National Dance Project Partners

Cory Baker began her career with the Scottsdale Cultural Council in 2000 working in audience development for the organization’s three divisions: The Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Scottsdale Public Art Program. She currently serves as Director of Performing Arts. The Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts has a 30-year history as a multi-disciplinary presenting institution, and dance has always been at the heart of its programming. Since its inception, the Scottsdale Center for the Arts has been dedicated to the creation of new work and has commissioned work from Momix, Bella Lewizky, Urban Bush Women, and others. Cory serves on the Western Arts Alliance board, where she sits on the Strategic Planning Committee and is co-chair of the Mentoring and Networking Committee. She is a member of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, California Presenters, Dance/USA, and the Arizona Presenters Alliance.

Barclay is the immediate past President of the National Black Arts Festival (NBAF) in Atlanta, GA  Prior to NBAF he was the founding President and CEO of the August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburgh. He served for seven years as the Associate Director of the Performing Arts Center at the University of Texas at Austin and for nine years on the board of directors of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters ending his tenure as the association's Vice President. Barclay holds a BA from Loyola Marymount University, was a graduate fellow at Cornell University, and holds a law degree from Loyola Law School.

Erin Boberg Doughton, Performing Arts Program Director at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), has worked on PICA’s performance and residency programs since its inception in 1995.  She is part of the curatorial team for PICA’s annual TBA (Time-Based Art) Festival which features artists working in performance, media, visual arts and hybrid forms. She currently serves on the Board of the National Performance Network and is part of NPN's Performing Americas Curators group.

 Brohan brings over 30 years of experience, including as a faculty member in the Department of Theatre at the University of Michigan/Flint; General Manager for Ballet Michigan; Production Master Electrician with the Santa Fe Opera; Principal Public Events Manager at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and as Producing Director of theatre, music theatre and dance with Northwestern University.

Since becoming Director in 1988, Faure had developed the Bates Dance Festival into an internationally acclaimed contemporary dance program known for its artistic excellence, curatorial vision, and commitment to building community through dance. A former dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Faure also works as a  consultant specializing in dance. Faure is a founding member of The African Contemporary Arts Consortium and has been developing a cross-cultural exchange program with artists from Japan, Indonesia, Africa, Cuba, Portugal, and Mexico since 1994.

As Director of Concerts and Lectures, Mr. Johnson works with community partners and university departments to develop innovative programs to integrate and enhance campus and community engagement with the performing arts and scholarly/civic discussions. Johnson was the Director of Education and Audience Development at the University Musical Society (UMS) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor for 14 seasons, and also worked extensively with the Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul, MN.

Emil J. Kang serves as the University’s Executive Director for the Arts, a senior administrative post created in 2005.  In that year, Kang introduced and currently directs the University’s first major multi-disciplinary performing arts program, Carolina Performing Arts (CPA). The creation and presentation of new work serves as a core value and in its first five years, CPA commissioned over fifteen new works in every conceivable genre.  Kang is also Professor of the Practice in the Music Department and has taught courses in artistic entrepreneurship, the creative process and currently teaches a class on ‘understanding the world through music.’  Prior to Chapel Hill, Kang served as President of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.  He has also held positions with the Seattle Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and was an Orchestra Management Fellow with the League of American Orchestras.  Kang speaks often on the role of the arts in higher education and has conducted site visits evaluating the performing arts at other universities.  He has also served on grant panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and state arts councils across the country. He currently sits on the nominating committee of the board of the International Society of the Performing Arts (ISPA) and on the boards of directors of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), the North Carolina Symphony, and the Kenan Institute for the Arts at the North Carolina School of the Arts.

George Lugg, Associate Director of the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT), has been working in the field of contemporary performance since 1991. At REDCAT he oversees the implimentation of a diverse array of multidisciplinary programming, serves on the curatorial team for dance and theater, coordinates an ongoing series for new works and works-in-progress, and produces the annual New Original Works Festival. In addition to his work at REDCAT, he is currently Lead Program Consultant in the Performing Arts for the Creative Capital Foundation (2011–2012), and a Hub Site Representative for the National Dance Project (2012–14). He has served as a member of the U.S. curatorial team for the National Performance Network’s Performing Americas Project, and on artistic juries and panels for Creative Capital Foundation, United States Artists, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and Santa Monica Arts Commission, among others. George has a degree in Dance from the University of Washington.

Marjorie Neset has been the Executive Director of VSA arts of New Mexico/VSA North Fourth Art Center since 2001. Neset began her presenting career as Director of Cultural Affairs for the City of Albuquerque from 1977-1989, managing and/or programming the KiMo Theatre, South Broadway Cultural Center, and Public Art Program. From 1989-1992, Neset directed the New Performance Gallery in San Francisco. VSA North Fourth Art Center produces and presents artists in programs such as Global DanceFest, Wild Dancing West, and Two Worlds.

