Mark DeGarmo, PhD, Executive Director
Tiffany Ferguson, BA Candidate, Dance & Urban Affairs; Hunter College Mellon Fellow, Arts Administration Assistant
Catherine Gross, MLS, MA, Archivist
Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, BFA, Teaching Artist in Dance & Creativity and Dancer-Performer. She is a Juilliard School Dance Division graduate with Scholastic Distinction, awarded Juilliard Inter-Arts Award. Fluent in Spanish, dance teaching credits include: community action projects serving children, youth, and adults throughout the New York metropolitan area, Peru, and Bolivia. Performing credits include The Metropolitan Opera and The New Museum. She completed MDDF's Teaching Artist Training Institute 08-09.
Areas of substantive knowledge: Classical Ballet, Contemporary Dance, Intercultural Multidisciplinary Performance Collaborations, and Afro-Peruvian and Mexican Folkloric Dance.
Louise Heit, MA, Certified Movement Analyst, DEL Certification & Assistant, Teaching Artist in Dance & Creativity. She has taught dance & theater to children and NYC classroom teachers since 1987. Teaching credits include: 92nd Street Y, Ballet Hispanico, City Center, DanceWave & St. Luke's Orchestra. She earned: MA, Dance Studies, Laban Centre, London; BFA, NYU Tisch. National & international tours: Marquis Studios, Adaptors Movement Theater & Pink Inc. & Corner Store children's improvisational dance-theater company. She presents her choreography in New York.
Areas of substantive knowledge: Creative Movement, Dance-Theater Improvisation, & Laban Movement Analysis.
Elissaveta Iordanova, MFA/Dance, MA/Theater, & AA/Bulgarian Folk Dance, Teaching Artist in Dance & Creativity. She is a Fulbright scholar awarded the Bulgarian National Center for Music and Dance Award for innovation fusing traditional and contemporary arts. She taught at universities and conservatories in Austria and Bulgaria. New York teaching credits: Ballet Arts Center, Joyce Theater, Lotus Music and Dance, and New York City Center.
Areas of substantive knowledge: Choreography, Creative Movement, Improvisation, and Bulgarian Folk Dance.
Nuria Martinez, BA, Teaching Artist in Dance & Creativity, was born in Spain and trained in ballet at Madrid's National School of Ballet, piano, and Spanish dance. She completed studies at Laban Centre, London and Cunningham Studio, NYC. She has designed and implemented K-12 curricula for many NYC arts education organizations, including Mark DeGarmo & Dancers. She has served as peer panelist for the Center for the Arts Education and performed with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and Washington Opera Ballet. BA in Dance Education from SUNY Empire State. Areas of substantive knowledge: Afro-Cuban, Contemporary, Northern Spanish Folk, & World Dance; Argentine Tango; Arts-Integrated Curriculum; Dance Composition; Piano; Gymnastics; & Latin American Social Dance Forms.
Maria Mitchell, Teaching Artist in Dance & Creativity is a dancer, choreographer, and arts educator whose dance training includes the study of Dunham, Horton, Graham, traditional African dance techniques, and dance notation at the Dance Notation Bureau. Her practical education is complemented by a conceptual approach rooted in musical collaborations. She has received awards from Meet the Composer, National Endowment for the Arts, and The Center for Constitutional Rights. She is included in Black Dance in America. She has worked in arts and dance education in Germany, Ghana, South Africa, and NYC through many arts education and social service organizations.
Areas of substantive knowledge: African-American Dance; Arts-Integrated Dance Curricula; Dance Composition, Improvisation & Notation; Katherine Dunham Dance Technique; & Music-Dance Collaborations.
Joan Arnold, Dancer-Performer performed with Richard Bull's Improvisational Dance Ensemble, Johanna Boyce, Midi Garth, and Margaret Hoeffel. A certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and yoga with a NYC private practice, Joan is also Executive Director of the Ancram Opera House.
Marie Baker-Lee, Dancer-Performer earned a BA/Sociology, U of California, Riverside and a BA/Theatre, U of Washington, Seattle. New York dance credits: companies of Mark DeGarmo, Douglas Dunn, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane, Charles Moulton, Judith Ren-Lay, Gus Solomons, Jr., Muna Tseng & Nancy Zendora. Her performance & teaching with Mark DeGarmo & Dancers have received acclaim across many seasons with the company in New York, nationally and internationally. Susan Thomasson, BFA, Dancer-Performer, (BFA/University of Utah) is a dancer/choreographer who has performed nationally and internationally with renowned choreographer Anna Sokolow and toured extensively in a solo/duet program for Pilobolus Dance Theatre. She is a teaching artist for Lincoln Center Institute's aesthetic education program.
Luis Gabriel Zaragoza, BFA Dancer-Performer (BFA/National School of Dance, Mexico; Certificate/Merce Cunningham School) has danced with companies in France and Mexico. Dance credits in New York include: Anna Sokolow Players' Project, Sokolow Theater Dance Ensemble, Martha Graham Ensemble, and Alan Good.
CONSULTANTS: Koshers & Co., CPA's. Ryan Osswald, Technology Consulting. Kay Hines, Dekart Video. Photograph of Marie Baker-Lee by Beatriz Schiller.
