Team

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.

Riley has devoted the past nearly 40 years to working in the non profit finance arena working her way up from accounting assistant to Director of Finance. Prior to that, she spent several years in public accounting. She was an adjunct professor teaching bookkeeping at Baruch College. For fun, Riley worked in wardrobe for several productions at the Public Theater and staged managed Irene Worth’s “Edith Wharton” and was wardrobe supervisor for Christopher Walken’s “Him”. Riley is also an actor and playwright.

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.

Henry Arroyo is an Artist, Filmmaker, and teaching artist based in Queens, New York. He earned his B.F.A. in Film from Long Island University CW Post in 2015 and is currently attending Columbia University’s Masters Film program. In 2019 Henry studied under Filmmaker and Leopard of Honor recipient Amos Gitai and has split his time between making films and teaching underrepresented youth about the art of filmmaking.

Will Focus is both Graphic/Web Designer, Illustrator (Specializing in Satabu/Mwenaa), and Systems builder with a focus in Branding/Identity and Sustainability. A full-ride Drexel University Engineering Scholar, Will Focus traversed the fields of Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Communications, ultimately focusing on and obtaining his Bachelors of Science in Graphic Design from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. As the owner of Melanating, BlkAlchemy, and co-owner of OurBlackWeb, Will currently focuses on creating high impact virtual systems which create intellectual and financial liberation for people of color.

www.TheOneWillFocus.com

Trace Howard DePass is the author of Self-portrait as the space between us (PANK Books, 2018) and editor of Scholastic’s Best Teen Writing of 2017. He served as the 2016 Teen Poet Laureate for the Borough of Queens. His work has been featured on television and radio—BET Next Level, Billboard, Blavity, and NPR’s The Takeaway—and in print—Anomalous Press, Entropy Magazine, Platypus Press, Split This Rock!, The Other Side of Violet, [SAND] Journal, & Bettering American Poetry (Volume 3). DePass is a Poetry Foundation, Teaching Artist Project, & Poets House Fellow.