Research and evaluation later became creative practices for Chikako, and she earned a PhD in art history. She currently works in nonprofit and philanthropic strategic learning and evaluation.
Christopher D. Bloodworth, National Director of The Career Center
Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund)
Christopher D. Bloodworth is the National Director of The Career Center at Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund), a national organization that supports all professionals in performing arts and entertainment. As the chief workforce development and training expert he develops the policies, theoretical approach and service modalities that support the 4,000 individuals who utilize these services annually. Christopher has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the College at Old Westbury, and a master’s degree from the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. He proudly serves on the boards of the New York City Education & Training Coalition and the International Organization for the Transition of Professional Dancers. In addition to his formal roles, Christopher is a writer, photographer, podcast host and avid mentor to several young adults throughout New York City. Areas of expertise: Workforce Development, Quality Assurance and Outcome Measurement, Career Development and Management, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Photo credit: Christopher David
Christy Bolingbroke, Executive/Artistic Director
NCCAkron
The Dance Union co-creates virtual meeting spaces to share ideas, voice concerns, encourage positive change, resist, unify, and kiki. Dance Union is a place to share ideas.
A place to voice concerns. A space to dream. A place to demand change. A space of resistance. A space to unify. A podcast. A relief fund.
Heather Robles, Policy Development Consultant at NY4CA, Executive Director of The Bessies
Heather Robles (she/her/ella) is a nondisabled Latinx queer cis woman who lives on the stolen land of the Lenape and Canarsie peoples in what is now called Brooklyn. She is a Policy Development Consultant at New Yorkers for Culture & Arts, Executive Director at the NY Dance & Performance Awards The Bessies, Artistic Director of Alma Dance Company, and certified birth doula at Our Birth Doula. A Brooklyn-based choreographer and performer, she has worked with many artists including Yvonne Rainer, Sidra Bell, Pavel Zûstiak, Nathan Trice, DANCENOISE, André M. Zachery, Buglisi Dance Theater, Soluq Dance Theater, Alison Cook Beatty Dance, Fredrick Earl Mosley, and Suzzanne Ponomarenko Dance. She is on the board of directors for Renegade Performance Group and Sharron Miller’s Academy for the Performing Arts. Heather is also a dance educator, teaching artist, producer, and advocate for mental health in the dance field.
Photo credit: AK47 Division
Kellee Edusei, Executive Director, Dance/USA
Kellee Edusei became the Executive Director of Dance/USA in 2021. She joined Dance/USA in the fall of 2008 as the organization’s Office Manager and Board Liaison and was promoted to Director of Member Services in the spring of 2009, maintaining her work as Board Liaison until 2019. To date, Edusei designed and implemented the Membership Fellowship giving an early career arts administrator an opportunity to hone their skills; the “Special Membership Package,” a recruitment campaign that surpassed goal and engaged the entire Dance/USA Board and team in the process; and a new revenue stream by maximizing Dance/USA’s monthly Bulletin. She was part of the initial program design of Dance/USA’s Dance Business Bootcamp, a program for dance artists working with budgets of $200,000 and below. Edusei currently serves on the Advisory Council for Women of Color in the Arts and is an alumna of artEquity’s 2020 BIPOC Leadership Circle, of American Express’ 2014 Leadership Academy and the 2021 New Strategies Forum at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and Acumen Accelerator Program.
Photo credit: Maria Ponce
Lucy Sexton, Executive Director, New Yorkers For Culture & Arts
Lucy Sexton is a Brooklyn-born choreographer, producer, administrator, and performing artist who works in the fields of dance, performance, film, and public advocacy. She is the Executive Director of the cultural advocacy coalition New Yorkers for Culture & Arts. Prior to that, she served as Executive Director of the NY Dance and Performance Awards, The Bessies, where she worked for ten years with Heather Robles to build The Bessies into an independent organization. From 2013-16 she served as a Consulting Associate Artistic Director of the planned performing arts center at the World Trade Center. As a dance artist she works with Anne Iobst creating and performing the dance performance duo DANCENOISE which was founded in 1983, had a retrospective exhibit and performance at the Whitney Museum in 2015, and premiered a new piece at NY Live Arts in 2018. She has also directed and dramaturged plays by Spalding Gray, Tom Murrin, Nora Burns, and Heather Litteer; and produced documentaries by Charles Atlas for the BBC and Arte. Sexton is currently developing and directing Eszter Balint's anti musical "I Hate Memory."
