Architecture, Planning & Design

Joanne Arany is Executive Director of the Landmark Society of Western New York. Prior to that, she was the Program Director of the Rosamond Gifford Charitable Corporation in Syracuse and a Senior Preservation Planner with the City of Syracuse. She has also held positions with the National Park Service. Ms. Arany holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. She also serves on the New York State Board for Historic Preservation, appointed by Governor Paterson.

Carol Rusche Bentel is a partner in the studio of Bentel & Bentel, Architects/Planners AIA, and a licensed architect. She received her undergraduate degree in architecture at Washington University and her graduate degree in architecture at North Carolina State University.  Prior to receiving her post graduate education in the history and theory of modern architecture at the Modern architecture at Massachusetts  Institute of Technology, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Venice (Italy).  She is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.  She has taught at Harvard, MIT, Georgia Tech, and the Architectural Association in London.  She has delivered lectures at Harvard, MIT, Yale, and the Centro Palladio in Vicenza (Italy).

Susannah Churchill Drake is a registered landscape architect and the principal and founder of dLandstudio, a design firm providing planning, landscape architecture and architecture services for both public and private clients. Before starting her own firm in 2006, she worked for a number of architecture and landscape architecture firms in New York City, focusing on institutional and public work. She is currently teaching the history and theory of landscape architecture at City College and serves on advisory boards at Harvard and Dartmouth. In 2006 she received an Independent Project award from NYSCA for her analysis of ways to create public space above the Brooklyn Queens Expressway in Downtown Brooklyn. Ms. Drake received a BA in Art History from Dartmouth College and both a Masters of Landscape Architecture and a Masters of Architecture in 1995 from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Milton Curry is the Director of the Cornell Council for the Arts and an Associate Professor of Architecture at Cornell. In addition to Cornell, he has taught and been a design critic at, among other places, Harvard, California College of the Arts and Arizona State University. He has published and lectured widely, focusing primarily on issues of race and design. His work has been shown in several exhibitions, most notably in the 2004 HarlemWorld show at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Mr. Curry also has a small architecture practice and a real estate development company. He recently served on a citizen’s committee organized by the Ithaca Department of City Planning to develop design guidelines for a large piece of developable public land. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University.

Deborah J. Meyer DeWan is currently the Deputy Director of the Ashokan Foundation, an environmental education  center in Ulster County. Before that, she served as the Director of Policy and Program Development at the  Catskill Center for Conservation and Development. She has also been the consulting historic preservation planner for Hudson River Heritage and the Director of the Riverfront Communities Program at Scenic Hudson. She has had a long and distinguished career in community and open space planning, environmental policy and historic preservation in the Hudson River Valley, serving on a number of boards and public advisory committees. She has also worked with a number of small, nonprofit organizations in the areas of fundraising, strategic planning and board development. Ms. DeWan holds a BA in Political Science from SUNY Stonybrook and a MS in Environmental Studies from Bard College.

Ilene J. Frank is the Director of Public Programs and Education at the Schenectady Museum and Suits-Bueche Planetarium.  Ms. Frank previously worked in a variety of positions at Historic St. Mary’s City in Maryland, including Research Assistant, and as Director of Public Programs and Community Outreach for the Rensselaer County Historical Society where she worked to increase that organization’s presence and relevance within Troy.  She has also served as an Interpretation Specialist for New York State’s Heritage Trails.

Ken Lustbader currently has a preservation and real estate consulting firm with a wide range of nonprofit and corporate clients in New York City. Before that, he was the Director of the Sacred Sites Program at the New York Landmarks Conservancy. He serves now on the Preservation Committee of the Municipal Art Society  and the World Trade Center Memorial Center Advisory Committee. Earlier in his career, he served as the Director of Planning and Operations for a 50 store retail shoe chain. Mr. Lustbader holds a MS in Historic Preservation from Columbia and a BA in Economics from Vassar.

John T. Reddick has served as an Associate Vice President of Education and Programming at the Central Park Conservancy and as President of the Cityscape Institute. He is currently working on a variety of projects including Harlem One Stop, a tourism initiative in Harlem, the reconfiguration of Frederick Douglass Circle at the northwest corner of Central Park, and the creation of Harriet Tubman Square. Mr. Reddick holds a BS in Architecture from Ohio State University and a Master of Architecture from Yale.

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Arts Education

Millie Burns is a cross-media artist. She is experienced in traditional and digital photography, serigraphy, artists' books, and ceramics. She also works with static and kinetic, 2 D and 3 D digital media. Ms. Burns produced an educational video for the State of New Jersey and a documentary video entitled Poetry in Motion for Riverdale Neighborhood House. MTA Arts for Transit commissioned her to design an 8' x 148' steel barrier fence for the New York City Transit Authority's Botanic Garden station. Her work, much of it commissioned, is exhibited and collected internationally and is included in the public and private collections of Hassan II of Morocco, Chemical Bank, Banker's Trust, The New York Public Library, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Price Waterhouse & Company, The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Dun & Bradstreet, The Marriott Corporation, Saint Vincent's Hospital, and Haines Lundberg Waehler.

Stephen Butler is the Executive Director of Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse and Onondaga. He has previously served as the Executive Director of the Mental Health Association of Onondaga County, Executive Director of Creative Alternatives of New York, and as the Director of Public Affairs at the Alliance of New York State Arts Councils. Mr. Butler holds an MA in Public Administration from Syracuse University and a BA in Theater from SUNY Oswego. 

David Camacho is the Education Coordinator at the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation. David provides on-site administrative oversight for all Rush Gallery in the School Partnerships, Rush Teens, Rush Teens Extension and Rush Internship Programs. David has over 15 years experience working with at-risk children and young adults, most recently as the Director for After-School and Summer Camps Programs of the PAL Howard Houses Community Center and PAL Schwartz Center of the Police Athletic League in East New York, Brooklyn. During his tenure at P.A.L. David staged and directed the Adventure Learning Program (ALP): Teens Exploring Art, Culture & History (TEACH) a theatre educational base program. Conceived and directed Outdoor Adventure Club (OAC) programming, and directed, managed and taught New Beginnings children’s intervention program.

Carol D. Charles is the Community Engagement Manager at the Syracuse Stage where she works to increase linkages and visibility within the community. She also teaches at Parents Promoting Dance, an Organization that provides human and financial resources towards the development of young dancers in Central New York. Ms. Charles recieved a BA in Theater Arts from Syracuse University and an MA in Arts Administration from New York University.

Waldo Antonio Chavez is the Education Coordinator of Multicultural Music Group. Mr. Chavez studied music at New York's New School and Berklee College of Music. As a bassist, he has played, recorded, and toured with a variety of musical artists including Eddie Palmieri, Dave Braham trio, Ray Santos, Willie Colon, and Los Pleneros. He is currently an orchestra member of the Broadway production of In the Heights.

Kay Churchill has been the Director of Education at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House since 1995. Kay has overseen the theater's dramatic growth in education programs which includes both Daytime and Family Series theater presentations and an extensive in-school residency program. She plays a key role in the development and facilitation of the Bardavon’s arts-in-education residency programs in partnership with local school districts that serves grades one through High School. 

Amanda Dargan is the Education Director at City Lore, which has the largest folk arts in education program in New York State. She formerly directed the folk arts program at the Queens Council on the Arts, has curated several museum exhibitions, conducted field research and presented artists for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. She is an expert in folk narrative, visual folk arts, children’s folklore and folk arts in education.

Edie Demas is Director of Education for the New Victory Theater. She is responsible for the direction, development and implementation of all school, career and family educational programming. As part of her work at the New Victory, Edie continues to work with the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Arts and Special Programs as it implements its comprehensive Theater Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts Pre-K – 12. In her eight seasons at the New Victory, Edie has doubled the number of school and community-based partners, increased the education audience size from 20,000 to over 40,000 per season and launched the New Vic in the Classroom Program. Her teaching experience includes nursery school through to the University level, focusing on performing arts and media education. Edie holds a MA/PhD in Educational Theatre from New York University.

Dr. John Eilertsen is the Executive Director of the Bridge Hampton Historical Society. Previously, he served as Director of the Hallockville Museum Farm and Folklife Center. Dr. Eilertsen's expertise is in maritime folklore and he has extensive knowledge of Long Island folklore, ethnic traditions and traditional crafts.

Carol Fineberg has worked with schools, districts, artists, arts organizations and foundations with an interest in supporting arts education efforts for over thirty years.  She has contributed many articles to refereed journals and is both editor and contributor to the popular handbook,  Planning an Arts-Centered School (Dana Press, 2002).  Her book, Islands of Excellence: the Arts as Partner in School Reform, has been used in many colleges and universities as a text and as a source for professional development around the country.  For over twenty years she has served as project evaluator for national, state, and locally funded programs that link the arts to educational goals. 

Radiah Harper is the Vice Director for Education and Program Development at the Brooklyn Museum. She has held the Executive Director and Curator position at the Museum of African American Art in Tampa, Florida, and director positions at the Weeksville Heritage Center, Museum for African Art, and Historic Hudson Valley, all in New York State. Harper was an art consultant and classroom teacher in several New York metropolitan area school-based programs, and an arts and museum management consultant were she advised organizations in Florida, North Carolina and New York. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute in the Arts and Cultural Management Graduate Program where she teaches a course in Arts and Education. 

Ann Kalmbach is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Women’s Studio Workshop, a visual arts organization with specialized studios in printmaking, hand papermaking, ceramics, letterpress printing, photography, and book arts.

Cathy Klimaszewski is the Associate Director and Ames Curator of Education, Herbert Johnson Museum at Cornell University.  Ms. Klimaszewski has worked in the museum education field for 20 years, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in art education, and Master of Fine Arts in museum studies from Syracuse University.

Barbara Leggett is the Executive Director of the Explore and More Children's Museum, located in East Aurora, New York. Ms. Leggett oversees all museum operations, providing leadership and direction to staff and Board to develop, update and implement strategic and annual business plans and budgets. She has previously served as the Public Relations Director at the Buffalo Museum of Science and as the Public Information Officer for WGBH.

April Oswald is the Museum Education Director at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. Ms. Oswald did her post-graduate studies in art history at the University of Chicago, with a concentration in 17th-century French and Italian art. She received her bachelor's degree in literature from State University of New York at Purchase. She is a member of the National Art Education Association, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums and the New York State Alliance for the Arts. She is a member of the board of directors of Sculpture Space in Utica, NY.

Janet Rodriguez recently completed eight years with the JPMorgan Chase Global Philanthropy Group as National Director of Arts & Culture.  While at the foundation, she was responsible for providing leadership and support to the National Community Relations team on the implementation of a philanthropic strategy.  Specifically, Janet was integral in the integration of the three focus areas of JPMC’s philanthropy: Community Development, Education, and Arts & Culture in a coordinated, holistic manner for the benefit of low to moderate income communities. She was also the subject matter expert in arts & culture, responsible for directing national arts & culture initiatives across the country.  Throughout her tenure at JPMorgan Chase Janet initiated a number of major sponsorships and corporate programs such as Slavery & the Making of New York at the New York Historical Society; Queens Latino Cultural Festival; Pregones; expanding the JPMorgan Chase Regrant & Free Summer Art Series programs; and increasing support to community based arts organizations. 

Catherine Schwofferman is the Executive Director of the Hoyt Foundation. Previously, she was the Curator and Program Director at the Roberson Museum in Binghamton. Ms. Schwoeffermann has served on panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Association of Museums, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Theodore Wiprud is a composer who also plays important roles as concert presenter, educator, and music executive.  His compositions are known for the impact they make on performers and audiences, reflecting his constant interaction with both adult and young musicians and listeners from the New York Philharmonic, where he currently serves as Director of Education, to classrooms and community venues.  

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Capital Projects

Brian Aldous is a lighting designer for may non-profits theaters, including Circle Rep, NY Shakespeare Festival, Primary Stages and New York Theater Workshop. He has also designed some dance and music productions. Brian is co-founder of Technical Artistry, a sound and lighting consulting firm for theaters and museums. Related experience includes: production manager, master carpenter, and stage manager. Brian also develops sound and lighting specifications.

Michael Ambrosino is a founding partner with the engineering firm Ambrosino DePinto and Schmieder. A mechanical engineer, Mr. Ambrosino has more than 30 years of engineering design and research experience in institutional, commercial and residential facilities. He has worked extensively with non-profit arts organizations, and is a frequent lecturer and contributor to various technical magazines and journals.

Alvan Colon-Lespier is a playwright, producer, and stage director. He is currently the Associate Director of Pregones Theater, located in the Bronx is is responsible for repertory development and production. He has written extensively on the theater and, in his current position, has been responsible for a large capital project - the renovation of a warehouse into a state of the art theater.

Pat Dignan's design credits include a wide range of theatre, dance, and puppetry companies in the U. S. and Europe. Theatre credits include dozens of Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway companies, as well as many regional / LORT companies. For many years Pat designed for choreographers Karole Armitage, Lucinda Childs, and Yoshiko Chuma, among others. Her work has included designs for numerous site-specific art installations and gallery shows with Creative Time, Ernesto Neto, and Doug Aitken. Currently her projects include corporate trade shows, special events, and retail and showroom applications. Her professional affiliations include USA Local 829 and IATSE Local One.

