collaborators

---

Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys, and electronics as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choir, and film. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2) while The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise.” Negrón has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kronos Quartet, loadbang, Prototype Festival, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Sō Percussion, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, and the New York Botanical Garden, among others. Recent premieres include works for the Seattle Symphony, LA Philharmonic, Louisville Orchestra and multiple performances at Big Ears Festival 2022. 

Kathryn Nusa Logan is a collaborative and interdisciplinary artist and dance educator who utilizes experimental art practices to explore perspective, lineages, and environment. Her current research is an investigation of collaborative dance with the camera, acts of agreement in improvisation, and genre-specific expectations of viewership. Through this work she seeks to interrogate the dominant gaze by engaging in new, somatic-based practices of looking and interacting with cameras. She is dedicated to the slow work of dismantling systems of oppression in the arts, which starts at the hyper-local level in her artwork and pedagogy, and through the collaboration of an Anti-Racist Working Group at The Ohio State University (u.osu.edu/arwg).  She began working with Adrienne Westwood in 2011, and is grateful to be consistently diversifying her role in their creative collaborations. Kathryn holds a BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and an MFA from The Ohio State University’s Department of Dance where she is currently teaching.

Seth Easter is an Emmy-award winning designer for theater and TV. He has been collaborating with Adrienne since 2005. Off-Broadway credits include The Summer Play Festival (Courting Vampires and How Love is Spelt at Theater Row Theaters) and The Boy In The Bathroom (Urban Stages) for which he received the New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF) Award for Best Design. He also designed Sonnet Repertory Theater's Twelfth Night (for which his "sharp set" was hailed by the New York Times), Nighttime Traffic for NYMF at Urban Stages, Harry Connick Jr.'s run at the Neil Simon Theater, and James Taylor/One Man Band for PBS. Seth is a graduate of University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Rebecca Fitton is from many places and peoples. She nurtures community through movement, conversation, and food, and strives to equally prioritize her multifaceted roles as an artist, administrator, and advocate. Fitton works as Co-Director/Director of Operations and Development for Bridge Live Arts and as the Director of Studio Rawls for artist Will Rawls. She has been an artist-in-residence at Center, LEIMAY/CAVE, EMERGENYC, and The Croft. Their writing has been published by Triskelion Arts, Emergency Index, In Dance, The Dancer-Citizen, Etudes, Critical Correspondence, and Dance Research Journal. As an access practitioner, she creates audio description for experimental dance and performance artists. They hold a BFA in Dance from Florida State University and an MA in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Solana Yemaya Hoffmann-Carter (she/her) is a dance artist and Waldorf teacher living between New York City and central Jersey. Since receiving her BFA in dance and minoring in Religion and Philosophy at the University of the Arts, she has worked with many NYC based companies and projects, as well as, traveled internationally to pursue her passion of discovering and connecting with new people and places. Driven to work within creative spaces that continuously strive to provide an inclusive and equitable environment, she has found many opportunities to teach, which furthered her desire for a practice in education. Currently at the Sunbridge Institute she has launched into her studies of Waldorf education while keeping her language of movement always at the forefront. 

Amanda Kmett’Pendry, is a dancer hailing from Southern Maryland. Since receiving a BFA from The University of the Arts, in Philadelphia, she has had the pleasure of working with artists Jonathan Allen, Wally Cardona & Jennifer Lacey, Jodi Melnick, Sam Kim, Katie Swords, Teddy Tedholm, Romeo Castellucci, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Adrienne Westwood and Netta Yerushalmy.

Marissa Truitt is a dancer, choreographer, and teaching artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Marissa graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a BFA in Contemporary Dance in 2020. Since graduating from UNCSA, Marissa has choreographed and directed her first dance film “Gū’ Nū’Ku” which was later featured at American Dance Festival’s Movies by Movers; received the Kenan Fellowship at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; performed in Doug Varone’s DEVICES 7 Choreographers Showcase for choreographer Nicole Pierce’s “And It Lingers," Kate Digby’s “Search for Simurgh,”and performed in Sarah Campen’s “Fish Dance” dance film. 