Jodee Nimerichter was appointed ADF Director in 2012, becoming the first woman to direct the Festival solely in 43 years. Ms. Nimerichter has worked for the Festival for the past 20 years in numerous capacities, beginning as an intern in 1992 after she discovered the ADF when The New York Times critic Jack Anderson's book The American Dance Festival arrived at her parent's home in Colorado when she was 16. What began with reading a book detailing the Festival's long history inspired a lifelong passion and dedication to serving the modern dance art form. Following her internship she continued on as the assistant to Charles L. and Stephanie Reinhart, and later became the Director of International Programs, where she helped further the ADF's mission to advance modern dance on an international platform by managing several dance festivals and exchange programs in over 20 countries. 

Since 1996, Martin Wechsler has been the Director of Programming for The Joyce Theater, a 472-seat theater for dance in New York City.  In this capacity, he selects more than 30 dance companies to perform each season, balancing a diverse range of dance genres, styles and countries of origin.  He also oversees The Joyce’s commissioning program, which provides dance companies with financial support to create new work.  In addition to the programming at The Joyce Theater, Mr. Wechsler curates the outdoor programming that The Joyce presents in various locations in New York City.  Mr Wechsler currently serves on the Dance NYC Advisory Board and the New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Awards Steering Committee.  Mr. Wechsler is on the planning team for The Joyce’s 1,000-seat theater for dance to be built on the site of the former World Trade Center.

Hussie-Taylor has twenty years of experience in arts administration and community relations. The former Director of the nationally acclaimed Colorado Dance Festival (CDF), she has also served as Artistic Director for Performance Programs at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and Deputy Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver. From 2000 to 2004, she taught in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of Colorado-Boulder and served as faculty, committee member, and director of the Department’s prestigious Visiting Artist Program. Since taking the helm at Danspace Project she has developed a critically acclaimed series, recently featured in The Sunday New York Times (Arts & Leisure Section, April 11, 2010), entitled Platforms 2010 which features artist curators and new contexts for dance presenting in New York City. As part of this program, she is editor of a new series of catalogues published by Danspace Project.

Ramaswamy's signature global collaborations are rooted in a creative vision that seamlessly carries Bharatanatyam, the classical dance of South India, into the 21st century. Her work is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, NEFA's National Dance Project, Japan Foundation/New York, USArtists International, Minnesota State Arts Board, McKnight Foundation, Bush Foundation, and a Joyce Award, and has been commissioned by the University of Minnesota, Walker Art Center, and American Composers Forum.

Since entering the National Ballet School (National Ballet of Canada, Toronto) at the age of ten Michael Reed has been deeply dedicated to the art of Dance. He has worked with ASU Gammage since retiring in 1995 from an international dance career with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Boston Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Ballet Du Nord.  Mr. Reed oversees curation of the ASU Gammage Beyond Series, Progressive Broadway Across America Arizona Broadway Series and the ASU Kerr Cultural Center as well as all Cultural Participation community and education programs. In his work at ASU, Mr. Reed has commissioned, presented and co-produced the works of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Trisha Brown, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch,  Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Eiko and Koma, Batsheva Dance Company,  The Bolshoi Ballet, Meredith Monk,  Nora Chipaumire, Company Jant-Bi, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Kota Yamazaki, Yen Mei and many other dance/movement artists. He has served as a managing producer for motion e, motion capture/live dance world premieres of Bill T. Jones and Trisha Brown at ASU and subsequent productions at Lincoln Center and the Monaco Dance Forum.  Michael is the Executive Producer of the 2006 original play Voices of Valor (stories of Latino WWII veterans) in collaboration with UT Austin (Texas Performing Arts). He has served as a board member for Western Arts Alliance, original member of Artes Americas, a Hubsite representative for the National Dance Project, a reviewer and panelist for Pew’s Dance Advance program, the National Endowment for the Arts, Association of Performing Arts Presenters/Lila Wallace-Arts Partners program, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and as a panel speaker or consultant for The Australian Council for the Arts, The Canada Council for the Arts, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Dance/USA, the Broadway League and Arizona’s CALA festival. Mr. Reed has presented, co-produced and created audience development and cultural participation programs for The Chekov International Theater Festival,  Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, Daniel Bernard Roumain, SITI Company & Anne Bogart,  El Teatro Campesino’s Zoot Suit & Luis Valdez, Philip Glass, Eiko & Koma, Sekou Sundiata,  Lila Downs, Israel Camerata, Perla Batalla and many other artists. He is an associate member of The Broadway League and will serve as the conference co-chair for the 2013 Association of Performing Arts Presenters annual conference. Michael lives in Phoenix with his wife and former principal dancer Gail and 10 year old daughter, Lilyana (a dancer, singer, pianist and aspiring Broadway star!)

Scofield studied dance at the Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts in Boston, and upon graduating, performed throughout the U.S. and France with Prometheus Dance Company. Her collaboration with video artist Juniper Shuey resulted in performances across the U.S. Scofield was awarded the Mariam MaClone Emerging Choreographer Award from Wesleyan University (2008), Artist Trust’s GAP Grant and Artist Trust’s Artist Fellowship Award (2008), and Seattle Magazine’s Spotlight Award (2008).

Before his appointment at LMCC in July 2010, Sam Miller was President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), developing efforts centered on increasing direct support for artists. Miller has served as Executive Director of NEFA and of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. He serves on the boards of several arts organizations.