Peter Flynn, a founding partner in the Buffalo based architecture firm Flynn Battaglia, has 37 years of experience in historic preservation, urban design and neighborhood revitalization. The majority of his clients are cultural and educational nonprofits. He has design awards from numerous sources including: the American Institute of Architects, The U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Endowment for the Arts. His extensive client list includes: The Asbury Delaware Church (Hallwalls, Righteous Babe Records), Seneca Iroquois National Museum, The Gideon Putnam Hotel, Regina A. Quick Fine Arts Center at St. Bonaventure University, and Cornell University. He served on the APD panel from FY84 to FY87.

Jill Gotthelf is a senior associate with the firm Walter Sedovic Architects. She has degrees in both Architecture and Historic Preservation and has had extensive experience designing and managing preservation projects for both commercial and non-profit clients. Some of her better know projects include Eldridge Street Synagogue, the Grand Army Plaza Entrance to Prospect Park, Old Westbury Gardens, Gracie Mansion, and The American Museum of Natural History.

Scott Hughes is an Associate with the structural engineering firm Robert Silman Associates. He has worked on a wide range of projects for non-profit arts organizations such as the Morgan Library, the Fogg Art Museum, and the Wish Theater at Bowdoin College. He has extensive historic preservation experience. Mr. Hughes is the author of several publications and provided the foundation design for the “Home Delivery” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

Adam Macks is a freelance Lighting Designer and Production Manager. He has designed the lighting for numerous Theater, Dance, Opera, Concert and Festival productions. Adam also designs the lighting for corporate tradeshows, conferences and displays. Adam is the Resident Lighting Designer for the Opera Theater Department at Temple University. Adam also works as a Production Electrician for certain design clients. Adam was the Line Producer for Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors Festival from 1996 until 2008. He has also been a Sound Engineer, Lighting Designer, Production Coordinator, and Production Manager for many Lincoln Center Productions. Adam continues to Production Manage outside productions at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, including the upcoming Rekindle Hope in Africa Concert at Avery Fisher Hall.

Chris McInerney is a freelance lighting designer, electrician and moving light programmer/technician based in the NYC area. He specializes in solving complex problems that sit at the intersection of entertainment technology and management. Chris works across a wide spectrum of the theatre and entertainment industries, including educational institutions, not for profits, live music, theatre, dance, corporate events, special events and permanent equipment installations. He was awarded a B.A. from the University at Albany-SUNY, with a concentration in Theatre. Among his current projects, Chris works at Caramoor International Music Festival and as the Technical Director for the Media Arts Lab at Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY. 

Marcia Moss spent 11 years at the Albany Institute, where her various responsibilities included oversight of the Museum’s extensive facility expansion and renovation project, as well as public relations and marketing. She has served a peer review panelists for the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Prior to her work at the Museum, she worked extensive in publishing, a field she has recently returned to. Ms. Moss is currently Development Director of SUNY Press.

Jim Niesel is a Senior Theatre Consultant with the global engineering and consulting firm, Arup. After graduating from the University of Arizona, he spent eight years in Southern California working in various capacities of technical production for venues such as South Coast Repertory Theatre, Knott’s Berry Farm, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts and Chaffey College, among others. As a Theatre Consultant at the international design and engineering firm Arup, he is responsible for designing and coordinating the integration of lighting, video, audio, seating and rigging and performance machinery for all types of facilities from Houses of Worship to Corporate Theaters to major Performing Arts Centers both domestically and internationally.

Lisa Robb is the executive director of Pelham Art Center, a multi-arts center located in lower Westchester County since 1999. Under her leadership the arts council is undertaking the renovation and expansion of its home. Previous experience includes the Bronx Museum of the Arts where she oversaw the third phase of a $1.2 million capital improvement project. She has been a funding panelist for the Westchester Arts Council, the Empire State College’s Community and Folk Arts Colloquium, the Bronx Council on the Arts, and New York Foundation for the Arts. 

Gregory Shanck is managing director of Aaron Davis Hall and has served as project manager and owner’s representative on the $26 million restoration of the Gatehouse, a landmark building that was converted into a flexible theater. His prior experience includes work at the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture in the Bronx and service as the manager of the Manhattan Decentralization Program for the Cultural Council Foundation.

Patricia Snyder served the East End Arts Council, a multi-arts center in Riverhead, in a variety of capacities (Director of Arts and Education and Visual Arts Coordinator) before taking over as Executive Director in 2001. As Director she has overseen the expansion of the organizations’ programs and managed several capital projects, including the renovation of a carriage house for use as art studios. Ms. Snyder has a Masters Degree in Education and a background in visual arts. 

Martha Van Burek is the Executive Director of the West Kortwright Center, a multi-arts center in the western Catskills and is responsible for planning and marketing a performing arts series, which emphasizes contemporary, non-traditional artists, as well as workshops, exhibitions and arts in education activities. Having overseen the Center’s restoration projects, she is familiar with capital project planning, management and fundraising. She is a founding member of the New York State Multi-Arts Centers Consortium and has served as a panelist for the Delaware County Decentralization Program. She has also been a board member for a number of local non-profit organizations.

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Dance

Ronald K. Brown is a Choreographer/Artistic Director and founded his own Brooklyn-based company, Evidence, Inc. in 1985. The troupe has performed at numerous venues in New York (The Joyce Theater, P.S. 122, DTW, Aaron Davis Hall), as well as throughout the U.S. and abroad. The recipient of a 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship, Mr. Brown has created commissioned pieces for a variety of companies, most notably the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (his much acclaimed Grace, premiered in 2000; and the 2001 Serving Nia, for which the Ailey Co. received NYSCA Dance Program Commissioning funds). Mr. Brown has served on the Board of Dance/USA and he continues to serve on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Blacks in Dance. His own work is rooted in modern dance but has strong African-ethnic influences. 

Richard Caples has been the Executive Director of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company since 1984. In this capacity, he has produced more than 1,000 performances, seen live by more than a million people in more than 20 foreign countries and 30 American states. He has served on panels of various national and regional arts organizations and currently serves on the Board of Dance/USA. Mr. Caples holds a B.A. with special honors from Yale University, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins, and a J.D. from Cornell. After practicing law for six years in New York City, Mr. Caples was appointed Executive Director of the Santa Fe Festival Theatre.

Gerald Casel is a graduate of The Juilliard School with a BFA in Dance (1991). Philippine-born, Gerald Casel has contributed to the NYC dance scene as dancer, choreographer, and teacher. As a performer, Mr. Casel danced in the companies of Michael Clark, Stanley Love, Zvi Gotheiner, Lar Lubovitch, The Met Opera, Sungsoo Ahn, and Stephen Petronio, where he was a member from '91-'98 and '01-'05 and served as Assistant Dir. and Dir. of Education. He continues to assist, re-stage, and coach Petronio repertory. As a teacher, Mr. Casel has taught at Movement Research, Dance New Amsterdam, Impuls Tanz Vienna, the School for Modern Dance in Denmark, Sarah Lawrence College, and the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where he is currently a full time faculty member. Mr. Casel founded his co., GERALDCASELDANCE, in 1998 and has since presented his own choreography throughout the U.S. Mr. Casel also holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He was awarded a Bessie for performance in 1997.

Richard Chen See has worked consistently and internationally in multiple aesthetics of dance since 1978.  In December, 2008, he retired from the Paul Taylor Dance Company, with which he danced for fifteen years.  In addition to originating roles by contemporary choreographers, Mr. Chen See has also performed, throughout his career, in a range of works from classical ballets to pieces from the Diaghilev era and Americana ballets.  In 1986, Mr. Chen See also became involved in many aspects of business management for small and corporate businesses, as well as non-profit organizations, and, in 2007, he was the founding president of the New York River Sports Corp, which manages Pier 66 in the Hudson River Park.  Mr. Chen See recently assumed the role of Director of the New York International Ballet Competition.

Blondell Cummings is the founder and Artistic Director of the Cycle Arts Foundation. Ms. Cummings has created over 50 works; toured throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa; received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts; and participated in the First East Indian Dance Festival in New York and the Dance Resistance conference in Paris, France. She was profiled in Michael Blackwood’s post modern dance film, “Dancing On The Edge” and in the PBS “Free to Dance” series, which describes the role of African American choreographers in the development of modern dance. Ms. Cummings’s well-known work, “Chicken Soup,” received an American Masterpiece grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, enabling it to be restored and performed by Urban Bush Women. 

Mary DiSanto-Rose has been on the faculty of Skidmore College since 1981 and is currently Chair of the Dance Dept. She is a scholar, teacher, performer, choreographer and restager of classic modern dance works. She has appeared as a guest artist with the Isadora Duncan International Institute and has been a guest lecturer at the National Museum of Dance and The Egg Theater in Albany, among others. Ms. DiSanto-Rose has been a longtime and active "voice" for dance in the Capital Region, serving on the Boards of the Saratoga/Albany Arts Alliance and Partners in Dance and is a recent addition to the New York State DanceForce.

Elaine Gardner, in collaboration with her husband, musician and composer Curt Steinzor, established her company, Pick of the Crop Dance, in 1981 in Buffalo.  She has choreographed extensively for her own company--both abstract modern dance pieces, as well as full-evening contemporary narrative ballets, especially geared to family audiences. She has fostered the use of live music and has commissioned original music compositions. She has also been creative in commissioning "outside" choreographers to work with Pick of the Crop. Ms. Gardner has studied ballet and modern dance and since 1986 has been the Director of the Dance Program at the Nichols School in Buffalo.

Maura Keefe is a dance scholar and choreographer. She is a Scholar-in-Residence at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, where she writes about dance forms and dance artists from around the world. She has led audience programs at Princeton University, UCLA, and the Goethe Institute. Her current research areas include the choreography of talking dancing in contemporary choreography and the relationships between dance and sports. She has an MFA in choreography and performance from Smith College and a PhD in dance history and theory from the University of California, Riverside. Ms. Keefe is an Associate Professor of Dance at The College at Brockport, where she also serves as Graduate Program Director.

Darwin Prioleau, recently appointed Dean of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at The College at Brockport, was previously Professor and Chair of the Dance Department at Brockport. Prior to coming to Brockport, she served as Head of the Dance Division and Assistant Dean of the College of Fine and Professional Arts at Kent State University. She trained at the Alvin Ailey School and studied intensively not only with Mr. Ailey, but also with James Truitte and Matt Mattox. Dr. Prioleau had a ten-year performing career in NYC-- working with various modern dance and jazz companies and in Broadway musicals. Nationally, she has been actively involved in art education advocacy and has published several articles on the topic. Her years of teaching at Brockport have given her an in-depth awareness of the upstate NY dance scene in the environs. 

Lawrence Rhodes' extensive experience encompasses that of a performer, artistic director, and arts administrator. He performed with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and was a principal dancer with The Joffrey Ballet, the Harkness Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the Eliot Feld Ballet. Over the course of his career, Mr. Rhodes has taken on the roles of Artistic Director of the Harkness Ballet; Co-Director for the Milwaukee Ballet; Chairman of the Dance Department at NYU's Tisch School; and spent ten years as Artistic Director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, where he was responsible for the commissioning of works by such celebrated artists as Balanchine, Kylián, Forsythe and Morris. In 2002, Mr. Rhodes was appointed Director of the Dance Division at Juilliard. 

Pascal Rioult came to the U.S. on a Dance Fellowship from the French Ministry of Culture. In 1986, Mr. Rioult began dancing with the Martha Graham Dance Company, and in 1989, while still a principal with the Graham Company, he presented his own work for the first time. Since 1994, when he founded Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre, Mr. Rioult has focused his attention on the development of his ensemble and choreographic style. In addition to his own Company, Mr. Rioult's works have been performed by others in both the United States and Europe, including: Ballet de Geneve, Lithuanian National Ballet, Purchase Dance Corps, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, and Vassar Repertory Dance Theater. He has also received commissions from American Dance Festival, NC, Cal Performances, CA, and Theatre de Saint Quentin en Yvelines, France, among others.

Carlota Santana co-founded Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana (formerly named Spanish Dance Arts) in 1983 and has been tireless in her efforts to revive Spanish dance as a theater art--pushing its boundaries and commissioning new Spanish dance music. While Ms. Santana's special expertise is in the art form she practices, she is also knowledgeable about modern dance and ballet and attends performances of all dance genres. She is a member of the faculty of the Dance Departments of Duke University, New York University and Long Island University and has taught master classes throughout the U.S.

Eduardo Vilaro joined Ballet Hispanico as Artistic Director in August 2009, following a ten-year tenure as Founder and Artistic Director of Luna Negra Dance Theater in Chicago. Mr. Vilaro came to New York City at the age of six from his native Cuba and began his dance training as a teenager on scholarship at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. He received a BFA in Dance from Adelphi University and an MA in Interdisciplinary Art from Columbia College Chicago. While he was principal dancer with Ballet Hispanico, he performed throughout the United States, Europe, Central and South America, taught master classes, and helped create and conduct arts education and outreach programs for New York City children. He serves on the Board of Directors for Dance/USA. He was selected as Chicagoan of the Year in 2007 and Alumni of the Year by Columbia College in 2008. 

Carol Walker Carol Walker has served as the Dean of the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College since 1984. Under her leadership, Purchase successfully hosted several Dance Program-funded Long-term Residencies. Though her early studies were in the modern idiom, she has an in-depth knowledge of all forms of dance, and her career has encompassed performing, choreographing, teaching and presenting. She has an understanding of both the upstate and New York City dance milieus and is a very frequent dancegoer. 

Cheryl Wilkins-Mitchell has many years of experience as a teacher, choreographer and dancer. She received her BFA in Ballet from the Dance Division at the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music and went on to study at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Alvin Ailey School. She has taught at Oswego State University for 14 years, and is currently the President and Director of the Onondaga Dance Institute. 

