ZACCHO - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the ADVISORY BOARD
- Executive Director Dancing in the Streets NYC
Azraa Muhammad is an emerging aerial artist, dancer and performer. She received her training from artistic director of Zaccho Dance Theatre, Joanna Haigood, and began flying with the Zaccho Youth Company at the age of 7. After 10 years of training she began apprenticing as a member of Zaccho Dance Theatre. A native of San Francisco, Azraa believes in drawing inspiration from current social and political issues, such as racial profiling, poverty, identity, and ancestry as a way of expression in her choreography. As a member of the Zaccho Youth Company, she has collaborated with and performed for Flyaway Productions, Baycat, Dance Vision Series Festival, California Youth Circus Center Festival, Circus for Arts in the Schools and much more. Her most recent projects include performing for the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) 2016 New Strands Festival and being featured in a promotional video for the Golden State Warriors honoring Black History Month. Apart from creating and performing, Azraa also enjoys teaching at Zaccho for the Youth Program of Center for Dance and Aerial Arts with a class of Aerial Dance technique for beginners.
Brechin Flournoy has been active in the Bay Area performing arts scene since the early 1990s. She came to San Francisco after graduating from Antioch College (Yellow Springs, OH) with a degree in Dance and Arts Administration. Brechin's early career as a dancer and choreographer led to her forming the influential San Francisco Butoh Festival, an international dance festival that investigated the complexities of Butoh through symposia, performances, and classes. It was the first ongoing American dance festival dedicated to Butoh, for which Brechin was awarded the San Francisco Bay Guardian GOLDIE Award/Dance, and a Sustained Achievement in the Arts by the IZZIEs. Brechin was the guest dance curator at Yerba Buena Gardens Festival for several years; and she worked as a publicist and fundraiser for all performing arts genres for many years. Brechin taught professional development workshops for non-profit organizations and funders, including the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), and participated in panel discussions at Americans for the Arts and National Arts Marketing conferences. For the past few years, Brechin has been the Development Director of Flyaway Productions; a freelance grant writer for other non-profit organizations; and served on grants panels for the SFAC and Oakland Cultural Council. In her creative life, Brechin is a professional photographer specializing in portraits of preschoolers, street photography, and conceptual art and design.
My name is Charlie Formenty, I am a Franco-American interdisciplinary artist, curator and educator. Originally from Paris, France, my work is rooted in collaboration and community engaged arts, exploring movement and narrative through an intersectional lens.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ADVISORY BOARD
- Independent Producer
Born and raised in Oakland, California, Erik K. Raymond Lee began his dance journey UC Berkeley where he trained and earned a BA in Dance & Performance Studies and Art Practice with a concentration in painting [2010]. Erik since has Joined Dimensions Dance Theater under the direction of Deborah Vaughn, as a company member and choreographer; debuted choreographic work as a participant in the Artist in Mentorship Program (AMP) with Black Choreographer's Festival (BCF) directors Laura Elaine Ellis and Kendra Kimbrough Barnes (2015) earned his MFA in Dance from Mills College. Erik also volunteers in dance ministry with the Worship in Arts Ministry (WAM) at Covenant Church for now 10 years functioning as Artistic Director/choreographer since 2014. His work whether within the realm of dance theater or faith-based events aims to inspire, give hope and uplift the community.