Photo credit: AK47 Division
Maria Bauman, Artistic Director of MBDance; Co-founder of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity)
Maria Bauman is a two-time Bessie Award winning multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. She is also a sought after public speaker and facilitator on race equity and community-building as and with arts. Her company MBDance's community engagement and performance-rituals particularly center Black Queer people without tragedizing or tokenizing us. Bauman is also co-founder in 2014, with Sarita Covington and Nathan Trice, of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity), a grassroots organizing body of artists dismantling racism in our own practices and institutionally fields.
In 2021, Bauman was a BRIClab Fellow, granted a Petronio Residency Center award and a Red Tail Arts Fellow. She was a 2020 Columbia College Dance Center Practitioner-in-Residence, 2019 Gibney Dance in Process residency award winner, 2018-20 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, 2017-19 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and was the 2017 Community Action Artist in Residence at Gibney. She's been recognized by Dance NYC's Dance Advancement Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council and Jerome Foundation. While formal accolades are affirming, some of the best approval Bauman has gotten for her dance work was from a group of Black and Brown queer teenagers at camp in Connecticut who, upon seeing her dance exclaimed "Oooo, she bad!”
Key areas: Concert dance & choreography; undoing racism in the arts & beyond; intentional dialogue facilitation; entering, building & exiting community methodology
Photo credit: Felicita "Felli" Maynard
Maxine Montilus, Dance Artist, Artistic Director of MV Dance Project
As a choreographer, Maxine has presented work at various institutions, including The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, and Harlem School for the Arts with Haiti Cultural Exchange for their annual Selebrasyon Festival. Maxine is also a member of Dance Caribbean COLLECTIVE, through which she has presented choreography in their annual New Traditions Showcase from 2015-2017. In 2014, she choreographed BallyBeg Production's third play and Equity-approved showcase, "The Taste of It", and was a 2015 nominee for Outstanding Choreography/Movement in The New York Innovative Theater Awards for her work in the production. In 2017, Maxine served as an Afro-Cuban/Haitian Folklore consultant for Camille Brown in her work for the Broadway musical “Once On This Island”. Maxine was also the choreographer for Opera Orlando’s presentations of George Bizet’s “Carmen” (April 2021) and “The Secret River” (December 2021). Both productions made their premieres at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
In 2019, Maxine founded MV Dance Project, a dance company that aims to be of service to others through public performances and dance education programming. In June 2019, the company performed its first evening-length production “Strength in Spirit” at Brooklyn Studios for Dance.
Photo credit: Shocphoto Imagery LLC
https://www.maxinemontilus.com/
Pavan Thimmaiah, Director of PMT House of Dance
Pavan ‘PMT’ Thimmaiah, founder of PMT House of Dance (est. 2001), is an award-winning artist who broke with tradition to realize his dream of becoming a professional dancer. Pavan has since enjoyed a career highlighted by being the first Indian American to choreograph for a major recording artist and for network TV. He has been featured in Dance Teacher Magazine, Dance Magazine, NY Times, Dance Europe, The Dance Gazette, Staten Island Advance & more.
Pavan is best known as the resident choreographer for the Today Show since 2010. Additionally, Pavan has choreographed for artists Vanilla Ice, Macy Gray, Harry Connick Jr, Alex Feder, Matt Palmer, Zia Victoria, Apache Indian & others. His other choreography credits include New Year’s Eve in Times Square, 1st Place Apollo Champion (choreographer), Conan O’Brien, Comedy Central & MTV and NBA halftime shows since 2014. He choreographed the first ever NY Fashion Week Runway show at the USS Intrepid for fashion designer Chi-Zhang.
