Administrative Team
Martha Bowers
Executive Director
Martha is an award-winning arts educator (Brooklyn Arts Exchange BAXten Award 2002, NYC Education Chancellor Rudolph Crew’s Community Caring Award 1999). After studying under Bessie Schonberg at Sarah Lawrence College, she formed her company, Martha Bowers Dance/Theatre/Etcetera. In New York, her work has been presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, DTW’s Bessie Schonberg Theater( now New York Live Arts), PS 122, St. Mark’s Church, Central Park Summerstage, amongst many other venues. She is a recipient of choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (`84, `88, `96), the New Jersey State Council for the Arts (`84), and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, and has received commissions for new works from the Jerome Foundation (through DTW’s “First Light” program), the Maine Festival, Mayfair, Dancing in the Streets, the Gowanus Arts Exchange and the Wagon Train Project, among others. Since 1994, Ms. Bowers has focused her work on the creation of large-scale site-specific events, and is noted for her 20 years of work as an artist and educator in Red Hook, Brooklyn. From the mussel boats of Wexford, Ireland to the train yards of Nebraska, her performance events have brought a prismatic view to locations and ways of life that challenge audiences to uncover latent meaning in familiar surroundings. Her site-specific performance work Angels and Accordions designed for Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery was selected by the Municipal Arts Society NYC 2010 Annual Awards Committee to receive a Certificate of Merit that recognizes “people, places, organizations and momentous events that have, in our view, made an exceptional contribution to the life of New York City.” Ms. Bowers has worked extensively in the field of arts education and community arts since 1981. From 1982-2002, she made annual visits to Ireland to work as a community dance artist, creating choreography for a variety of groups in both the north and south. From 2003-2005, she was an Education Consultant for The Kitchen. Currently, she teaches courses on Site-Specific Art/Performance as an adjunct professor at NYU’s Gallatin School for Individualized Study and at the Tisch School of the Arts. As a Teaching Artist and Arts Education consultant, Martha has designed, implemented and taught in arts education programs throughout the New York City public school system for Dancing in the Streets, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, the Lincoln Center Institute and Dance Theatre Etcetera. From 2006-2007, she also structured the Third Millennium Foundation’s Dance for Tolerance project launch, which brought together marginalized youth from Colombia, Brazil and Brooklyn to showcase innovative global programs that use dance as a means of tolerance education here in New York City. A frequent guest artist, Martha has taught choreography and community arts at many colleges and universities including Rutgers, Cornell, Trinity College, Queens College, Antioch, and Colorado College among others. Ms. Bowers has been honored with a 2002 BAXten Award in Arts Education, Chancellor Rudolph Crew’s 1999 Community Caring Award and six New York Foundation for the Arts Artist in the School Community grants. She continues to work in collaboration with Dance Theatre Etcetera’s many non-profit partners on programs and cultural events that serve the community of Red Hook.
Maria Soriano
Education Director
Maria Soriano holds a BA in Theatre and is an advocate for the arts and arts-integrated learning. She has traveled extensively both nationally and internationally as an artist and an arts educator providing residencies, workshops, and performances throughout.
Her one-woman show Stories of La Isla; a celebration of the strength and resiliency of the women who helped shape her, has been performed in Costa Rica, Italy, and Puerto Rico. Through Stories of La Isla she has encouraged audiences to tell their own stories, opening dialogue to issues that are relevant in today’s society and encouraging community involvement.
While at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center (TBPAC) in Tampa, Fl. serving as the Program Director she co-wrote and co-directed over 16 performances for Community Arts Ensemble; a theatre program for low-income families which serviced over 300 students every summer. It was during her time at TBPAC that she developed her passion for arts education and community activism.
She served as the Director of Performance Programs at Community Works NYC providing schools with over 100 performances a year geared towards fostering a greater understanding of other cultures as well as residencies and workshops geared towards community building. Most recently she had the privilege of traveling with Dance Theatre of Harlem as the company Tour Manager.
Leslie Trotter
Marketing Director
Leslie Trotter is an artist and entrepreneur, who produces global content, products and immersive experiences, rooted in transformation design. Her work seeks to dismantle colonial perceptions of communities of color using art as the catalyst for change.
She is a Pratt Institute Fellow and holds an MFA in Communication Design from Pratt Institute. Leslie is a Pharrell Williams Black Ambition Award Winner for her social impact startup which connects highly skilled, untapped artists to the global market through strategic product development partnerships.
Jordan Campbell
Media Programs Director
Jordan Campbell is an NYC-based Filmmaker, Photographer, and Educator. He is the founder of the film criticism site bougiereviews.com and production house Bougie Productions. He graduated from Rutgers in 2015 with a degree in Visual Arts and a specialization in Media and Digital Filmmaking. In 2015 Campbell studied independently under media artist and Guggenheim fellow Natalie Bookchin, where he began to work not solely on single-channel film projections, but to put media in a space with multi-channel film installations.
Noellia Surpris
Community Engagement Coordinator
Noellia has over 15 years experience in International Development and Non-Profit Program Management. As part of the founding team of a woman-led humanitarian organization, she has produced over 60 conflict resolution, community engagement and youth empowerment programs in 17 nations in collaboration with United Nations agencies, the US Institute for Peace, the US State Department and diverse community networks. A seasoned program director, she brings a global lens to local organizations to support multidimensional
Current Teaching Artists
Henry Arroyo
Film Teaching Artist
Will Focus
Graphic Design Teaching Artist
Trace DePass
Poetry Teaching Artist
Cornelio Joseph
Drumming Teaching Artist
Teaching Artists
Henry Arroyo
Khalidiah Asanté
Jabari Asanté
Jordan Campbell
Daniel Carlton
Trace dePass
Andre Esannason
Tamara Fingal
Will Focus
Excel Garner
Lyndon Harewood
Cornelio Joseph
Rajonna Lewis
Roee Messinger
Michael Mohamed
Jive Poetic
Austin Trapp
Erin Vassilopoulos
Board of Directors
Board President: Sam Sills
Secretary: Audrey Anastasi
Treasurer: Elise Bernhardt
Nyeema Bailey
Martha Bowers
Christopher Brown
Corinthia Carter
Kamau Ware Louric Rankin
Consultants
Bryony Romer (Development)
Interns
None Currently
safety Policies
Please find Hook Arts Media’s Sexual Harassment Prevention Policy and Combat Harassment Complaint Form below:
- Sexual Harassment Prevention Policy [downloadable pdf link]
- Combat Harassment Complaint Form [downloadable pdf link]
Please find Hook Arts Media’s Airborne Infectious Disease Prevention Policy: