We are pleased to announce panelists for the 2016-17 Choreographer + Composer Residencies in partnership with the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning (JCAL). Panels took place on June 22nd and 23rd at the National Opera Center. This is our second round of the residency and the number of applicants nearly tripled!

Many thanks to our panelists and nominators.

A complete list of this year’s Choreographer/Composer residents is available here.

*************************************************************************************

Choreographer Carrie Ahern and her company Present Pariah Inc. use the medium of the body to investigate spaces of taboo. She has a reputation for extensive research for each project combined with an ability to make viewers deeply uncomfortable and comfortable simultaneously. Current projects include: Borrowed Prey the two part performance in a butcher shop and cemetery; The Art of Burial the fantasy burial experience which she is also developing into a TED Talk; and The Pop-Up Gesture Store at 1067 PacificPeople, a store that sells experiences, not objects.

Karesia Batan is a modern dancer, and director of the Queensboro Dance Festival. Previously, she was co-founder and creative producer of Forward Flux, structuring residencies and exhibitions for interdisciplinary artists. She served as program producer for National Choreography Month, and curates performances for the LIC Arts Open. With her company The Physical Plant, Karesia’s choreography has been presented throughout NYC. Karesia founded the Queensboro Dance Festival in 2014 with the mission to strengthen the dance identity in Queens. She has been a guest speaker for Boston University, Pentacle, and is a grant recipient from Queens Council on the Arts.

Nina Goldman Has appeared on Broadway in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Contact, Swan Lake, The Red Shoes and The Phantom of the Opera. Other theater credits include Garsington Opera, The Kennedy Center, American Repertory Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, City Center, The Public Theater and Great Lakes Theater Festival. Dance credits include Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, The Car Man and Edward Scissorhands, Arthur Pita’s The Metamorphosis, National Ballet of Canada, Feld Ballets, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, and the Altogether Different Series. She did pre-production with Susan Stroman for her ballets for New York City Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet and performed in Stroman’s Little Dancer. She was rehearsal director for Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, assistant rehearsal director for The Cedar Lake Dance Company, and is currently the associate choreographer for The Phantom of The Opera US tour. Teaching credits include Sarah Lawrence College, Juilliard, Barnard, Metropolitan Opera, Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program at Hunter College.

Catherine Peila, Producer of International programs at Joffrey Ballet School, has over 30 years of experience producing, curating, commissioning and managing large and small creative industry organizations. She has both led and consulted for non-profit and for-profit private and community businesses and institutions locally and globally, while working alongside boards, foundation heads and government leaders in policy and programming for the fields of visual and performing arts. She was SDT Contemporary Dance Festival founder and international program director for over 18 years which grew to be the largest educational and performance festival in East Central Europe and Russia. She worked as executive advisor and advocate for cultural district development throughout East Central and Western Europe. She was founding member and executive leader for the cultural district of Rahway, NJ and as Executive/Artistic director of Dance New Amsterdam led projects to develop Lower Manhattan as a cultural corridor.  Ms. Peila has received numerous prestigious government and cultural sector awards and funding support for her programming at home and abroad. She has been published in and contributed to national and international cultural magazines, newsletters, blogs/vlogs, newspapers and academic sources since 2005 until the present.

Gus Solomons jr is a dancer, dance maker, mentor, writer, actor, retired arts professor from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, and 2-time Bessie Award recipient. He danced with Donald McKayle, Pearl Lang, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham, among others,  before founding the Solomons Company/Dance (1969-94) and PARADIGM (1996-2011) — a concert dance company for dancers over 50. He is currently a guest artist with Lawrence Goldhuber, John Heginbotham in New York, and Eszter Salamon in Europe and acted in Yasmin Reza’s Art at TornPage.