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Electronic Media and Film

Dominick Balletta has spent the past two decades creating opportunities for artists to develop and present their work in all disciplines. During the past decade, his primary focus has been film and electronic media, as General Manager of Film Forum (2001-2008) and, since May 2008, as the first Managing Director of the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville. In addition, he is the long time GM/Producer of Moisés Kaufman's Tectonic Theater Project, currently serving as Producer on 33 VARIATIONS, in previews at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theater.

Mahen Sophia Bonetti is the founder and Executive Director of African Film Festival, Inc.(AFF), a non-profit arts organization founded in 1990. AFF showcases works of African filmmakers and develops ways to share the vision and culture of African film with American and international audiences. In her role as film liaison, she contributes to an interdisciplinary mix of panels and programs, including those established by the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ougadougou (FESPACO), the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York State Council of the Arts, UNDP, Africa’s US diplomatic offices and the Rolex Arts Initiative Awards. AFF collaborates each year with the Film Society of Lincoln Center and BAMcinématek to produce the annual New York African Film Festival. Additionally, the organization curates a series of other film programs with a host of national and international partners.

Carlos A. Gutiérrez is co-founder and co-director of Cinema Tropical, Since its creation in 2001, Cinema Tropical has become the leading purveyor of Latin American cinema in the U.S. in twelve venues across North America. He has curated numerous film/video series, served as a consultant, juror, producer, panelist and guest lecturer, working with such institutions as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, BAMcinématek, Queens Museum of Art, Eyebeam,Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Museo Rufino Tamayo,and Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá and the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. He is on the Board of Advisors of the Hanson Film Institute and the Loft Cinema, LA, and a contributing editor to BOMB Magazine, writing extensively for the Spanish publication La Odificación, Cinemanía, Rizoma and Criteria. He holds an MA in Cinema Studies from NYU and a BA in Communications from Universidad Iberoamericana.

Kathryn High is an Associate Professor of Media Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. She has more than twenty five years as Practitioner and Arts Administrator in New York State. Ms. High has also served on the boards of a number of different organizations. She continues to exhibit, produce and distribute own art work.

Terry Jones is an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation who grew up on the Cattaraugus Indian Territory located in Western New York.  He is a commercial photographer and filmmaker living in New York City. Mr. Jones' primary goal is to portray contemporary Native American Society through film, video and still photography.

Galen Joseph-Hunter is the Executive Director of free103point9, a non-profit arts organization cultivating Transmission Arts, experimental radio art, video, light sculpture, installation and performance utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum. Located Upstate and Brooklyn, free103point9 supports artists exploring transmission frequencies for creative expression. Ms. Joseph-Hunter has served as Executive Director since 2002, while working at Electronic Arts Intermix since 1996. Over the past ten years, she has organized numerous exhibitions and events internationally including Video Jam (2001), FL; Video Windows (2001) at the Stefan Stux Gallery, NY; Interactions (2002), at the NY Center for Media Arts; Memory of Temptations (2002) at Edición Madrid, Spain; The Workshop of the Film Form, 1970-77 (2004), Airborne (2005), the New Museum of Contemporary Art; Spectral Garden (2006) Wave Farm; [silence] (2007), Gigantic ArtSpace NY; and Off The Grid (2008), Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY.

John Knecht has been a practicing film and video artist since 1973. His films, videos and installations have been shown all over the world. John Knecht holds the Russell Colgate Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History and Film and Media Studies Chair at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York where has been teaching since 1981. He served as Chairman of the Art and Art History department from 1991 to 1999. Knecht received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh in 1972 and a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Idaho State University in 1974.

Meg Knowles is an Assistant Professor of Media Production in the Communication Department at Buffalo State College. She is an award winning experimental and documentary film and video maker whose work has been screened at festivals, galleries and museums. Meg has a BA in Art History from Vassar College, an MAH in Media Study/Art History from the University at Buffalo and an MFA in Film Media Arts from Temple University. Meg served on the Board of Squeaky Wheel/Buffalo Media Resources from 1998-2008, acting as President, Vice President and Treasurer. She is currently on the Boards of Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center and the Massachusetts Avenue Project. 

John Mhiripiri is responsible for the overall administrative, building, and theatrical operations at Anthology Film Archives. As Director of Exhibitions, he is responsible for the programming and overall coordination of the public programs at AFA. For most of the last 10 years Mr. Mhiripiri has been an assistant to Robert Beavers, filmmaker and director of the Temenos Archive; served on the Board of Directors of the Film-Makers' Cooperative; and been an assistant to the Harry Smith Archives. Mr. Mhiripiri has also served on numerous film and media arts grant panels for government organizations and private foundations; as a jury member for several film festivals, film school showcases and the Student Academy Awards; and has presented public programs at film co-ops and festivals throughout the U.S. Mr. Mhiripiri has been with Anthology since 1995, and has worked with Super-8 and video since 1986.

Reaghan Tarbell comes from the Kahnawake reserve just outside Montreal. In 2007 she was awarded a Canada Council on the Arts grant funding from Native American Public Telecommunication's Public Television Program Fund for the production of Little Caughnawaga: To Brooklyn and Back.  In 2006, on the basis of this script, she was selected to participate in Tribeca All-Access. Ms. Tarbell is currently a Staff Program Assistant in the National Museum of the American Indian's Film and Video Center.

Carolyn Tennant currently serves as the Media Arts Director at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. She has previously served as Video Archivist for Hallwalls, and as Video Archivist at the Experimental Television Center. Ms. Tennant holds an MFA from SUNY Buffalo and a BA from Hampshire College. 

Philip Wilde is a partner in Insights, a media production firm based in Ithaca, NY and Manhattan. He has made video as an Independent Producer since 1970. Mr. Wilde helped start several 1970's media arts organizations including the Cornell University Video Center and the Ithaca Video Project, in addition to other, more recent, organizations.  His work bridges Upstate and Downstate issues and his subjects include arts and sciences. Mr. Wilde has served on the board at a number of different arts organizations.

Kheli R. Willetts is an Assistant Professor of African American Art History and Film in the Department of African American Studies and Academic Director of the Community Folk Art Center, which is a community service based unit of the African American Studies Department. Dr. Willetts worked with a number of arts organizations including the Studio Museum of Harlem, the Wadsworth Athenaeum, the Connecticut Historical Society and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. As Academic Director of the Community Folk Art Center Professor Willetts is responsible for developing diverse and dynamic programming including exhibitions, a film series including an annual film festival, guest lecturers and artist workshops. At Syracuse, she teaches survey courses in the areas of African American art history and film. Dr. Willetts is currently completing a new body of mixed media work. She holds an A.A.S in Studio Arts from F.I.T a B.F.A in Studio Arts, M.A. in Museum Studies and Ph.D. in Art Education from Syracuse University.

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Folk Arts

Polly Adema directs folk arts program serving Dutchess County. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Culinary Institute of America and has produced folk arts presentations and artists in the schools programs in Arizona, South Carolina, Wyoming, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. She is an expert in traditional crafts, festival production and school programming.

Irma Bohórquez-Geisler is a traditional craftsperson and photographer. She is a cultural leader for Mexican Americans on Staten Island, organizing an annual Dia de Muertos event for the New York State Institute on Disability, for which she serves as Artistic and Program Director. She has a special interest in access to the arts for the disabled. Dr. Bohórquez-Geisler has presented Mexican traditions at many museums and schools, and her photography has been exhibited at a number of contemporary art galleries and museums. She holds a Ph.D. in Ecological Entomology from Oxford University.

Rachel Cooper is performing arts director at the Asia Society where she administers and produces traditional as well as contemporary music, dance and theatre performances and touring programs. She was previously the Associate Director of the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance and director of the Festival of Indonesia in Performance program. She founded and directed a Balinese music and dance company, and was co-chair of the Arts Presenters annual conference. She is an expert in Asian music and dance.

Todd DeGarmo has directed the Center for Folklife, History and Cultural Programs at the Crandall Library since it was established in the early 1990s. He previously served as the a program coordinator for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and as an Assistant Director for Administration for the NYS Department of Education’s Summer School of the Arts. Mr. DeGarmo has conducted extensive research about traditional architecture and other aspects of the traditions of Northern New York. He has curated a number of exhibitions on traditions of the Upper Hudson Valley and the Adirondacks.

Karyle Denison Eaglefeathers is an Assistant Professor at Empire State College, director of a project to document Cheyenne languages, and co-founder of the Catskills Folk Connection, an emerging regional folk arts center in her native Delaware County. Previously, she directed museum studies programs at Indiana University/Purdue University, Indianapolis and Texas Tech University, served as Director of the Division of Cultural Resources of the State of Wyoming, and Director of Tribal Head Start of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. She has also developed a high definition video design studio and is an expert in Catskills regional and Native American traditions, museums and visual folk arts.

Kuang-Yu Fong is a producer and performer of Chinese opera and puppetry. She is the founder and Executive/Artistic Director of Chinese Theatre Works. Kuang-You Fong has a M.A. in Educational Theatre from New York University, and she has taught Chinese culture at Pace University and the University of Maryland.

Melissa Gonzalez is an ethnomusicologist specializing in Latino music. She has served as the ethnomusicology consultant for the Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages, as an instructor in the music department of Columbia University, and as an archival assistant for Columbia’s Center for Ethnomusicology.  Ms. Gonzalez has carried out field research in Panama, Puerto Rico and Cuba as well as New York. She holds an M.Phil. in music from Columbia University.

Madaha Kinsey-Lamb is the Founder and Executive Director of Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center, a community based arts center in the Bronx. She has served as a consultant for folk arts programming for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Harlem Project, Community Works, and the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History.  Ms. Kinsey-Lamb has a masters in Education from CCNY, and she has designed curriculum and served as education consultant for a number of cultural and educational organizations.

Felicia A. McMahon has produced programs on refugee traditions, ethnic folk arts and regional traditions as a consulting folklorist at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, Children’s Museum of History, Natural History in Utica and the Chenango County Council on the Arts. She has also worked as a secondary school teacher, and taught folklore courses and presented traditional performing folk artists and craftspeople at Syracuse University. Dr. McMahon has expertise in children’s folklore and the folk arts of refugee communities.

Catherine Ragland is a mentor at Westchester division of Empire State College. An ethnomusicologist, she formerly directed the folk arts program at the Brooklyn Arts Council, directed Mexican community initiative for the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, and produced traditional arts programs for Texas Folklife Resources and the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. She was a music journalist for daily newspapers in Austin, San Antonio and Seattle, and is currently a consultant for the annual Mexican Day of the Dead program at Union Settlement House. She is an expert in traditional music and Latino folk arts.

Ralph Samuelson directed the Asian Cultural Council, a foundation supporting cultural exchange between the United States and a number of Asian nations, from 1991 to 2008. He now serves as its Senior Advisor. He is an ethnomusicologist with expertise in Asian music, with broad knowledge of Asian culture. Formerly President of the Society for Asian Music, Mr. Samuelson has served as a field researcher and presenter for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, a lecturer in ethnomusicology at Eastern Connecticut State College, and public school music teacher.

Thomas Van Buren is an ethnomusicologist who directs the Folk Arts Program of the Westchester Arts Council.  He has served as the archivist, director of field research and program director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, and was a researcher and presenter for the Folklife of New York City program of the 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.  He has organized concerts and festivals of Arab, Dominican, African and Filipino traditions, and produced a number of recordings of ethnic music.  Dr. Van Buren holds a doctorate in music from the University of Maryland.

Steven J. Zeitlin is the founder and executive director of City Lore, an urban folklore and cultural heritage organization. He is the author of many books about various aspects of American folklore, including A Celebration of American Family Folklore: Tales and Traditions from the Smithsonian Collection, with  Amy J. Kotkin and Holly Cutting-Baker; The Grand Generation: Memory, Mastery, Legacy, with  Mary Hufford and Marjorie Hunt ; Because God Loves Stories: An Anthology of Jewish Storytelling, and City Play, with Amanda Dargan,  which was also an exhibition they organized at the Museum of the City of New York. He has been involved in the production of a number of films, video productions, and audio documentaries, and frequently appears on public radio discussing the folklore of New York City. His areas of expertise include urban folklore, verbal arts and children’s folklore  He holds a Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Individual Artists

Laura Andel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she grew up. After living, studying, and performing in Argentina, she moved to Boston in 1993 to pursue studies in composition. Since then, she has focused mainly on composition for large ensembles and developing her own conducting as part of the compositional process. In 2000, Ms. Andel moved to New York City where she created the Laura Andel Orchestra, a large ensemble that features an unusual combination of instruments and unites musicians from diverse musical and cultural backgrounds that perform Andel's extended compositions. Ms. Andel has received several grants, commissions, and awards for her work. She has also been a composer fellow at several artist residencies such as Bellagio (Italy), Sacatar (Brazil), Valparaiso (Spain), and in the USA at Yaddo, MacDowell, Music Omi, Blue Mountain Center, and Ucross Foundation. Currently, she leads the Laura Andel Orchestra in several formations.

Isabel Barton is a Venezuelan born, New York resident filmmaker, photographer and writer. Having been awarded the National Award for Photography in her native Venezuela in 1972, she went on to study photography under the mentorship of William Garnett at UC Berkeley in 1974 and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan in 1976.  Under mentorship of master photographer Ezra Stoller, her architectural photographs, along with her writing, were published in major magazines worldwide and her portraits of artists, including Philip Glass, Keith Haring and Jesús Soto, in catalogues, posters and magazines internationally. During those years, 79-01, her photographs and silkscreens showed in galleries and museums throughout the US, including the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, NJ, the Center for Inter American Relations, NYC, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, GA.    

Ariella Ben-Dov is a curator specializing in thematic series of independent cinema featuring a wide spectrum of genres: avant-garde, animation, documentary, and essays. Ms. Ben-Dov is the Artistic and Festival Director of the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival at the American Museum of Natural History. She is co-founder and curator of the MadCat Women’s International Film Festival which promotes cutting-edge films and videos of all genres.  Ms. Ben-Dov was a nominator for the Creative Capital and Rockefeller Foundations and Alpert Awards and has received grants for her programs from the NEA, Academy Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Fleishhacker Foundation, Gerbode Foundation and the Zellerbach Family Foundation, among others. She is a graduate of Hampshire College. 

Alla Borzova is a Pelham, NY based composer, who arrived in the U.S. from Minsk, Belarus in 1993. She is the recipient of the prestigious Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters has hailed her as a "force on the American musical scene".  Her recent premieres are: the first complete performance of the 40-minute cantata Songs for Lada by the Grammy Award winning Michigan State Children Chorus and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin’s direction; To The New World in Minsk by the National Symphony Orchestra of Belarus under Alex Anissimov’s direction and on at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in Santa Cruz; Merry Hour, Seven Songs to the poems by Mikhail Lermontov at Merkin Hall. She holds a Doctorate in Composition from the Moscow Conservatory where she studied composition with Alexander Pirumov.

Dean Bowman has been heralded by the London Guardian as "soulful, charismatic, and technically brilliant... a star." Dean Bowman is renowned internationally for his "rumbling baritone and heart-peeling falsetto... a showstopper" (Village Voice). Without a doubt, a major contributor to the NYC downtown jazz, rock, and avant-garde scenes, he is an accomplished, "massively talented" vocalist and performance / recording artist. He has been described alternately as a "vocal-mentalist," "tone poet," "avant-garde gospel singer," and a "jazz singer with the soul of a rocker," for his work with Don Byron, “Do The Boomerang”, the music of Junior Walker, as well as touring the music of Ray Charles with John Scofield.

Laura Caparrotti has a doctorate in Performing Arts from the University "La Sapienza" in Rome, and studied independently with Dario Fo, Annie Girardot and Elsa Wolliaston. In Italy she performed for over ten years in theater, with Giancarlo Cobelli, Mario Carotenuto, The Teatro Stabile di Torino, and many others. In New York Laura performed at the Kitchen with the Japanese company OM2 and in The Cosmic Legends Series.

Ava Chin is an Assistant Professor of English at the City University of New York's College of Staten Island. Prior to earning a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing from the University of Southern California, and an M.A. from Johns Hopkins, Ava Chin was a working writer and performer. As a poet and a fiction writer, she has been a featured reader on NPR and WBAI, and performed on stages at Woodstock ‘94, the Whitney Museum, the Knitting Factory, and the Nuyorican Poet’s Café. Her lyrics appeared on Soul Coughing’s 1998 release “El Oso” (Warner Bros.) Her last staff position at a magazine was as the managing editor of VIBE. She was awarded a Van Lier Fellowship for her fiction in 1996-97 from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Before joining CSI in 2006, she taught memoir writing at UCLA and USC. She teaches creative writing workshops, most notably in creative nonfiction, and journalism courses.

Laurie Chock began her career in radio news before moving to television. During the 80’s, she was an award winning producer and host of a national weekly public affairs show on WPIX-TV in New York City and reporter and producer on the daily magazine show, Best Talk in Town. During her tenure “on air,” directed and hosted the primetime documentary, Sticks and Stones, about ethnic identity and self-esteem. In the 90’s she focused on documentary production as the American producer for a number of Israel based documentaries, including: Murder in the Name of God about the Rabin assassination. This film won the New York Film Festival Silver Medal Award. Ms. Chock directed the PBS documentary, Ironbound Ties to Portugal, which was distributed on the APTV Network to 150-200 stations and was nominated for a mid-Atlantic Emmy. Her most recent documentary is Thread, the story of five Afghan women transforming their lives through their sewing skills. It is screening at film festivals around the country.

Lizzy Cooper Davis is an actor and educator. She has performed nationally in theater, television and film, studied dance traditions in Bali, Cuba, and Brazil, and worked as an artist-educator in community centers, schools, and prisons following training with Augusto Boal in New York and Rio. She has worked with StoryCorps developing community partnerships and recording interviews for the Libary of Congress, is the co-editor of Enacting Pleasure: Artists and Scholars Respond to Carol Gilligan's Map of Love (forthcoming, 2010), and is currently assisting Culture for Change, an initiative developing social justice-themed after-school arts projects with young people throughout the Boston area. Lizzy is pursuing a doctorate in Harvard University's departments of African & African American Studies and Anthropology where her research focuses on the history of the Civil Rights Movement's Free Southern Theater and its legacy in arts-based community organizing.

Abigail E. Disney is a filmmaker and philanthropist. Her first film, a feature-length documentary called Pray the Devil Back to Hell tells the inspirational story of the women of Liberia and their efforts to bring peace to their broken nation after decades of destructive civil war. It won the 2008 Tribeca Best Documentary award and is currently playing in theaters. She is also involved in producing a number of other documentaries with social themes, and is developing a four-hour project for WNET/Wide Angle called Women, War & Peace.

Eric Gansworth, an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, was born and raised at the Tuscarora Indian Nation in Western New York. He received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English from Buffalo State College. He is an Associate Professor of English and holds a position of Writer in Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. His previous work includes a novel, Indian Summers, and a collection of poetry, Nickel Eclipse: Iroquois Moon; numerous Native literature anthologies include his poetry and fiction. Eric is also an active artist and has painted the cover illustrations for a number of his books.

Ariana Gerstein began making experimental films in the 1990's as a graduate of the Cinema Department at Binghamton University. She left Binghamton to receive her M.F.A. in Filmmaking from the School of Art Institute of Chicago where she was awarded a full  Trustees Merit Scholarship. She taught in Chicago at Columbia College and the Academy of Art before returning to Binghamton University.

Sharon Greytak is an independent filmmaker. Ms. Greytak has written, produced and directed feature-length fiction films, documentaries, and experimental shorts. Her credits include the award-winning documentary Losing It which explores quality of life issues and physical disability; The Love Lesson, the story of an unconventional adoption arrangement between two women and their HIV positive heterosexual son; the award-winning Hearing Voices which explores a model's private and public identities; Weirded Out And Blown Away; and the experimental films Some Pleasure on the Level of the Source and Czechoslovakian Woman. Currently, she is at work on a narrative feature involving linear memory, secrecy and dementia. Sharon Greytak teaches also teaches at Syracuse University .

Lezlie Harrison is the Assistant to Executive Director and Event Coordinator at The Jazz Gallery (1996-Present). She has worked previously with Karin Bacon Events and Country Road Clothing. She is a graduate of  the University of Massachusetts. 

Graham Haynes was born and raised in Hollis and is the son of drummer Roy Haynes. While studying composition, harmony and theory at Queens College, he developed an interest in classical and electronic music. In 1979, he met alto Steve Coleman and they formed the Five Elements, which launched the M-Base collective. He spent much of the 1980s collaborating with Coleman and Cassandra Wilson. Mr. Haynes immersed himself in a wide range of African, Arabic, and South Asian music that prompted his move to Paris in 1990. There he recorded Nocturne Parisian and The Griot’s Footsteps for French PolyGram Records. Throughout his musical career, Graham Haynes has brought together different musical traditions from African, Asian, and Arabic countries. He has lectured at New York University on the subject of Music and Trance and is a perennial guest at the Gnawa Trance Music Festival in Morocco. Graham Haynes tours annually in Europe, Asia and Africa and has appeared several times on national TV. He is in high professional demand as musical director and composer by film, theater, dance, performance and multimedia artists.

David Heilbroner is an author and award-winning producer of documentary films. His production credits include the films Plastic Disasters (2006), The Adolescent Addict (2007), and the Emmy-winning film Jockey (2004) which he also co-directed. A former Prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney, Mr. Heilbroner wrote the non-fiction books Rough Justice (Pantheon, 1990) and Death Benefit (Crown/Harmony, 1993). Mr. Heilbroner is a graduate of Harvard University.

Immy Humes is an independent documentary filmmaker from New York City with 20 years of experience in film and television. Her work has won funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Soros Fund for Human Rights Documentaries, Robeson Fund, ITVS, Women in Film Finishing Fund, the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her most recent film Doc is a portrait of her late father, Harold "Doc" Humes. The film features Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary and William Styron. It is about mental illness, drugs, and creativity, with a decades-long cultural history, from the Beats to the Reagan years and will air nationally on PBS series Independent Lens. As a work-in-progress, it was selected to open the Margaret Mead Film Festival. Her other films include: A Little Vicious; Lizzie Borden Hash & Rehash; Wade Davis. Immy graduated from Harvard College with honors in Social Studies. She teaches Documentary at the Center for Worker Education at City College. 

Diedre Murray is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, two-time Obie Winner and master musician. She is an innovative composer, cellist, producer and curator. In the 1970s and 80s, she pioneered the use of the cello as a jazz and new world music instrument. Current projects include a new musical, Sweet Billy and the Zooloo’s, with writer Lynn Nottage, for Colored Girl’s Productions, scheduled for 2009; and Spoleto, a series of rags for solo piano in 2009.  She received a B.S. degree from Hunter College in Ethnomusicology and has numerous recordings.

Scott F. Propeack is the Collections and Traveling Exhibitions Manager at the Burchfield Penny Art Center, where he manages special collections projects, including the transcription of and web-presentation of Charles E. Burchfield’s journals. He is currently a board member at the Buffalo Media Resources and is involved at the New Media Consortium as a Buffalo State College Representative.

Brian Rogers is co-founder and Artistic Director of theater et al AKA The Chocolate Factory Theater, a not-for-profit ensemble theater company in Long Island City, Queens. In addition to his own work as a director and video designer (his most recent project, Gun Play, opened in January 2006), Mr. Rogers curates and produces an ongoing visiting artist program at The Chocolate Factory, providing space, technical assistance, and administrative support to artists working in a variety of disciplines including theater, dance, music, and multimedia.

Edwin Sanchez is a Playwright based in Claryville, New York. He was a 1998 participant in the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference with Barefoot Boy With Shoes On, which was then selected to represent the National Playwrights Conference at the Schelykovo Playwrights Seminar in Russia in June 1999. His other productions include Unmerciful Good Fortune (AT&T On Stage New Play Award), co-produced by Northlight Theater and Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago and by the Frontera at Hyde Park Theater in Austin; Clean (Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays, nominated by the American Theater Critics Association as Best New Play 1995), produced by Hartford Stage and by the Atlantic Theater in New York; Trafficking In Broken Hearts, at the Atlantic Theater and The Fourth Unity; Floorshow: Dona Sol and Her Trained Dog, at Latino Chicago; and Fatty Tissue, produced by Theater by Design of Chicago. His work has been workshopped at The Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Repertory Company, and South Coast Repertory, for whom he is currently commissioned to write a new play.

Rosalind Schneider is a video and installation artist. Her credits include River Fragmentations at Van Brunt Gallery; Wave Transformations; Before & After: Imagining Public Art in Westchester; and River Meditations. She is a graduate of the Syracuse University School of Fine Arts, SUNY, Empire State College, and has studied with Morris Kantor at the Art Students League of New York.

Tanya Selvaratnam was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka and grew up in Long Beach, California. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, where she studied Chinese and the history of law.  Her graduate thesis on the interplay of law and practice with regard to women’s rights in China was published in the Journal of Law & Politics.  While still in graduate school, she began working for the Fourth World Conference on Women in China, serving as the Assistant Youth Coordinator for the NGO Forum on Women, 1995. In 2001, Tanya began producing movies, including On_Line (directed by Jed Weintrob) which premiered at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals, Domino (a short film, directed by Gabri Christa with music by Vernon Reid, for The Black Filmmakers Foundation Lab), and The F Word (also directed by Jed Weintrob).

Carolyn Tennant is the Media Arts Director at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (HCAC). She served previously as the Video Archivist at HCAC. She has also served as Editor of the Video History Project at the Experimental Television Center since 2002. Ms. Tennant has also taught a number of courses at the State Univeristy at Buffalo. She is a graduate of  SUNY Buffalo, Hampshite College, and the Salt Center for Documentary Field Studies. 

Cecille Wasserman is President of The Cheswatyr Foundation which supports contemporary music, commissions and music education. They've initiated The Cheswatyr New Music Initiative with WNYC, Orpheus Ensemble and American Music Center to commission new works with built-in opportunities for multiple performances, broadcasts and radio promotions.  

Kim Whitener is the Producing Director at the HERE Arts Center in New York. Since 2001, Ms. Whitener has been an independent producer with her own company, KiWi Productions, working with a diverse range of US artists, both companies and individuals, in the contemporary theater, dance-theater, and multi-media worlds to develop and produce new projects, working with co-producers worldwide.  Her current projects include Martha Clarke's The Garden of Earthly Delights remount and The Builders Association (Alladeen, Super Vision and the upcoming new work Continuous City), and she is involved in developing several other projects in both theater and film/media.

Lucy Winer is a Filmmaker, Producer, and Director. Her credits include NYSCA supported Kings Park (in production), Golden Threads 1999,  Positive: Live with HIV, Picture It!, Crown Heights We Call it Home, and a  museum installation for children by the Crown Heights History Project. She has served as an Adjunct lecturer in Film Studies and Production at Pratt Institute (1994), and Richmond College, CUNY (1982). She holds a BA in English Literature and Theater from SUNY at Stony Brook, and has done graduate work at the University of Toronto and Richmond College, CUNY.

