PELE BAUCH is a choreographer and arts manager. Pele joined The Field in 2004 after benefiting from its programs for six years.  As Associate Director, she manages The Field’s career and creative development curriculums and our two-year capacity building project. In 2007 she received a Passing it On BAXten award for her work at The Field. She has published articles on artist services in BackStage and Contact Quarterly. From 2001 to 2004, Pele was Development Officer for government and individual support at The Joyce Theater Foundation. She has also held development positions at the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company and Young Dancers in Repertory. As a choreographer, Pele received a 2009-2010 Joyce SoHo Artist Residency for a new work which will be presented at the Chocolate Factory in November 2010.  Her choreography has been selected for presentation at many NYC venues including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Danspace Project at St. Marks Church, Movement Research at the Judson Church, HERE’s American Living Room and the Best of the American Living Room, Performance Space 122, Dixon Place, and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange.  Pele has also received a Dance Theater Workshop Creative Residency and support from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Harkness Foundation for Dance. Pele pronounces her name "pelly." www.pelebauch.org

 

PATRICIA BURGESS is a composer, producer and musician. Her multi-media production Reflections of the Watermoon was presented by World Music Institute and Mutable Music at Merkin Concert Hall. It featured Joan La Barbara as Amelia Earhart. Other works include the opera, The Dream of the Four Directions, and music for theater classics including The Seagull. Collaborations with Ariane Smith include Lysistrata-The Human Cartoon, The Decameron and The Venus Cycle. Burgess studied composition with Dr. Dominick Argento, jazz with Dr. Ruben Haugen and Dr. Joe Viola and world music with Jerry Granelli. She worked with the Art Ensemble of Chicago in the study of new music. She served as Resident Composer for the Independent Theater Company of New York. She currently works at The Field as the Membership Manager.

 

JENNIFER WRIGHT COOK, Executive Director, has worked on both coasts in arts management and as a dance/theater performer for more than 15 years.  Jennifer was Director of Development for the Working Theater (95-98; 05-07) and Vector Theater (CA 00-02). She has also consulted for LightBox Theater, SITI, Pam Tanowitz, Dancers’ Group and Banana, Bag & Bodice.  Jennifer got her early administrative training at New York University (Gallatin, BA, 1995) and then at The Field in their Arts Manager Partnership program.  Jennifer returned to The Field in 2006 as Co-Director and was promoted to Executive Director in 2007.  Her work has been recognized by published articles in Backstage and AM New York, interviews on WNYC Public Radio, and by participation on panels, seminars, and at roundtables (CUNY Prelude Festival, Americans for the Arts, Future of Music, Center for an Urban Future, Pew Charitable Trust’s New York State Cultural Data Project Task Force).  The Field’s Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists program (ERPA), initiated and implemented by Ms. Cook, received an inaugural award from The Rockefeller Foundation’s Cultural Innovation Fund (2007).  Jennifer is a proud participant in the 2009 Coro Leadership New York XX1 program.  As a performer, teacher and art-maker, Jennifer has performed/created with the Joe Goode Performance Group (97-04 San Francisco), and with Neil Greenberg, Sarah Skaggs, Wendy Blum, Victoria Mendoza, Kenn Watt, Mark Dendy and others (NY 90-06).  She has performed her own work in Madrid, New York (Danspace Project, The Bridge, Chez Bushwick, Gene Frankel Theater, Estrogenius), San Francisco and Portland, OR.  She sings in a gospel choir and lives in Brooklyn.

 

Originally from the Seattle area, MICHAEL HELLAND is a New York-based artist performing in the works of robbinschilds, Faye Driscoll, Big Art Group, and Marina Abramović. Past performance collaborations include works with RoseAnne Spradlin, Sam Kim, and Daniel Linehan. His works for the stage and collaborative event structures have been presented in venues including the Chocolate Factory Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, the Scope International Art Fair, and Studio 303. Michael also works in finance and marketing with multiple NYC arts organizations and curates Brink at Dixon Place. michaelhelland.wordpress.com

 

AUDRA DIAHANN LANG welcomed the opportunity to continue her service to New York City’s performing arts community by joining The Field staff as Manager of the Sponsored Artist Program in 2007. Audra received a crash course in the challenging needs of independent performing artists, while working with the multi-disciplinary, Williamsburg art space CAVE. In 2004, she helped CAVE make the transition from a studio/gallery space, supported financially by the artists-in-residence, to a non-profit organization. Along with assisting in the day-to-day administration of CAVE’s gallery space and four artist studios, she managed a year-long residency program for Vietnamese artists sponsored by The Ford Foundation and produced the 2nd New York Butoh Festival (NYBF). In the first year of fundraising ever for the NYBF, she secured grants from the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, MAP Fund, Goethe-Institute, and the Japan Foundation; corporate support from UNIQLO clothing, Sapporo Beer, and the Village Voice; and co-presented events with the Japan Society, Yale University, Purchase College, the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, Pancetta Movement, and Theater for the New City. Prior to CAVE, Audra primarily worked within the visual arts community, including work for Paris-based Yukiko Kawase Gallery, NY-based M.Y. Art Prospects, and the art magazines, Art & Auction, the International Guide to Art Fairs & Antique Shows and the contemporary Flash Art. She attended Barnard College/Columbia University focusing on East Asian Religious Study and Sanskrit.

 

CASSIE TERMAN is a performer, writer, and teacher. Since moving to New York in 2004 she has performed her improvisations and physical theater work at CRS, Issue Project Room, Solar One Festival, Chelsea Art Museum, The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Cave, and Symphony Space among others. She works extensively with Ruth Zaporah in Action Theater and is a Senior Teacher of that form. Currently she is a member of Company so.go.no and the Reflex Ensemble, as well as producing solo works. She holds an MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University and is on Faculty at JFK University in Berkeley, CA. She has a long history of arts administration and is delighted to be serving The Field as Finance Manager. www.cassieterman.com

 

 

 

KAREN BERNARD is an eclectic creator and solo performer whose work has appeared at the Royal Albert Hall as part of Captain Beefheart's Magical Band British tour to conceptual live performance at the Tate Gallery in London in collaboration with artist David Tremlett. In New York she produced several full-length concerts of her work between 1986 and 1998 at Dia Center for Arts and produced at numerous venues including BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, PS122 and The Kitchen. She has performed, taught and lectured throughout the United States, Canada and abroad. In 2005 she co-published a handmade book "Removed Exposure", based on her live performance of the same name in collaboration with Montréal artist Gray Fraser/Production Gray, her daughter Alex Wixon and Newfoundland photographer Sheilagh O'Leary. She has received support through the Experimental Television Center, Meet the Composer, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Puffin Foundation, The Field's Independent Artist Challenge Program Grant and Movement Research Artist in Residence. She received a 2006 BAX10 award for the founding and development of New Dance Alliance's Performance Mix Festival. Since 1992, Karen has created twenty solo works and one group work in Fieldwork and continues to be inspired as a participant and facilitator.

JOANNE BURGESS, performer, writer and coach, has been involved in the exploration of the creative process in light of contemplative training for over fifteen years. She served as Production Manager at Merkin Concert Hall, the New York International Fringe Festival and at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. Burgess specializes in QLab, a software used to create rich multimedia timelines for live theatre, dance and installations. She has a M.A. in Psychology from Naropa University. She studied with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher known for his playwriting and poetry skills. Trained as a Personal and Professional Coach, Burgess focuses on empowering artists to find and release their own creative voices through contemplation and meditation. Burgess, as a Tibetan translator developed a teaching guide and CD package for teaching Tibetan oral translation and worked as an editor on the book Sun of Wisdom published by Shambhala Publications. Burgess lived in the Helambu region of Nepal for 7 years, 5 months a year. There she established a school and trained teachers so that the school could continue year round and after she had left. As an entrepreneur, her computer consulting company on Wall Street served Fortune 500 companies, designing software, writing manuals, installing software and training users. She is the former FAR Space and Fielday Production Manager at The Field. 

TANYA CALAMONERI came to New York after nearly a decade of working in the San Francisco Bay Area arts scene as an arts administrator and performer. Among her roles, she was Executive Director of Dancers’ Group, a Co-Director at 848 Community Space and Temescal Arts Center, Founding Faculty Member of the Experimental Performance Institute at New College, and a company member of inkBoat, a Butoh performance company, and Kim Epifano’s Epiphany Productions. In New York, she has helped found Studio 111, and is a member of The Fifth Floor, so.go.no. and CavEnsemble performance companies.

 

Since forming Elsie Management in 1995, LAURA COLBY has represented over twenty-five performing arts touring companies from four continents, coordinating tours to over two hundred global venues. She has served as Project Manager, forming presenter and funding consortiums to support the development, creation, and touring of new works for her clientele. She has served as Tour Coordinator for ten National Dance Project supported projects. In 2001, Colby founded Dance/USA’s Agents and Artist Representation Council and served as the Council’s Founding Chair for three years. Colby served on the board of Dance/USA and is presently the President of NAPAMA (North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents). A frequently invited speaker, she has conducted numerous workshops for artists and artist representatives throughout the country for performing arts service organizations and at industry convenings. She was the initiating facilitator between Dr. Edward Fishkin, Medical Director at Woodhull Hospital and Medical Center and the performing arts community in the creation of ArtistAccess, the groundbreaking healthcare program for artists and arts workers begun in May, 2005. Colby graduated with a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School.

 

STEVE GROSS has been involved with The Field since it began its life as a service organization in 1987. In addition to the various roles he has occupied at The Field, Steve has taught fundraising and arts administration courses at New York University and The Juilliard School, and served as Dance Curator at The Kitchen. As an artist, Steve's performances have been produced by organizations such as Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, and theaters outside New York City. His work has been supported by various grants, including two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Steve left his staff position at The Field in June 2006 and remains on the Board of Directors. Steve is currently a psychologist/psychotherapist in independent practice. www.doctorstevegross.com

MICHAELA HALL is an experienced performer, writer, teacher and coach. Her background combines a theatre arts degree and production experience with achievement in education, theatre, film, creative writing, and the non-profit sector. Currently she teaches public speaking and coaches a speech team at the oldest independent school for girls in New York City. She also serves on The Field's Board of Directors. 
  

ANDY HORWITZ currently lives in New York City, where he has worked as the producer at Performance Space 122. He has produced theatrical and literary events in NYC since 1995. He edits the alternative performance blog Culturebot.org, and co-produces The WYSIWYG Talent Show, the first-ever all-blogger series of readings and performances. He is also a writer and performer. His writing has appeared frequently at Nerve.com as well as other publications. His solo performances have been presented at numerous venues including HERE Arts Center, Dixon Place and P.S.122.  

 

AMY KAIL has shown her dances in performance spaces throughout New York City including The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, The Kitchen, Dixon Place, The Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Music Under Construction, Movement Research, The Community Center at Westbeth, The Cunningham Studio and Joyce SoHo. She has collaborates with many artists including Matt Aiken, Peter Bulow and Reiko Kawashima. As a dancer, she performed with Barbara Mahler, Anna Sokolow, Ruby Shang and Nancy Topf. Amy is currently a Teaching Artist with Lincoln Center Institute, Orchestra of St. Lukes and Mark DeGarmo and Dancers. She directed the Fridays at Noon Program at The 92nd Street Y and led workshops for students from 1997-2006. Amy graduated from The Juilliard School’s Dance Division and received a two year certificate from the Dance Education Laboratory at The 92nd Street Y. She has been involved with The Field as a participant and facilitator over the last ten years.

 

JODI KAPLAN runs a personal "boutique agency" where she books dance companies on extensive tours throughout the US and internationally. Additionally, she consults with both established and newly formed dance companies in developing stronger artistic programming and performing engagements. Over the past ten years, Jodi Kaplan & Associates (www.bookingdance.com) has booked tours for dozens of dance companies throughout the USA (including long-term residencies in New Orleans, Chicago, and Wisconsin), South and Central America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Guatemala), and Europe (Turkey, Germany, Spain). Her current roster includes Margie Gillis (South America/Europe), Molissa Fenley and Dancers, American Repertory Ballet, David Parker & The Bang Group, and Rebecca Stenn/PerksDanceMusicTheatre. JK&A also has a Boutique Roster of diverse dance companies including 10 NYC BR and 10 National BR companies that receive conference representation/touring guidance throughout the year. She has booked millions of dollars in touring for her artists and works regularly with theaters such as The Joyce Theater and the World Financial Center in NYC. Jodi has a BA from Smith College and a MFA in film from Columbia University. In addition to her booking work, Jodi is a dance filmmaker.

 

FRAN KIRMSER has worked for over twelve years, producing, promoting and fundraising for dance and theater. Collectively she has raised millions of dollars in institutional funding and corporate sponsorships for hundreds of companies. She has held positions in Development, Public Relations, Management, or Booking and Representation with the following organizations: Lincoln Center Avery Fisher Hall, Doug Varone and Dancers, Sandra Cameron Dance Center, Pentacle. She is a founder of manhattan theatre source where she served as Producing Artistic Director. Currently Fran is producing August Wilson's Radio Golf on Broadway nominated for four Tony Awards. Recently she founded Made to Move, Inc. - a non-profit dedicated to the advancement of public knowledge of the art of dance and theatre and co-created and produced the commercial musical "SIDD" based on the novel "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse. Additionally Fran has worked on the development of new theatrical works with Circle in the Square Repertory Theater and Musical Theatre Works among others. She is a graduate of Skidmore College with continuing education at NYU Tisch School of Dance and Columbia University. www.frankirmser.com

 

JAKI LEVY serves as the Director of New Media for Misnomer Dance Theater in New York City (www.misnomer.org). In this role, he has revamped Misnomer's online presence and marketing initiatives. He has developed an online Presenter Partnership & Audience Initiative. This new model has caught on, most notably with the Martha Graham Dance Company. During a 3 week Summer residency at Skidmore, Jaki helped the Martha Graham Dance Company break new ground by producing the company's first-ever live web broadcast of an open rehearsal (www.clytemnestraproject.com). Jaki has presented at Dance/USA's Winter Conference and leads workshops at The Field. He has also sat on various marketing panels, was a guest lecturer at Hofstra's Dance Department, and presented in Toronto at Soundstream's New Models of Distribution Conference. He plays an active role in merging dance, theater, video, and technology. His multi-disciplinary career began at NYU Tisch where he holds a Masters Degree from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, with a concentration in Arts and Technology. His thesis project included a full research project on the field of dance and emerging trends and forecasts for the next 10 years. He was among the first ever to receive the Digital Incubator Grant from Cisco. In addition to his theater work, he has acts as an online consultant for numerous arts organizations in NYC, leads workshops, and teaches courses in video production, and web design. He is an active member of the NYU Alumni association. Read more here: www.jakilevy.com/blog

 

SHALEWA MACKALL, choreographer, dancer and educator has studied, performed and created dance from childhood. She has named her work as a contemporary choreographer and her dance company, <I>Movement for the Urban Village</I>. It is a style of dance grounded in the varied social and spiritual movement traditions of the African Diaspora from the Ancient Mali Empire to Hip-Hop and Club Dance. As a dancer, Shalewa has performed nationally and internationally with many companies including, Maimouna Keita African Dance Company, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Giwayen Mata, Ballethnic, Nadia Dieudonné and Feets of Rhythm and Harambee. Additionally, Shalewa has lectured on contemporary social dance at leading universities across the country and regularly teaches West African Dance in New York City.

  

SUSAN OETGEN performs new music and experimental theater as a solo artist, as the leader of the band Likeness to Lily, and as a member of Accinosco. She is also the host and producer of the Opera Salon @ Caffè Vivaldi and Operations Associate at American Composers Orchestra. Susan is currently participating in the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s 2007 Composer Mentorship Program.

 

VITO SCLAFANI, a native New Yorker, has course work in Psychology from the State University of Stony Brook and a BA in Public Accounting from Pace University. Having worked for KPMG, Peat Marwick and other public accounting firms, Vito realized the need for more personalized service and expertise required by the arts community and the small business community and established his own firm, Vasco Accounting, in 1990. For the past eighteen years his firm has been servicing the arts and entertainment community. "I find that the small business and arts community in New York appreciates the personalized attention my firm is willing to give them," says Vito Sclafani.

