Collaborative Presenting: A Conversation

with Peter DiMuro, Malakhi Eason, Dan Froot, and Kelsey Halliday Johnson

Join us for a conversation about how the New England presenting community is expanding and building thoughtful engagement strategies. In this hour-long webinar, we will hear from presenters, artists, and artist/presenters who creatively engage with their communities. Examples include alternative presenting locations, building collaborative community partnerships, advanced artist visits, and other innovative approaches.  

Ahead of the upcoming New England States Touring (NEST) deadline, this conversation will also be an opportunity to think about engagement and presenting activities that might be modeled in your community/organization. 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Speaker Bios

Peter DiMuro

Peter DiMuro has woven a career as a performer, choreographer, director, teacher, facilitator and arts engager, touring and teaching internationally. 

His current creative umbrella is Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion, a company that develops and performs artistic works and cultivates dance/arts literacy, advocacy and engagement. The company was recently awarded a Boston Center for the Arts residency, as well as the Boston Dance Alliance’s 2014/15 Rehearsal and Retreat Fellowship. Peter was a Boston Mayor’s Office Artist in Residence inaugural cohort participant, a recipient of a 2017 Creative City grant from New England Foundation for the Arts; and received a lifetime achievement award from Salem State University in 2017. Peter was named by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum its inaugural Choreographer in Residence for 2018. Peter also serves as Executive Artistic Director of the Dance Complex and is a consultant in arts and corporate settings, most recently with Whole Foods and with the all-male drag ballet company, Le Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo. 

Malakhi RL Eason II

Malakhi RL Eason II brings more than 15 years of arts administration experience to hes role as Director of Programming at the Arts & Ideas Festival. Originally from Boston, Eason was most recently Programming Manager at Omaha Performing Arts, where he curated the expansive Jazz on the Green Series, ranging from intimate cabaret performances to outdoor concerts featuring artists like Ladama, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Kim Waters, Sammy Miller and the Congregation, and Marcos y Sabor. Eason was formerly a background singer for touring artists while living in Los Angeles, CA. 

A graduate of University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, CT, Eason earned a Masters of Arts in Leadership from Grace University and is working on a Doctorate in Interdisciplinary Leadership from Creighton University 

Dan Froot

Dan Froot (producer, performance artist, writer, composer, dancer, saxophonist) received a New York Dance & Performance Award (a.k.a. BESSIE) for the creation of his music/theater work SEVENTEEN KILOS OF GARLIC; and a City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (a.k.a. C.O.L.A.) and a playwriting commission from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture for the creation of his gangster-vaudeville, SHLAMMER. 

Dan has composed numerous scores for dance and theater companies, has taught performance workshops around the country, and has danced, acted and played music nationally and internationally with the likes of Victoria Marks, Ralph Lemon, Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks, Mabou Mines, David Cale, Ping Chong, and the legendary Jeff Weiss. Dan teaches at UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance while he continues to create and tour his work. 

Dan’s work has received major support from MAP Fund, Doris Duke Charitable Trust, National Performance Network, The Jim Henson Foundation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, UCLA Center for Community Partnerships, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The City of West Hollywood, AEPOCH Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Meet The Composer, National Foundation for Jewish Culture, The Durfee Foundation, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, The Vermont Community Arts Foundation, The New England Foundation for the Arts, The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, and Reader's Digest. 

Kelsey Halliday Johnson

Kelsey Halliday Johnson (she/they) is an organizational strategist, eco-feminist, writer, and artist from Philadelphia, living in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Prior to SPACE, Kelsey worked in curatorial and advancement capacities for the Michener Art Museum, Vox Populi Gallery, Locks Gallery, independent curator Marianne Bernstein, and her own independent multi-site curatorial projects; as well as gaining significant administrative experience at Blind Spot Magazine, the Penn Museum, and WPRB 103.3FM. Kelsey proudly worked retail and photo lab jobs for many years. She is a graduate of Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan University, and has taught at a range of colleges and universities as well as Interlochen Arts Academy. Johnson’s research projects have explored the aesthetics and rhetoric of fascism, the intersection of art and technology, activist artists, and experimental performance theory.