Sebastián Zubieta is a composer and conductor currently serving as Music Director at Americas Society in New York. His music has been performed in Argentina, Germany, Korea, Poland, Uruguay and the U.S. He has written pieces for the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, ICE and So Percussion. He will receive his DMA in composition from Yale in May 2009 and holds a degree in musicology from the Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires. He has presented papers on baroque music in the U.S., Belgium (17th Congress of the IMS) and Argentina and conducted vocal ensembles in Argentina and the U.S.

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Literature

Michelle Berry is a journalist, poet, playwright, and performer of African, Cherokee and Irish heritage. She is also a former Tompkins County Poet Laureate. Born in Manhattan and raised in the Catskills, she holds an MA in Communication from Cornell, and a BA in English/Political Science from Binghamton University, where she was a Presidential Scholar. A summer scholar at Georgetown's Institute on Political Journalism, a Cave Canem Fellow, and Alternate Acting Mayor and Councilwoman for the City of Ithaca, she was an elected Delegate for Barack Obama in NY's 22nd Congressional District in 2008. She has opened for the Dalai Lama, Maya Angelou, Howard Zinn and been featured on "Good Morning America." Ms. Berry was ranked 16th in the world at the 2001 National Poetry Festival in Seattle. She resides in the Finger Lakes Region with her family.

Wesley Brown is the author of three published novels, Tragic Magic; Darktown Strutters; Push Comes to Shove; three produced plays, Boogie Woogie and Booker T., Life During Wartime, A Prophet Among Them; co-editor of the multicultural anthologies, Imagining America (fiction), Visions of America (non-fiction); editor of the Teachers & Writers Guide to Frederick Douglass; and wrote the narration for a segment of the PBS documentary, W.E.B. Dubois: A Biography in Four Voices. He is Professor Emeritus at  Rutgers University, currently teaches literature at Bard College at Simon's Rock and lives in Spencertown, New York.    

Alvin Eng is a playwright, performer, and memoirist, currently adapting his monologue, The Last Emperor of Flushing, into a “faction” novel with support from NYFA. In 2007, he presented a commentary on NPR’s All Things Considered on New York City's ever changing cultural landscape, inspired by the Mets' penultimate Opening Day at Shea Stadium. He has performed at La MaMa, Immigrants' Theatre Project, P.S. 122, Bowery Poetry Club, PACT/the A-Train Plays, and throughout the U.S. Honors include fellowships/grants from NYFA and the Corporation For Public Broadcasting. MFA/Musical Theatre Writing/NYU/Tisch SOA. Mr. Eng is a proud Flushing, Queens native who currently lives in Manhattan. He was named after the Chipmunk cartoon character.

Betsy Folwell has been a freelance writer since 1989 and a frequent essayist on the Adirondacks. She has written for the New York Times Travel Section, National Geographic Traveler and many other consumer magazines. She was a longtime Editor of Adirondack Life Magazine and has served as its Creative Director since September 2005, and is also a freelance editor. A current board member of the Adirondack Center for Writing, she was Director of the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts for eight years, and has taught at Paul Smith's College, St. Lawrence University, SUNY Plattsburgh and, on an NEA grant, at the Ray Brook Federal Correction Institution. She is a winner of International Regional Magazines Association awards and of the Folio award for Editorial Excellence in 2001. She was a finalist for the Hellen Keller award in 2006.

Sandra Garcia Betancourt is the Executive Director and CEO of NoMAA. She is a resident of the Washington Heights community, and has years of experience working in the arts and media communities. She is a poet, writer and arts activist, author of the poetry book “Ombligo de Luna” and the plaquet “Memorias y Olvidos.” She has participated as a guest poet in the Union Settlement adult literacy program where she has shared the stage with renowned poets and writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Eduardo Galeano, Carmen Buollosa, and Sonia Rivera Valdes. She is an experienced publicist and worked as the Public Relations Manager for E Diario La Prensa. She has created literary events and promoted Latino literary luminaries such as Laura Restrepo, Esmeralda Santiago, and Jorge Bucay. She organized the first bilingual Latina writers reading series at Barnes & Noble. She holds a BA from Union Institute University in Vermont, and is an MFA candidate. 

Alison Granucci is owner/president of Blue Flower Arts, located in Millbrook, NY, representing critically acclaimed poets, authors, and speakers for readings and appearances. She produces the Spoken Word Series at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts (housed in the old Trinity Church of Alice’s Restaurant fame), curating programs with actors and writers such as David Strathairn, Sam Waterston, Debra Winger, John Hockenberry, and Galway Kinnell. Formerly Executive  Program Manager for conferences at the Omega Institute, Ms. Granucci programmed and produced several national conferences, such as "Women and Power" and "Fearless Living", with celebrities such as Alan Arkin, Frank McCourt, Jane Fonda, and the late Christopher Reeve and Spalding Gray. She also co-produced, with playwright Eve Ensler’s organization V-Day, a benefit concert at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem. A dancer for 30 years, Ms. Granucci performs improvisational dance with musicians and poets.

Beth Harrison is the Associate Director of the Academy of American Poets, the former Development Specialist at the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, and a former panelist for the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. She has held editorial positions at Princeton Architectural Press, Oxford University Press and Van Nostrand Reinhold, and is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Spinning Jenny Magazine.

Susan Kim Susan Kim is a playwright/ screenwriter/ children's writer and graphic novelist whose adaptation of Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club premiered at Long Wharf Theater and has been produced around the world. Her plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and Farrar Strauss. She's written more than two dozen children's live action and animated children's TV series, as well as many documentaries and has been nominated for five Emmy awards. Her work has won the Writers' Guild award and the Cine Golden Eagle. She's the recipient of numerous commissions, and her play, Open Spaces, was winner of the Drama League of America's Outstanding New Play award. She's the author, with Laurence Klavan of two graphic novels, Germantown and The Fielding Course. She's a member of WGA East, ASCAP, & Dramatists' Guild and works with the Writers' Guild Foundation's DEAL project (Disability in Entertainment and the Arts Link). She teaches creative writing at Goddard College.

Eduardo Lago has translated works by Henry James, Hamlin Garland, John Barth, Sylvia Plath, William Dean Howells, Christopher Isherwood, and Junot Diaz. He has been a tenured member of the faculty at Sarah Lawrence College since 1993. In 2001 he was awarded the prestigious Bartolomé March Award for Excellence in Literary Criticism for a comparative study of the three existing Spanish versions of James Joyce’s Ulysses. He has authored numerous interviews with North American writers and critics. His books include Cuaderno de México, (Mexican Notebook), a personal memoir of a trip to Chiapas, and Cuentos Dispersos, (Scattered Tales), both published in 2000. In January 2006 he was awarded the Nadal Prize. Llámame Brooklyn has been translated into twelve languages. Last October, he published Ladrón de mapas (Map Thief). Mr. Lago has served as Executive Director of Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish Cultural Center in New York, since September 2006.

Scott Lyons is Assistant Professor of English at Syracuse University, where he specializes in Native American and global indigenous literatures. He has published numerous essays and commentaries, and his first book, X-Marks: Identity, Culture, and the Idea of an Indian Nation, is forthcoming from University of Minnesota Press (2010).  He is a member of the Ojibwe nation and grew up at Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. 

Dennis Maloney is the founder, editor and publisher of White Pine Press in Buffalo which has made a wide range of international voices available in English since 1973.  He has translated or co-translated 17 books of poetry from Spanish and Japanese, including works of Pablo Neruda, Antonio Machado, and Ryokan, and has written seven books of poetry as well. He recently retired from work for the City of Buffalo as a landscape architect.

Sheila Murphy joined the Wallace Foundation as a Program Officer in 1990 and was named to her current position, Senior Program Officer, in 2000. She has helped shape the Foundation’s strategic grantmaking in the arts, adult/family literacy, after-school programs, youth development and local system building for out-of-school time programs. Before joining the Wallace Foundation, she worked in publishing, serving as a director for the Council of Literary Magazines & Presses, The Loft, Coffee House Press and the Upper Midwest Booksellers Association. During the 1980s Ms. Murphy directed statewide arts education programs in Minnesota.

Bob Stein is a visiting Scholar at New York University and the Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book. The Institute has two principal activities; one is building high-end tools for making multi-modal networked documents and the other is exploring and hopefully influencing the evolution of new forms of discourse as it moves from printed pages to networked screens. Previously Stein was the founder of the Voyager Company where over a 13-year period he led the development of over 300 titles in the Criterion Collection, a series of definitive films, and more than 75 CD ROM titles including the CD Companion to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; Who Built America?; Marvin Minsky’s The Society of Mind; and American Poetry of the Nineteenth Century.

Stacy Szymaszek is the Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church and an active editor/ publisher. She previously served as Literary Program Manager and Education Coordinator at the Woodland Pattern Book Center, Milwaukee, WI (2000-2005). Her works have been published in small presses and little magazines nationwide including Litmus Press, Belladonna Books, Eoagh:A Journal of the Arts, Chicago Review, Boston Review, Boog City, Aufgabe, Lungfull!

Margo Viscusi was a founding board member of Poets House, president for many years, and now President Emerita, but still very involved. She spearheaded board participation and fundraising for Poets’ House move to its new home in Battery Park City in 2009. She has served on the boards of Yaddo Artists Colony in Saratoga Springs, and Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown. She is currently on the boards of the Miller Theater at Columbia University and the Center for the Humanities at CUNY Graduate School.

Paul Von Drasek is the Trade Sales Manager for Capstone Books, the largest publisher of educational children’s books in the USA. He has been sales director at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Little Brown and Co. and their distribution clients Hyperion and Disney Press, Penguin USA and Viking Penguin. He has been the Chairman/Co-Chair of Curbstone Press in Connecticut, an early publisher of Nobel Prize winner JMG Le Clezio. He has also served on the board of Woodland Pattern Literary Center and Bookstore in Milwaukee and was General Book Manager of the University of Milwaukee College Book Store, and also has public radio board experience. He teaches at the Columbia University Press Publishing Program.

George Wallace, First Poet Laureate of Suffolk County (2003-2005), maintains an active poetry reading schedule at universities, festivals, and writers' groups worldwide, including the UK, California, Oregon, Oklahaoma and New England as well as in literary communities in Cherry Valley, Hudson and Woodstock NY and throughout Long Island. He co-hosts a poetry radio show at SUNY Stonybrook. He is the winner of the CW Post Poetry Prize, North Sea Poetry Scene Tribute Poet, Next Generation Beat Poet and is the editor of the Long Island Quarterly and PoetryBay online .

Matvei Yankelevich is a founding editor of Ugly Duckling Presse, where he designs books, co-edits 6x6 literary magazine, and edits the Eastern European Poets Series. He edited and translated Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook, 2007). He is a co-translator of Oberiu: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism (Northwestern, 2006). He is the author of a long poem, The Present Work (Palm Press, 2006). His writing has appeared in literary journals such as A Public Space, Fence, New American Writing, PAJ, Open City, and in various small and tiny literary journals and on-line publications. From 1999-2001 he co-edited The Emergency Gazette of theater matters, with Yelena Gluzman. His essays on Russian-American poets appear in Octopus Magazine (on-line). Matvei teaches Russian Literature at Hunter College in NYC. 

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Museum

Lynne Belluscio has over 30 years experience in the museum field, all of it in Western New York. She began her career at the Genesee Country Museum as Special Event Coordinator and Lead Interpreter and served as an interpretive consultant for the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Since 1989 she has worked as Executive Director and Curator of the LeRoy Historical Society and Jell-O Gallery. A specialist in interpretation, and in management of small museums, Ms. Belluscio is also the Past President of the national Association of Living History, Farms and Agricultural Museums.

Gonzalo Casals is the Director of Education and Public Programs at El Museo del Barrio. Mr. Casals has been integral in developing new audiences and establishing successful partnerships with other institutions. Prior to joining El Museo, he founded and directed Queens Media Arts Development, an organization celebrating the borough’s diversity. He has worked in museums in Argentina and trained as an architect. An active trustee of the New York City Museum Education Roundtable, Mr. Casals is currently coordinating the creation of NYCMER’s new website.

Andrea Del Valle is the Director of Education at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Ms. Del Valle's experiences in museum education and technology include work at the Minnesota Historical Society as History Day Coordinator as well as Historical Interpreter, and as a Research Assistant at the University of Virginia where she worked on web page design and digital documentation at the Carter G. Woodson Institute. As educator at the African Burial Ground and Assistant Director for the Brooklyn College Educational Talent Search she worked with students and teachers, helping make connections with cultural assets of New York City.

Steven Evans is Dia Art Foundation’s Assistant Director for Beacon. An artist, writer, and curator, Steven has worked at Dia for nearly 20 years, beginning as Gallery Attendant before becoming Visitor Services Manager and then Operations Deputy. He oversaw renovation of Dia: Beacon and developed plans for the opening of that facility. Mr. Evans is the Dutchess County Arts Council’s Vice-Chair for Allocations and has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Edith Gonzalez de Scollard has a varied background which includes knowledge of costume history and archaeology.  She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  As a Supervising Instructor in Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, Edith worked closely on partnerships in outreach programming and in an international internship program. Edith previously worked for the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, developing cultural programs and working on an exhibition, and as the Director of Education at the Long Island Children’s Museum.  She is a founding member of the Association of Children’s Museums Diversity in Action committee.  Most recently she worked at the American Museum of Natural History where she was the Associate Director of Federal Programs.  She currently holds the title Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology.