 

RACHEL SCHROEDER is a transdisciplinary performing artist who writes, choreographs, performs, directs, dramaturges and teaches. She has collaborated on projects in France, England, Wales, Zimbabwe and the United States. A grantee of the Manhattan Community Arts Fund awarded by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in partnership with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs for the development of Heliantha, she has performed original solo works at P.S. 122, JoyceSoho, 92nd St. Y, Here Arts Center, Dixon Place, Chashama, White Wave, OneArmRed, Jennifer Muller/The Works studio, Michael Howard Studios, Lark Theater, Berkshire Theater Festival and Simon’s Rock College. Teaching credits include Dartmouth College, Wellesley College, Hofstra University, Pace University, CAP21, Berkshire Theater Festival, Wingspan Arts at the NEST+M school, Create-a-Play at PS 11, Ecole de Mime Corporel Dramatique (London), and University of Bangor (North Wales) and the Creative Center.

 

JAMES SCRUGGS wrote and produced a multi channel video installation called Disposable Men, a piece about NYC police shootings of unarmed black men; it had a private showing in DUMBO in May of 2000. In June of 2002, based on Disposable Men, the installation, he was awarded a Performance Art Grant from Franklin Furnace to complete a work in progress showing of Disposable Men. He was one of seven writers chosen to be a part of Naked Angels Writers Lab where his ten minute play, Thuggish, was performed in February of 2003. In March 2003 he was selected to be a resident artist at HERE Arts Center. Disposable Men was chosen to be included in the season of shows produced by HERE, and was performed in February 2005 for 8 days and was brought back for 4 weeks in June 2005. In January 2005 he received a grant from Edith and Bel Geddes Grant for an upgrade in design work on Disposable Men. In February 2005 he received a fellowship from The New Jersey State Council on the Arts for artistic excellence.

 

JANET STAPLETON has been working in the performing arts field in NYC for 20 years as an independent producer, consultant, manager and publicist. She currently divides her time between managing artists’ projects, serving as a publicist for dance companies, and working on marketing campaigns for a variety of performance-related projects. She was the Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Dance Theater Workshop (1994-1999); Co-Managing Director of Dance Theater Workshop (1997-1999); Managing Director of the Stephen Petronio Company (1990-94); and is Co-Founder/Producer (with Richard Move) of the acclaimed performance series Martha @ Mother. As an independent marketing consultant she has coordinated major promotional campaigns for three international festivals -- Dancing is the Isles (1998), France Moves (2000), and The New York Public Library’s Hellenic Festival (2004). She has also worked on PR projects with a number of organizations and artists including the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Stephen Petronio Company, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, DanceNow/NYC, Pam Tanowitz Dance, Nicholas Leichter Dance, Chunky Move, and Dance by Neil Greenberg, among many others. Janet served as a mentor as part of Pentacle’s Help Desk program (2000-06). She has been the Managing Director of Tere O’Connor Dance since 2000.

 

DIANE VIVONA has worked professionally in dance as a performer, choreographer, educator, and arts administrator. Her performance credits include five years as a soloist with the Lewitzky Dance Company in Los Angeles and seasons with Ron K. Brown, Troika Ranch, and the Robert Kovich Company in New York. From 1996 to 1999 she lived in the U.K. and served as Technique and Choreography faculty for Laban Centre London. She is the recipient of a 1999 Bonnie Bird New British Choreography Award for her work in site-specific installations. Since returning to the US she has had a visiting professorship at Richard Stockton State College of New Jersey, taught at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Manhattanville College, and been part of the New Techniques Laboratory at the 92 Street Y/Harkness Center for Dance. Diane was Executive Director of The Field from 2002- 2004. She has worked with Creative Capital Foundation on their Professional Development Program, and is currently a consultant for The Field's Art-Based programs. She works for the arts consultancy firm David Bury & Associates and performs and choreographs in New York City.

 

SUSAN WILBER has utilized her 20 years of extensive development, restaurant and catering experience to create, strategize and implement high profile special events for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Orchestra of St. Luke's, The Field, Lutèce, wineries, major corporations, non-profit organizations, chefs, individuals and artists. Her innovative events have been featured in The New York Times, The New York Observer, The New York Post, Time Out New York, Nation's Restaurant News, The Wine Enthusiast, Beverage Media and on WQXR. Susan is also the founder and Co-Owner of East End Excursions, (www.eastendexcursions.com) a wine tour and events business providing corporate and individual clients with professionally guided tours of the best wineries on the East End of Long Island. From 1994-1998, Susan was the Director of Career Development Programs for The Field. She has also performed and produced a number of independent and original off-off Broadway productions as a solo performer and for other artists.