Pavan’s proudest achievements have come through his work with the dance community as a practitioner, teacher and leader. He helped usher in Sessions and Jams as essential elements of dance education – with culture and history centermost in that effort. Those sessions are world renowned as a creative space for dancers to express, create and train. His partnerships with legends like Ken Swift, Don ‘Campbellock Campbell and James ‘Cricket’ Colter created opportunities for the Street Styles at a time when stereotypes lead many to avoid these types of events and classes. As a teacher and practitioner, he has proudly ushered in countless dancers, of all levels, to experience the culture and energy of Hip Hop.
PMT Dance Company, his performance group, has presented original work for The International Dance Festival, the Bollywood Movie Awards & for Sundance Channel’s “Young Revolutionaries” - performing across the US & Canada. As an educator, he has helped students at New School University, UC Irvine, Peridance, Joffrey Ballet, NYU, Alvin Ailey Extension, PMT & schools nationwide.
Pavan is also the founder of the Dance Studio Alliance NYC - an advocacy group of Dance Studios and NYC Arts Institutions - advocating for dance organizations & arts workers.
https://www.pmthouseofdance.com/
Réka Echerer, Dance Worker and Activist
Réka Echerer (she/her) hails from Vienna, Austria and has performed with the Vienna State Opera, Sue Bernhard Danceworks and Kizuna Dance. She has performed works by Merce Cunningham, Gabrielle Lamb, Aszure Barton and currently dances with the Metropolitan Opera and Megan Williams Dance Projects. She is a proud member of Dance Artists’ National Collective and Dancers of the Met and currently resides on the stolen lands of the Lenapehoking/Canarsie lands also known as Astoria, Queens.
Photo credit: @jhtheadshot
Vanessa Hernández Cruz, Disabled Dance Artist, Choreographer, Disability Justice Activist
Dance Artists National Collective, Communications & Social media Co-Coordinator
Vanessa Hernández Cruz (she, her, hers) is an emerging interdependent Chicana disabled dance artist & Disability Justice activist. She is from the unceded lands of the Tongva & Kizh territories colonially known as Los Angeles, California. She graduated from California State University Long Beach with her BA in Dance Science. In 2022, she was selected into the first national cohort for LatinXtentions Dance Mentorship Program led by David Herrera. She was also accepted for The Box LA & Pieter Parking Space Residency. In 2021, she was a part of the Arts Unchained International virtual residency where she developed a dance film titled “11th Hour”. Vanessa has been implementing the Disability Justice framework (Sins Invalid) through her activism & dance work. She is currently working with DANC (Dance Artists’ National Collective) as their Communications & Social Media Co-Coordinator. She also serves as a consultant in their BIPOC & Disabled Circle. In the past, she guided Cal State Long Beach Department of Dance to adopt Disability Justice elements into their dance productions and curriculum with the support of CSULB Affinity AIDE (Advocates for Inclusion & Dancer Equity). She has developed two workshops: Dismantling Ableism in Dance & Accessibility at the Forefront of Dance Making Series. Vanessa is committed to generating substantial changes in the dance field and making the dance field an equitable space for our multi-marginalized disabled communities.
Photo credit: Paula Kiley
https://www.galaxiesdance.info
Yanira Castro, Artist, a canary torsi
Yanira Castro is a Puerto Rican born interdisciplinary artist living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). Since 2009, she has made participatory performances and interactive installations with a team of collaborators under the moniker, a canary torsi. Her work is rooted in communal construction as a practice of radical democracy and invites the public into co-creation. Castro is the recipient of the 2022 Herb Alpert Award for Dance and has received two New York Dance & Performance (a.k.a BESSIE) Awards for Outstanding Production, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship as well as various commissions, residencies and national project grant awards. She has been commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, New York Live Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Abrons Arts Center, Danspace Project, The New Museum, ISSUE Project Room, The Invisible Dog Art Center, The Chocolate Factory Theater, and EMPAC, among others, and has toured nationally and internationally. She has received residency support for her work including MacDowell, Yaddo, IN_Residence @ Dancehouse (Australia), LMCC’s Extended Life program, Gibney Dance Center’s DiP program, Choreographic Fellow at Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Artist Ne(s)t (Romania), and Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio, Italy). She is one of the co-authors of “Creating New Futures,” collectively-written documents drafted as calls-to-action to address deep-rooted inequities in the performance field.
Photo credit: Josefina Santos