Pamela E. Green is the Executive Director of the Weeksville Heritage Center where she oversees the management of four historic houses and the creation of a new cultural/education facility. She brings extensive management experience including marketing, fundraising and strategic planning to this position. Ms Green has previously served as Vice President of Outreach and Strategic Partnerships for Sesame Workshop, Commissioner of the Agency for Child Development for the City of New York and created the City’s Office of Food Programs and Policy Coordination. She has also worked for the First National bank of Chicago and IBM. Ms Green serves on the boards of the Association of African American Museums, Community Resource Exchange, Museum Association of New York and the New York Council on the Humanities and on the Advisory Board of Learning through Expanded Arts Programs (LEAP). 

Stephen Long began his career in radio, and then moved into the museum field as an archives assistant at the Labor-Management Documentation Center in Ithaca and later as a collections technician at the Edison National Historic Site, where he worked on cataloguing sound recordings.  For the majority of his career he has worked at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum first as Program Coordinator, then Curator, and most recently as the Vice President of Collections and Education.  At the Tenement Museum Steve oversaw the planning and implementation of the Museum’s permanent exhibitions, education programs and arts activities, as well as the collections and historical research. He also has served on the board of the Greater Hudson Heritage Network, has taught museum management at City College of New York and historic site interpretation at New York University.  Currently, Steve is the Executive Director of the Children's Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton.

Debora Ryan is Senior Curator at the Everson Museum of Art where she has previously held the position of Assistant Curator. Past experience includes Museum Registrar at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Special Collections Project Coordinator at Syracuse University’s Arents Research Library, Public Relations Assistant for the Memorial Art Gallery and Photography Research Archives Collections Assistant at Visual Studies Workshop. Ms. Ryan has also taught the history of photography and design at Syracuse University.

Susana Tejada is the Head of Research Resources at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo where she also serves on the museum’s curatorial team and art acquisitions committee. Ms. Tejada has worked for the New York Public Library as well as libraries at the University of Southern California, Mount St. Mary’s College, the University of Michigan and the State University of New York at Buffalo where she remains the Art and Art History Subject Specialist. For the Documentary Heritage Program in New York, she served as Regional Archivist for Long Island. Ms. Tejada has completed the Getty Leadership Institute for the next generation of museum leaders. She is a member of the Judd Foundation Archives Advisory Board. 

Peter Trippi is the Editor of Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, based in New York. Formerly Director of the Dahesh Museum, Peter has also worked at the Association of Art Museum Directors, and as the Consultant Curator for 19th-Century British Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art where he was also the Director of Major Gifts. At the Brooklyn Museum of Art he served as Assistant Vice Director for Development: Exhibitions and Collections. His monograph on the Royal Academician, J. W. Waterhouse, received the Victorian Society in America’s William E. Fischelis Prize for the best book on Victorian art or architecture.

Trent Trulock is the Executive Director of the St. Lawrence County Historical Association in Canton. Mr. Trulock began his career at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and then worked as a Docent and Volunteer Coordinator at the University of Colorado Museum. At the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum in North Tonawanda, Mr. Trulock served as the Education and Program Coordinator. He works with other cultural organizations in the North Country through the North Country Digital History initiative, the St. Lawrence International Partnership and Seaway Trail and serves as the St. Lawrence County Historian.

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Music

Ronnie Bauch is the Senior Advisor and Managing Director Emeritus of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ronnie Bauch has also been a violinist member of the orchestra since 1975. He had served previously as Artistic Coordinator of the orchestra from 1996-2002. As a violinist, he has toured extensively throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia with Orpheus and many other groups. As a soloist and concertmaster, Mr. Bauch has appeared with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Long Island Philharmonic, the American Composer’s Orchestra, the Westchester Philharmonic, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. As creator of the Orpheus Institute and other initiatives, Mr. Bauch has worked extensively on outreach and education programs. From 1984-2003, Mr. Bauch served as the Artistic Director of the North Country Chamber Players, one of New England’s foremost chamber groups.

Thomas Bellino is a musician, composer, producer, educator, and arts administrator. He has performed and recorded with numerous ensembles throughout the country, including Gretchen Langheld and House Afire, and his work is regularly featured on public and college radio stations. As an administrator, Mr. Bellino has worked for organizations such as Chamber Music America and Young Audiences/New York, where he managed and developed presenting and education programs. Since 1997, Mr. Bellino has focused his work on the jazz community. He created and serves as Executive Director of Planet Arts, Inc., a Grammy award-winning non-profit recording, education, and presenting company based in Catskill, N.Y. Current projects include the Kingston International Jazz Festival, the one2one Jazz Series, Jazz Assisi (Italy), and the Creative Music Studio Archive Project. Mr. Bellino has also recently created compositions for a digital story project focusing on HIV-positive youth in Africa.

Lisa Bielawa is Composer-in-Residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, which is performing and recording her orchestral works over three years. Born in San Francisco, Ms. Bielawa moved to New York after receiving her BA in Literature in 1990 from Yale University.  She began touring with the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1992, and in 1997 co-founded the MATA Festival with Glass and Eleonor Sandresky. 2007 brought the world premiere of her "Chance Encounter" for soprano Susan Narucki and the Knights and her debut CD, A handful of World, on the Tzadik label.  Ms. Bielawa is also a 2007-08 Radcliffe Fellow.

Amy Burton is a Soprano and voice teacher. She has, since 1982, appeared with numerous opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, the Atlanta, Augusta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Memphis, Michigan, Minnesota, Omaha, Portland, Sacramento, Syracuse, Tulsa, Washington, and Zurich opera companies, among many others nationally and internationally. In concert, she has performed with the Anchorage, Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Pittsburgh, Richmond, and San Francisco Symphonies, American Composers Orchestra, Concordia, Boston Baroque, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and many others. She has performed for numerous television and radio broadcasts. Ms. Burton is a graduate of Northwestern University and is on the faculty of Mannes College of Music at The New School University in New York City.

Linda Chesis has collaborated with such renowned artists as Jessye Norman, Dawn Upshaw, James Levine, and the late Jean-Pierre Rampal, and has performed with orchestras, small ensembles, and in solo recitals throughout the U.S., France, Great Britain, Japan, and Korea. Founder and artistic director of the Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival, Ms. Chesis has been a guest artist at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Spoleto Festival, Bravo! Colorado, Music from Angel Fire, and others. She is a founding member of the Chesis/Cutler flute and harp duo and the Broyhill Chamber Ensemble. Ms. Chesis has chaired the Woodwind Department at Manhattan School of Music since 1986, and serves on the music faculties of Queens College and NYU. She has been the subject of numerous radio and television broadcasts, and her recordings can be heard on the EMI.

Aaron Flagg holds a doctorate from the University of Michigan and two degrees from the Juilliard School. He has served on the faculty of the Juilliard School and the University of Connecticut, and is currently the Dean of the Hartt School of Music and Dance of the University of Hartford (CT). Dr. Flagg has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis, New York Philharmonic, Illinois Jacquet Big Band, Manhattan Virtuosi, Gladys Knight, Roberta Flack, Westchester Philharmonic, Westchester Symphony, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, among others. He has performed classical and jazz repertoire at festivals in Japan, Brazil, Switzerland, and France, as well as 22 states throughout the country.

Judd Greenstein's music, combining an urban, beat-oriented sensibility with classical harmonic language, is performed at numerous venues around New York City, from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to Joe's Pub, BAMcafe, the Knitting Factory, Galapagos, The Stone, Robert Miller Gallery, and others. He has received commissions and performances from ensembles including Da Capo Chamber Players, Present Music, Seattle Chamber Players, UT Austin New Music Ensemble, Newspeak, and the Knights. His work has been heard nationally at festivals such as the Bang on a Can Marathon, Carlsbad Music Festival, TriBeCa New Music Festival, and the Roycroft Chamber Music Festival in East Aurora, New York. Mr. Greenstein is the Artistic Director of the NOW Ensemble, dedicated to the promotion of works by young and emerging composers. He is a graduate of Williams College and the Yale School of Music.

Lynda Herndon was named Executive Director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra in 2002, having previously served as General Manager and Director of Operations and Administration. As Executive Director, Ms. Herndon has created the Symphony’s first-ever endowment fund; developed a long-term strategic plan for the orchestra; increased education and outreach to reach over 12,000 students every year; and spearheaded an intensive, two-year Music Director/Conductor search. Prior to joining the Queens Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Herndon was Orchestra Manager for the Illinois Symphony Orchestra in Springfield/Bloomington and was Personnel Manager for the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra in Lafayette, Lousiana. Ms. Herndon holds a B.S. degree in Business from Miami University in Ohio and a M.M. in Violin Performance from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Fred Ho is a baritone saxophonist, composer, writer, producer, political activist, and ensemble leader. He is a prodigious composer, having written numerous critically acclaimed operas, music/theater and multimedia performance works, martial arts ballet, and oratorios. As a musical leader, Fred Ho has recorded more than 15 albums and founded the Afro Asian Music Ensemble in 1982 and Monkey Orchestra in 1990, co-founded the Brooklyn Sax Quartet with David Bindmanin in 1997, and Caliente! Circle Around the Sun (with poets Magdalena Gomez and Raul Salinas), among others. He has published several books including his newest Wicked Theory, Naked Practice, a groundbreaking collection of his writings, speeches and interviews from the past 30 years. 

Heather Miller Lardin is the Artistic Director of the New York State Baroque/New York State Early Music Association. She is an active early music specialist, performing and teaching double bass, violone, and viola da gamba.  She is the director of Les Petits Violons du Cornell, an organization within Cornell University.  Also active in scholarship, Dr. Lardin received the Outstanding Dissertation award in 2006 for her translation and commentary of an important double-bass treatise.

Berardo "Chacho" Ramirez is a percussionist and composer specializing in Afro-Caribbean, jazz, and Latin music. He is a member of Jorge Jimenez's "Sabor a Conga" and plays in Richie Vitale's Orquesta Universal. Mr. Ramirez has worked with such artists as Ahmad Jamal, Jose Fajardo, Olatunji (Drums of Passion), James Spalding, Hal Galper, and many others. He is an Artist-in-Residence at International Arts and Business School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, under the auspices of Young Audiences/New York.

Robert B. Rosoff was appointed Executive Director of the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra, its first full-time administrator, in 1998, after serving on the Symphony Board of Directors as chairman of the Orchestra Committee and as Board President. During his Board tenure, he was actively involved with programming, negotiations, budgeting, and fundraising. Mr. Rosoff has been a member of the Board of Directors for the League of American Orchestras since 2003, serving on multiple board committees and chairing the steering committee for the Ford Made In America project consortium and, from 2003-2004, chairing the League’s Managers of American Orchestras Policy Committee.

Krishna Thiagarajan is the Senior Director of Resources Development and Education Programs at the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, responsible for Education and Community Engagement Programs as well as education-related underwriting and major gift donors. He is the Artistic Director and founding member of "Kammermusik Kurs Dortmund," a chamber music festival based in Germany where he provides individual instruction and chamber music coaching, organizes concerts, and oversees fundraising and admissions. As a pianist, Dr. Thiagarajan has performed extensively in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Canada, Japan, India, and across the United States. He has taught piano for over 10 years, most recently as a faculty member at the University of Central Arkansas from 2005-2008. Dr. Thiagarajan received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Indiana University, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Maryland.

Curtis Tucker is a conductor and composer and currently serves as Artistic Director of Lake George Opera at Saratoga. He has led a wide variety of concert and educational programs with this summer opera festival, and has been instrumental in maintaining the company’s Apprentice Artist Program. Formerly the music director and conductor for the University of Northern Colorado Sinfonietta, Mr. Tucker has also appeared with the Cincinnati Opera, Syracuse Opera, Mobile Opera, Berkeley Opera, the San Francisco Chamber Singers, Masterworks Chorale of Middletown, among many other companies. An accomplished composer, Mr. Tucker has written numerous songs and choral works, and his chamber opera “The Stranger’s Tale” premiered in 2005 and headlined the 2009 RESONANZ festival in New York. Mr. Tucker is a founding board member for SaratogaArtsFest.

Catherine Wolff became General & Artistic Director of Syracuse Opera in September 2007, after having served as the company’s General Director since 1996. Ms. Wolff has a diverse background in the non-profit performing arts with a demonstrated record of success in sound financial management, creative program development, and collaborative community projects gained while serving opera, symphony, university, service and presenting organizations. Prior to coming to Syracuse, Ms. Wolff was Executive Director of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Administrator of Pittsburgh Opera, and Administrator of the Pittsburgh Opera Center at Duquesne University.

Phillip Ying, as violist of the Ying Quartet, performs regularly across the United States, Europe and Asia. He recently won a Grammy award for his work with the Ying and Turtle Island String Quartets and is a recipient of the Naumburg Award for chamber music. Mr. Ying has also been presented numerous times in recital and as a soloist with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony and the Aspen Festival Chamber Orchestra. He has been recorded by EMI and other labels. Mr. Ying is an Assistant Professor of Viola and an Associate Professor of Chamber Music at the Eastman School of Music. In addition, Mr. Ying currently serves as President of Chamber Music America, a national service organization for chamber music ensembles, presenters and artist managers. He received his education at Harvard University, the New England Conservatory, and the Eastman School of Music.