Katie Swords Thurman is a New York based dance artist. Since 2011, she has taught modern dance technique at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she is an Assistant Professor. While at UArts, she has choreographed several original works in collaboration with her students and colleagues, and she has co-directed student educational and work-exchange projects in partnership with academic and art institutions in France (Ecole Supérieure Musique et Danse and CND Pantin), Belgium (Beursschouwberg Brussels, Royal Conservatory Antwerp), and Luxembourg (Trois C-L Centre Création Chorégraphique). She has performed or collaborated with numerous choreographers, including Douglas Becker, Daniel Charon, Daniel Condamines, Helen Simoneau, Adrienne Westwood and Jesse Zaritt. She was a performer with, and co-founder of VIA Dance Collaborative. Her choreography having been seen worldwide has led her to expand her teaching throughout the United States, Europe and in Israel and Mexico. She received her B.F.A. degree from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and her M.F.A. from Hollins University/The American Dance Festival under the direction and mentorship of Donna Faye Burchfield.  

Laura Witsken is a dance artist living in Ridgewood, New York. She currently works with choreographers Nicole Mannarino, Katie Swords Thurman, and Adrienne Westwood. Laura is a 2022 Artist in Residence at MOtiVE Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NY) where she is developing her solo Memory Shelves, guided by dramaturgical exchange with Sydney Donovan (Philadelphia). Laura collaborates with Jordan Reanne Patt (New York City) in their multidisciplinary creation process PORES, creating a site-specific work PORES: site (2021) and film, Vitality in still/ we lay (2021). Laura has worked in administrative and project development for Nicole Mannarino's works TUNE (2022), DIVE (2021), and FLY (2021), as the Company Assistant for MICHIYAYA Dance (2020-2022), and in production assistance for Adrienne Westwood's s o u n d i n g line (2019). Laura received her BFA in Dance and minor in business from The University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA) in May 2019. Upon graduating, she was awarded The UArts College of Performing Arts Senior Fellowship.  

Sugar Vendil is a composer, pianist and interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking, known as Brooklyn, NY. A late bloomer, she began making her own work after over a decade of primarily performing as a pianist with her ensemble The Nouveau Classical Project (2008-2021), and started dancing in 2020. Her compositions span acoustic and electronic music, and her interdisciplinary practice integrates sound and movement. Vendil’s work germinates from a kinesthetic and improvisatory approach. Vendil was awarded a 2022 NPN Creation Fund grant and 2021 MAP Fund grant to support “Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia,” a memoir of a Filipinx American childhood. Her work “Simple Tasks 2” is on Jennifer Koh’s Grammy-award winning album “Alone Together.” Vendil enjoys collaboration. In 2021, she scored Jih-E Peng’s short film “May We Know Our Own Strength” based on Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s installation of the same name and is currently a dancer in Emily Johnson/Catalyst’s “Being Future Being.” Her album, “May We Know Our Own Strength” is out on Gold Bolus Recordings.

Allison Costa is a dancer, creative technologist, and transdisciplinary artist, whose practice embraces tenets of emergent strategy, glitch feminism, and the risk/recovery practice of improvisation. She graduated with honors from Barnard College of Columbia University with a double major in Dance and Computer Science. Allison has worked at the Barnard College Movement Lab pursuing dance/tech creative research since 2019, while also performing as a freelance artist. She is a 2023 resident artist at Fabrica in Treviso, Italy. Her recent collaborations include Burnt Sugar/Danz Dance Conduction Continuum, Francesca Harper, Nona Hendryx, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, Choreographic Coding Lab, SHIFT. Dance. Arts. & Media., Dishman + Co. Choreography, and eˉlektron.art. Allison began working with Adrienne in Summer 2023. 