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Presenting

Amy Chin is a non-profit arts consultant working in the cultural field for over 25 years as a producer, performer, presenter, educator, and administrator. Ms. Chin has performed and taught in thousands of cities across America and developed unique arts programs for schools, theaters, and broadcast media. Ms. Chin helped establish and direct the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation and New York Chinese Cultural Center/Chinese Folk Dance Company and was an Arts Program Specialist for the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. She has advised foundations and non-profit cultural organizations nationwide and is an active board member for CREATE in Chinatown and Ping Chong & Company. Ms. Chin also serves as an appointee to the Mayor’s Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission for the City of New York.

Veronica Claypool has been the Managing Director at the Theater Development Fund (TDF) since 1997. She served as Company Manager for McCann & Nugent on Broadway. She was General Manager for the smash Broadway hits Lena Horne: The Lady and her Music, the Broadway run and national tour of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe starring Lily Tomlin. She also worked as General Manager of the Ahmanson and Doolittle Theatres at the Los Angeles Music Center for the seasons which included August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson”, “Les Liasons Dangereuses”, and “Into the Woods”, among others. has served on the Tony Awards Nominating Committee, the Lucille Lortel Nominating Committee, National Endowment for the Arts Theatre Panel, the New York State Council on the Arts Theatre Panel, the Mayor’s Midtown Citizens Committee, and other panels.

Amy Flack joined the Thousand Islands Performing Arts Fund, which manages the Clayton Opera House in Clayton, NY, as Executive Director in 2006. Her experience in the arts includes various administrative and stage management positions at the Community Performance Series in Potsdam, the Hangar Theatre, Kitchen Theatre and Tin Can Fantasy Factory in Ithaca, NY; Etcetera Theatre Club in London, England; and with the Princess Grace Foundation and American Ballet Theatre in New York City.

Laura Kratt is the Executive Director of the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. She has more than 20 years of experience in the art management and presenting field, having managed professional theatres in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Fort Lauderdale and Georgia. Prior to her arrival at the Music Hall in 2001, Ms. Kratt served as the Managing Director of the State Theatre of Georgia, the Springer Opera House. She was responsible for managing a lively producing theatre company and 1871 era National Historic Landmark building. Ms. Kratt is a Peer Consultant for the League of Historic American Theatres, trained piano technician, and founding member of the Georgia League of Historic Theatres.

Peter Lesser has been executive director of the Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center Corporation since August 2000. During his tenure, the Center has expanded its programming significantly, hosting nearly 250-300 events annually, including contemporary and traditional dance, music, theatre and family performances, featuring companies from across New York, the United States and around the world. In addition to its regular programming, the Center has developed several special projects to build new audiences for the performing arts while supporting the work of New York State based artists. Since 2007, Mr. Lesser has worked closely with New York State presenters in developing the New York State Presenters Network (NYSPN) service organization and currently chairs the NYSPN Advisory Committee. Prior to his appointment at the Center, Mr. Lesser was managing director of the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall Corporation in Troy, NY.

Jorge B. Merced is the Associate Director of the Bronx-based, Pregones Theatre. He is a well-respected theatre artist in the Latino community and the field at large. In his several years of experience, Mr. Merced has worked as both an actor and dancer, receiving many awards, among them the HOLA Hispanic Actors Award and the ACE Hispanic Critics Award. He is presently vice-Chair of the board of the Association of Hispanic Arts. 

Stephen P. Millikin is the Development Manager of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and oversees the creation and implementation of the Center's development strategy and long-term fundraising plan. Mr. Millikin has an extensive background in public relations, marketing, and advertising. He held the position of Vice President at Formula Public Relations, a California-based agency in New York City, before joining the Fisher Center. Mr. Millikin was formerly the Manager of Audience Development and Public Relations at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Director of Special Events for the San Francisco Opera.

Bob Mortis is the Director of Performing Arts for the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, NY.  As chief administrator for the Performing Arts division, Mr. Mortis is responsible for programming multiple series that feature world famous soloists and ensembles, rising stars, recitals with commentary, weekly independent and foreign films, family programs, special events and educational activities. Prior to becoming the Director of Performing Arts in 2004, Mr. Mortis served MWPAI as Assistant Director and Ticket Office Manager. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors for the Rotary Club of Utica and the Players of Utica.

Andrea Rockower has been the Associate Director of Lehman Center for the Performing Arts since 1985. She is responsible for programming, fundraising and community outreach projects, including government contracts/corporate sponsorships, and producing the free Young People's Series for Bronx school children. She served as the Center's Acting Director during Spring, 2005. Previously, she was a Program Officer at Meet The Composer and taught theatre arts at Theodore Roosevelt Hight School in the Bronx.

Lili Santiago-Silva is an arts management consultant. Ms. Santiago-Silva was formerly the Theater Development Manager of Teatro Heckscher of El Museo del Barrio and was responsible for programming at the theatre, as well as producing the Three Kings Day Parade and the Budweiser Summer Nights music festival. She was Assistant Director of the Children’s Special String Program at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico and taught Drawing, Art and Theatre Appreciation at the Interamerican University in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. She managed the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as programming for the Teton Music Festival in Wyoming. She has lived in New York City since 1986, working at INTAR, Thalia Spanish Theatre, the Puerto Rican Family Institute, and El Museo. In 2007, she was honored by the Yonkers Puerto Rican Day Parade for her work in promotion of Hispanic arts and culture and recently worked on the Jorge Polaco’s new film in Argentina: Arroz con Leche to be released in 2008.

Thomas Weidemann is the Executive Director of the Clemens Center, a magnificent 1,600 seat historic theatre in Elmira NY, and has served in this capacity since 1983. Mr. Weidemann is a seasoned presenter of all genres of work ranging from the most traditional touring productions to contemporary new work.

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Special Arts Services

Gregory R. Christie is an award-winning illustrator and painter. Christie has created covers for magazines, jazz albums, children's books and newspaper features. A regular contributor to the New Yorker Magazine, his books have recently been animated for PBS and educational DVD's. Christie is dedicated to illuminating the experiences of today's young people and has designed a series of workshops in art techniques that he is currently presenting in schools across the country.

Donna Clark is a dancer, teacher/choreographer and actor. Presently Associate Director of the Alpha-Omega 1-7 Theatrical Dance Company, Clark received her BA in Psychology and Education from Baruch College with a specialty in the Psychology of the Workplace. Clark has danced at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, Martha Graham School and Broadway Dance Center. Her theatre experience includes such productions as Porgy &  Bess in Austria, “Been Rich All My Life” at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theatre and the national tour of “The Wiz”.

Jose Antonio Cruz, Associate Producer of the Spanish Theatre Repertory Company (Repertorio Espanol), has a theatrical career as both artist and manager. His many credits include positions at Walt Disney Productions and Stephen Sondheim’s Young Playwrights, Inc. in New York and MusicaMusica Productions in Puerto Rico. Cruz received his Masters Degree in Performing Arts at New York University and has volunteered at a number of local arts organizations. Cruz has served on panels for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Marisol Diaz, a Bronx-based photographer and graphic artist, is Program Director of En Foco, an important gallery and workspace now entering its 35th year of supporting and presenting artists of color. In addition to receiving numerous honors, awards and grants for her own work, Ms. Diaz is a widely respected curator, teacher and lecturer, with extensive experience in the field of fine arts and education. Her work is featured in many publications, including Mosaic Literary Magazine and New York Newsday. Presently, Ms. Diaz teaches photography to teens and adults at the Bronx river Art Center.

Carla Eliana Godoy is a filmmaker and media specialist. She is founder and Executive Director of Art for Change, an organization dedicated to advancing and assisting the institutional development of arts organizations, including creating fundraising strategies, special events, and providing stewardship for all managerial tasks.

Keith Hamilton Cobb, an Emmy Award nominee for his leading role in the soap opera, “All My Children”, is an actor with a wide range of stage experience nationally; including the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, the Alliance Theatre of Georgia and North Shore Music Theatre on Long Island. Trained at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Cobb has several major TV shows to his credit; notably, the lead in the popular SciFi series, “Andromeda” and guest roles on “CSI Miami”, “Twilight Zone” and “Fresh Prince of Bel Air”. His teaching credits include producing and directing student ensembles at Westchester Community College in New York and the Young Storytellers Foundation in Los Angeles.

Kate Hymes is a published poet, instructor and workshop leader with several years' experience in the field of adult education for writers both beginning and established. Presently the Executive Director of the Hudson Valley/Catskill Partnership of the Sullivan County BOCES, Ms. Hymes offers special seminars as a member of Cave Canem, a consortium committed to the works of African American poets. Currently, she is a board member of the Dutchess County Arts Council.

Leslie Jones is Executive Director of the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenburg Music School at Lighthouse International where she has made music training and the arts an integral part of the programs offered to the disabled community. There, she has developed an Assistive Music Technology Center, expanding community outreach for the School. Jones holds a DMA from the University of Cincinnati College – Conservatory of Music and, has served on the faculties of Ithaca College and Montana State University. An accomplished classical and contemporary pianist, she performs widely and offers workshops in jazz techniques throughout the New York City area.

Stuart Sachs is a Brooklyn-born sculptor and furniture designer with studios in Newburgh, N.Y. where he created and chairs Arts & Culture Commission. Sachs was instrumental in writing Newburgh’s Percent for Art Legislation and implemented the first Percent project at its new courthouse, in addition to developing special events including performance art, music and literary festivals. As an artist, Sachs is known for his architectural metalwork and environmental pieces, which often have a performance component. Sachs has juried several arts projects and has MA degrees in photography and modern art from New York University and the Sorbonne, respectively; and a BA from Amherst College, in photography, theory and philosophy.

Tsehaya Smith, a veteran choreographer, dancer and teacher, is a Detroit native and graduate of Wayne State University in addition to her studies in the Caribbean and Africa. Smith has performed extensively throughout the U.S., Europe and South America over the past 20 years. Now based in Albany, N.Y. where she is Executive Director of her dance ensemble, Artpartners/Tsehaya & Company, Smith is very active in her community, having developed the Alternatives for Youth Dance Program along with teaching and special events for the NAACP and other local agencies and school districts. Smith has received numerous awards and honors and is especially proud of her work with young people. To that end, she is presently pursuing an MA/PHD in Criminal Justice “to utilize the performing arts as a weapon for social change”. 

Shawn F. Termin is a member of the Oglala-Lakota Nation with a background in performing as well as visual and folk arts. Currently the Cultural Arts Manager/Program Producer at the National Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan. Mr. Termin's field experience is extensive, including curatorial and consulting positions at the Whitney Museum and the Museum of the City of New York. In addition, she has been a guest lecturer at Fordham, Seton Hall and New York Universities. For the past several years she has curated the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival series.

Kaoru Watanabe is a musician working in Western and Japanese techniques. Born in St. Louis, MO to classical musician parents, Watanabe received a BFA in Jazz flute and saxophone performance from Manhattan School of Music and spent several years in Japan, where he toured widely with KODO, one of that country’s most well known Taiko drumming ensembles. In New York City he resumed his performance activities as well as creating the Kaoru Watanabe Taiko Center where classes are offered regularly. Presently, Watanabe is curating a series of Japan-influenced music, art and dance events at a neighborhood venue in Manhattan’s East Village. 

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State and Local Partnerships

Rongrong Chen is the program Director for the Chinese American Arts Council, responsible for managing all aspects of a long establish service organization serving the needs New York City’s Chinese community. Previously Rongrong acted as Production manager at composer Tan Dun’s studio and assisted with producing the PBS one man show “From Mao to Met”. Rongrong holds a MA in Music Education from New York University. 

Kate Conroy is the Executive Director of the New York Multi-Arts Centers Consortium (NYMACC). She has previously served as the board President of the Catskill Art Society. She is also a Community Organizer & Consultant with Conroy Media. Ms. Conroy has also served as an Executive Producer with Film Production & Creative Service Co.'s and as Production Manager and Assistant Director with a number of agencies. She holds a BA in Art History.

Mark J. Eamer is the Executive Director of the Tri County Arts Council. His past work includes negotiating multi-million dollar purchase contracts for two major retail chains, the launch of an annual "ArtWalk" in downtown Cobleskill in 2005, and the creation of "A Cobleskill Celebration" annual community day in 2006.

Angela Gittens has extensive experience in delivering arts services to communities of color, and has used her multilingual skills to enhance access to important resources for underserved and immigrant neighborhoods in New York City.  She holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the Tisch School at New York University and currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Dance at Barnard College.

Vanessa Greene is a Program Officer at the Long Island Community Foundation. Ms. Greene holds an Executive MBA from Queens College in Charlotte, NC, aBA from Simmons College in Boston, MA, and has also completed Graduate Studies in Political Science at Atlanta University. She has previously served as Regional Vice President of Primerica (a member of Citigroup) and as General Manager of WLMC-AM Radio in Georgetown, SC.

Daniel W. Hayes has specialized in program development, communications, and planning fields since the mid-1980s. His background in political campaigns, environmental hazards, and the Arts has afforded him the ability to run the gamut of development and management, media contacts, speech writing, large and small-scale events planning, negotiation, and a full spectrum of fund raising and contribution programs. 

Julia Lu is the Senior Program Officer for the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. She has served as the Director of Programs at the American Academy in Rome and the Program Director of Chamber Music America.

Sergio Munoz Sarmiento is an artist, writer, and lecturer interested in cultural production stemming from the discursive sites of art, law, and philosophy. His work has been shown at national and international exhibitions in Mexico, Germany, Spain, Dallas, New York City, and Los Angeles. In April of 2007 he was awarded a Swing Space grant by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Mr. Sarmiento has previously taught at Hofstra University and Harvard University. He is currently a staff attorney and director of Education with Volunteer Lawyers for the arts in New York City.

Linda J. Park has most recently worked with Leveraging Investments in Creativity, a ten-year national initiative to improve the conditions for artists working in all disciplines. Previous to that, she served as a Program Officer at the New York Foundation for the Arts. Before joining NYFA, Ms. Park was a curatorial and arts management consultant at Howell Art & Design in New York City. From 2001 to 2004, Ms. Park was the Curatorial and Development Associate at Downtown Arts Projects and worked extensively with US and Canadian artists. She has curated and organized individual artist projects, group exhibitions, as well as been involved in developing career resource programs. Ms. Park was the Principal Organizer of Brewster 2003 Collaborations, a public art project in upstate New York, and her writing has been in published in periodicals such as Read Baby (Art & Culture), Latitute 53, and See Magazine.

Stephen Svoboda is an internationally produced award winning playwright (Best of the Fest, 2004, 2006 Fringe Festival) and has previously been Director of Miami Summer Theater Academy and the Managing Artistic Director of Miami Studio Theater. With experience as an instructor of Dramatic Writing, Theatrical Direction and Text Analysis, Stephen has also done extensive volunteer work in Kenya and Tanzania for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. He is currently the Executive Director for the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts. Stephen holds an MFA from Ohio University.

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Theatre

Debra Ann Byrd is the founding Producing Artistic Director of Take Wing and Soar Productions, an Off Off Broadway theatre company that gives classically trained actors of color an opportunity to perform roles that they would rarely do in more mainstream classical theatres. Ms. Byrd is an actor, director and graphic artist who was recently honored with the Lucille Lortel Award from the League of Professional Theatre women. 

Angelina Fiordellisi is the Producing Artistic Director of the Cherry Lane Theatre, where she co-founded the Cherry Lane Mentor Project (a 2008 Obie Award Winner).  Ms. Fiordellisi is an actor and director who has helped to develop and produce the work of more than 50 emerging playwrights.

Rahwa Ghirmatzion is the Executive Director and Producer of Buffalo’s Ujima Theatre. Ms. Ghirmatzion has been recognized by the John R. Oishei Foundation as one of Buffalo’s significant young cultural leaders. She has served as a panelist for Erie County’s Decentralization grants, and completed a Not-for Profit Management Development Program through the Harvard Business School.

John Haldoupis has served as Artistic Director for Rochester's Blackfriars Theatre for over 20 years. He has directed or designed over 200 productions in Western New York. In the late 1980s, he was Artist in Residence at the Chautauqua Institution. A signature member of the National Watercolor Society, he has won awards and exhibited work at many museums throughout the country.

Morgan Jenness spent over a decade at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater in various capacities ranging from literary manager to Director of Play Development to Associate Producer. She was also Associate Artistic Director at the New York Theater Workshop, and an Associate Director at the Los Angeles Theater Center in charge of new projects. She has worked as a dramaturg, workshop director, and/or artistic consultant at theaters and new play programs across the country. Ms. Jenness has also participated as a visiting artist and adjunct in playwriting programs at the University of Iowa, Brown University, Breadloaf, Columbia and NYU and is currently on the adjunct faculty at Fordham University. She currently works at the Literary Department at Abrams Artists Agency in New York City.

Hattie Jutagir has served as Director of Development at Lincoln Center Theatre since 1989. Before that, she was the Director of Development for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts from 1981. 

Laura Margolis is the founding Executive Artistic Director of Stageworks on the Hudson, the oldest producing Equity theatre in Columbia County. Ms. Margolis is a stage director and former college instructor (at SUNY Albany) who has served on her county’s Decentralization panel, and is active in Hudson’s Chamber of Commerce.

Manuel Moran is the founder and CEO/Executive Director of the Society of the Educational Arts (SEA). He holds a Ph.D. in Educational Theatre from NYU, and currently serves on the boards of UNIMA (Union Internationale de la Marionette) and HOLA (Hispanic Association of Latin Actors).

Natalia Mount is the Executive Director of the Redhouse, a multi-arts center in Syracuse. She was a founder and director of Next Art Gallery, a commercial art gallery in Soho, and FLUX Art Space, also in New York City. She was a Professor of Arts Administration at Metropolitan College of New York, and also worked at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art.

Stephen Nunley is the Managing Director of the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca, a small regional theatre that produces new and contemporary plays and musicals year-round. A former modern dancer and general manager of a restaurant in New York City, Nunley serves on the board of the Jenna Foundation and the Downtown Ithaca Alliance. 

Clint Ramos is a set and costume designer whose New York designs have been seen at the Public Theatre, Second Stage, Culture Project, Foundry, Vineyard, Ma-Yi, Mint, and a number of others. He has been a visiting artist and professor at Georgetown University, and is the recipient of the 2009 TDF Irene Sharaff Young Master Award.

Eleanor Reissa is a playwright, director, choreographer, actor and singer who formerly served as Artistic Director of the Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre. She received a Tony Award nomination for her direction of the Broadway show Those Were the Days, and a Drama Desk nomination for her direction of Soldier's Wife at the Mint Theatre, where she serves on the board. She has recorded two solo CDs of Yiddish songs that she has performed at international festivals.

Jeffrey Sanzel is the Executive Artistic Director of Theatre Three Productions, a regional theatre company located in Port Jefferson, on Long Island. He is a stage director and playwright who has also worked as an education director and teaching artist in addition to teaching theatre on the high school and college levels.

Lloyd Suh is the Artistic Director of Second Generation, a contemporary Asian-American theatre company. He is an actor, director and playwright whose work, including the hit Off Broadway play “American Hwangap,” has earned him grants from the NEA, the Mellon and Jerome Foundations and TCG. His work has been seen at Ma-Yi Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, as well as the McCarter Theatre and Mark Taper Forum.

Barbara Toy is the Development Director for the American Theatre Wing and has worked as a fundraising consultant for 16 years, for organizations such as Amas Musical Theatre, A.R.T./New York, the New Group and LAByrinth Theatre Company. She has produced short narrative films and commercials for clients such as Microsoft, SoftImage and Culp Productions.

Clyde Valentin is the Executive Director of Hip Hop Theatre Junction, which produces the Hip Hop Theatre Festival in NYC and Washington, D.C. Mr. Valentin is a former panelist for the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs who has worked closely with Danny Hoch and other Hip Hop artists to build the festival and its outreach activities.

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Visual Arts

Isolde Brielmaier is a professor at Vassar College in the Department of Art and teaches contemporary art, African art, pop culture and gender, race and class studies. In 1995-96 she was program manager for two major exhibitions concerning African Art presented by the Guggenheim Museum. She has curated exhibitions at Eyebeam (NYC), ARCO (Madrid), Berrie Art Center Galleries (New Jersey) and the Atlanta College of Art (Georgia). She has published in numerous periodicals and contributed to exhibition catalogues in addition to giving public lectures. She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation and Columbia University. Recently, she curated Signs Take for Wonders at Jack Shainman Gallery.

Mary Lou Cohalan has been the director of the Islip Art Museum, a leading exhibition space for contemporary art on Long Island, for nearly 20 years. During that time, she initiated and developed The Carriage House, an artist’s workspace that has served more than 250 artists and is one of the founding members of the New York State Artists Workspace Consortium. Mrs. Cohalan has curated numerous exhibits and has published articles on a variety of art-related subjects, including essays on current trends in abstraction, representations of aging in art history, and an analysis of the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s literary style.She graduated from Bryn Mawr College and received her MA in Art History and Criticism from Stony Brook University. For many years she published and edited an award-winning chain of community newspapers on Long Island. 

Hannah Frieser is the director of Light Work, in Syracuse. She has curated exhibitions with photographers such as William Earle Williams, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Rik Pinkcombe, Ben Gest, Kanako Sasaki, and Suzanne Opton. She also oversees Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program and publications. Prior to her position at Light Work, Hannah worked with the Society for Photographic Education (SPE) for over ten years. Having held many responsibilities within SPE, including onsite conference coordinator at SPE’s national conferences and membership registrar, she was recently elected to SPE's national board of directors. She has been chosen to co-chair an SPE national conference, scheduled for 2010, that will focus on diversity and multiculturalism. Hannah is a photographer and book artist. She was born and raised in Stuttgart, Germany.

Lia Gangitano is the founder and director of PARTICIPANT, Inc. an interdisciplinary venue for the development and realization of artistic and curatorial projects in New York City. She has been curatorial advisor at MoMA’s P.S. 1 and curator at the, now defunct, Thread Waxing Space. She has written extensively, lectured on performance art at numerous museums and educational institutions and recently taught seminars on contemporary curatorial practice at New York University.

Jeffrey Gibson is a Brooklyn-based multi-media artist practicing in sculpture, painting, works on paper and installations. Recent venues for his work have been Diverseworks and the Kentler International Drawing Space. In 2008, he was in residence at the School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe and in 2005 he received a Creative Capital Foundation grant. Mr. Gibson holds degrees from the Art Institute of Chicago (BA) and the Royal College of Art in London (MA).

Regan L. Grusy is the Director of Development at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Before taking this position in 2006, she led fundraising initiatives at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and at Exit Art/The First World. Ms. Grusy graduated magna cum laude with honors from Beloit College (BA) and received her masters degree in arts administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Leslie Hewitt, a native of Queens, works with photography, sculpture and site specific installations. She has exhibited internationally and her work is in the collections of MoMA, The Studio Museum and the Fogg Art Museum, among others. Hewitt studied at Cooper Union (BFA), Yale University (MFA), and was the Clark Fellow in the Africana and Visual Culture Studies program at New York University. Her work was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial and she has upcoming shows in Houston, Los Angeles and various New York venues. In the spring of 2010 she will conclude a year long residency at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Wayne Hodge is a multi-disciplinary and performance artist whose work has recently been presented at P.S. 1, Rush Arts Gallery, the Studio Museum and Kunstraum BLAST in Cologne, Germany. His residency awards include the Whitney Independent Study Program, Artist in the Marketplace at the Bronx Museum, Smack Mellon Studios and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. He is the recipient of fellowship awards from Franklin Furnace, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Creative Capital (2008).

Sina Khajeh-Najafi is editor-in-chief of Cabinet, an award winning internationally distributed non-profit, quarterly publication with a readership of 12,000. Through his art and culture organization, Immaterial Incorporated, he organizes conferences, art projects, sound events and exhibitions. His collaborative projects have included partnerships with P.S. 1/MoMA; White Columns; the Whitney Museum; Sculpture Center; and the Queens Museum. He has lectured extensively at leading arts institutions including the University of Pennsylvania; New York University; Yale; Virginia Commonwealth; Cooper Union; and Fordham University. Mr. Najafi holds a doctorate from New York University, an MA from Columbia and a BA from Princeton.

Patricia Lockwood-Blais has worked at the Earlville Opera House since 1992 and took the position of Executive Director in 2002. During this time she successfully introduced and then integrated a vital and ongoing gallery program into a presenting facility and worked to bring highly professional contemporary art exhibitions to her rural area. She is a fiber artist and writer and holds a BA from Cornell University.

Omar Lopez-Chahoud is an independent curator, writer and practicing artist. He has participated on numerous art advisory/selection committees and been guest speaker at many New York based non-profits including P.S. 122, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Art in General, the Whitney Museum and the Drawing Center. His curatorial experience includes exhibitions at the Queens Museum, Apex Art, Clementine Gallery. His art work has been seen at Taller Boricua, Islip Art Museum, Five Years Gallery (London), and spaces in Philadelphia, Raleigh, Berlin, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo. Mr. Lopez-Chahoud has a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts from the Royal Academy of Art, London and a Master of Fine Arts in painting from Yale University.

Ivan Monforte has exhibited, and been selected for workspace residencies, at a number of NYSCA funded organizations. The various organizations where he has worked reflect the multi-disciplinary approach to art making that many artists use today: Lower East Side Print Shop, Center for Book Arts and the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture. His work has been included in group shows at El Museo del Barrio, Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Rush Arts Gallery, the Bronx Museum and Longwood Art Gallery. His BFA is from UCLA; his MFA from New York University. 

Rachel Seligman is the director and curator for the Mandeville Gallery at Union College in Schenectady. She also is curator of Union’s permanent art collection. Previously she was assistant director and gallery coordinator at the Lake George Arts Project. She has been an adjunct lecturer at the College of St. Rose in Albany, at the Adirondack Community College in Queensbury, and Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. Outside Union College she has curated and mounted exhibitions for local non-profits and arts councils. Ms. Seligman has degrees from George Washington University (MA) and Skidmore College (BA)

Mina Takahasi is the editor of Hand Papermaking Magazine, the former Executive Director of Dieu Donne Papermill and is an expert in Japanese hand papermaking techniques. She has produced projects with many renowned artists including Richard Tuttle, William Kentridge, Lesley Dill, Jim Hodges, Jane Hammond, Melvin Edwards and Mel Bochner. She lectures, gives demonstrations and teaches worldwide. Ms. Takahashi holds degrees from Oberlin University and Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.

Martha Wilson is the founding director of Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc., a virtual institution devoted to the variable media arts such as artists’ books, performance art, temporary installations and works engaging the internet as an art medium and venue. She has taught and/or lectured at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University; Baruch College; the School of Visual Arts; and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. A tireless advocate for artists’ freedom of expression, she has received citations and awards for her commitment to these principles from the Robert S. Clark, Nathan Cummings, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore, Rockefeller and Andy Warhol Foundations. She is the recipient of an Obie award, a Bessie award and two NEA grants for performance art. Recently her work has been included in shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University.

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