Jim Briggs III (soundscape and design) is a sound designer and audio engineer based in Brooklyn, NY.  He has composed scores for Adrienne Westwood and VIA Dance Collaborative since 2004. Film and television credits include American Experience, We Shall Remain, The Supreme Court, ALOHA New York  (Tribeca Film Festival), Appassionata (Cinesonika Festival), Terry Sanford and the New South (Full Frame Festival), and The Portrait.  His “Sonic Subway Map” audio installation was exhibited at the LMCC Swing Space in downtown NY through an initiative of the New School and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.  Jim is a broadcast engineer for WNYC, New York Public Radio, and his work has been heard on Radiolab, Soundcheck, Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin, Selected Shorts, and WNYC’s News programming. He was a mix engineer for WNYC’s documentary special Living 9/11, and a team recipient of the Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma in 2012. Jim has been teaching audio at The New School in New York since 2007, where he advises a web radio project at The New School for Public Engagement (Media Studies and Film) and Eugene Lang College (Music; and Cultural Studies and Media).  His Airspace mobile radio booth project was awarded a 2010-2011 Innovations in Education Fund grant.

Brandon Epperson works in design and custom software development for entertainment, fashion, and fine art industries after years of performing in classical and Broadway-related fields. He works on media centric events with interactive LED wall, projection, sound and broadcast camera delivery, high fashion, live music tours, dance, interactive experiential, theater shows, interior installation, XR/AR television, VR and 360 workflows. He has 18 years of experience with different techniques of projection mapping and camera tracking for real-time effects. He specializes in custom media servers and CMS situations, workflows across many 3D-environments and programming languages, sound design, lighting design, data visualization, and UI development. Current and past clients include ABC News, Viacom, Sony, Alicia Keys, Momentum Worldwide, McCann Worldwide, Red Bull, IMG, Mercedes, Ferrari, Acura, Honda, Tiffany and Co, JP Connelly Productions, Verizon, Villa Eugenie.

Nick Yulman works with sound and technology in a variety of ways including musical robots and interactive installations. He has presented his own work at venues around the world and has collaborated extensively with composers, choreographers, animators, designers, and other artists. He studied and taught creative technology at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He is currently Head of Design & Technology at Kickstarter and previously worked with the national oral history project StoryCorps.

Julia Kelly a Virginia native, hails from Brooklyn via Barnard College of Columbia University. For foundational training, Julia thanks the artists and master teachers of Tanztheater Wuppertal and the Limón Dance Company; with Limón she has performed abroad and at Lincoln Center. Since 2013, Julia has devised and performed site-specific and experiential performance with Third Rail Projects, including the Bessie award-winning Then She Fell (Alice, Hatter, Red Queen; Rehearsal Director, 2016-present); Ghost Light (Lincoln Center/LCT3, 2017); Behind the City (Town Stages, 2018); Oasis (Brookfield Place, 2019); and Midsummer: A Banquet (opening 2019). Julia has loved recent collaborations with Kathryn Alter, Xan Burley & Alex Springer/The Median Movement, Tami Stronach, and is happy to return to the fold with Adrienne and this fascinating team.

Jung-eun Kim (aka j.e.) is a dancer, choreographer and media designer. She holds a MFA in Dance from ADF/Hollins University and MALS in Visual and Performing Arts from Hollins University.  Je has been a guest artist at Dickinson College, Hollins University, The Modern Dance Promotion of Korea, and The University of the Arts.  She has worked with artists such as Amanda K. Miller, Sarah Skaggs, Helen Simoneau Danse, Adrienne Westwood, Jen McGinn, Emily Wexler and Jane

Comfort & Co. Venues where her works have been shown include: Race and New Media Conference at SUPERFRONT, Pop up Performances at One Arm Red, Movement Research at the Judson Church (New York); Current Gallery (Baltimore); paraphrase/NEXUS at CRANE ARTS, Current at Mascher Space Cooperative, Studio 34 and Painted Bride Center (Philadelphia); Taubman Museum of Art (Roanoke); Grimsby Minster(UK). Je hails from Seoul, South Korea. www.jekim.org