Job Titles:
- Artist - in - Residence Program & Studio Manager
- Artist in Residence & Studio Manager
Florence is a Hip Hop dance teacher and professional dancer currently based in San Francisco, CA. Starting her training at age seven, Flo has studied all forms of dance, including Ballet, Modern and Jazz. At age fifteen, she began her Hip Hop dance training with well-renowned choreographer and director of Mind Over Matter dance company, Allan Frias. She proceeded to dance with his company for six years. After earning her high school diploma at Gateway High School, Flo dove straight into her career as a performing artist and at age eighteen she began teaching in the youth program at Dance Mission Theater and Chinese American International School. During those years, Flo performed nationally and traveled as far as China for the NBA China Tour. In addition, she began to pursue a career as a recording artist and secured performances on live television shows like BET's 106th & Park and opened up for major artists such as Carl Cox, LLOYD and J Holiday. Following her successes as an independently driven artist, Flo continued her studies in Music Business at the Berklee College of Music in Boston receiving her professional certificate in music business. Currently, Flo is expanding her skill set to develop a routine that will inspire others to live healthy and balanced lives. She is passionate about living at one's full potential and believes through artistic and physical expressions such as dance, there is opportunity to learn more about oneself whilst simultaneously developing mind and body awareness.
Heidi began studying aerial at the Pickle Family Circus School in San Francisco in the late 1980s. A few years later she ran away to France, where she studied at the Fratellini National Circus school in Paris and the National Circus School of Rosny-sous-Bois, France. Heidi studied swinging trapeze for 3 years under the tutelage of Zoe Maistre. Her professional career took off in 1996 with Transe Express, where she performed static trapeze on a human mobile from a crane 90 feet in the air. In 1999 she performed with them for The King of Sweden in front of the Stockholm Opera House. She toured 4 years with the French Street Theater company Jo Bithume, playing shows all over Western and Eastern Europe, and even down into South America. She has performed static trapeze, aerial silk, rope, hoop, aerial diamond, hung from a harness at 30ft, and embodied a myraid of ground characters throughout. She once played a Death Wraith writhing up her rope and into infinity. In 2001 and 2002, Heidi toured on Caravan Stage Barge's floating theater boat in the Eastern US, playing numerous aerial characters and grappling aloft in the rigging of the barge's 90-foot masts. Heidi has played with bands and was once Santa's Helper. She played a Harpie intent on stealing a man's soul, a slut intent on stealing his body, and even an errant schoolboy. Many of these characters were in the air, though many were ground characters that interacted with the audience. Since 2000, Heidi has been steadily teaching in the US at Trapeze School NY, Streb Lab for Action Machanics and the Skybox (both in Brooklyn), and at various summer programs around the Northeast. The last few years have seen her create an original aerial apparatus, and help her students create their own artistic routines.
Jo Kreiter is a San Francisco-based choreographer with a background in political science. She thrives at the intersection of social justice and acrobatic spectacle. Through dance she engages imagination, physical innovation and the political conflicts we live within. She founded her company, Flyaway Productions, in 1996. Flyaway Productions is an apparatus-based dance company that advances social issues in the public realm and explores the range and power of female physicality. Under Kreiter's artistic direction, Flyaway creates dances on both architectural and fabricated steel objects, which are typically off the ground, with dancers suspended anywhere from two feet to 100 feet above the ground. The company creates a sense of spectacle to make a lasting impression with an audience, striving for the right balance of awe, provocation, and daring. Kreiter's tools include community collaboration, a masterful use of place, a feminist lens and a body-based push against the constraints of gravity.
Over the past 20 years, she has developed a nationally recognized expertise in creating and presenting site-specific performance work. Since 1996, the company has presented or co-presented numerous large scale works, including the award winning Niagara Falling (2012) and Multiple Mary and Invisible Jane (2014). Kreiter/Flyaway is a recipient of four Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, as well as awards from the Center for Cultural Innovation, New Music USA, the Artist Investigator Project of the California Shakespeare Company, CHIME, the NEA, CA Arts Council, Creative Work Fund, Meet the Composer, MAP, the Wattis, Rainin and Gerbode Foundations, the SF Arts Commission, and the SF Bay Guardian GOLDIE. Her articles have been published in Aerial Dance, Contact Quarterly, In Dance, STREET ART San Francisco, Site Dance - the first book written on contemporary site specific performance. In the 2015 book, "Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performances", Jo Kreiter's work is highlighted in the chapter, "Civic Interventions: Accessing Community" using her work as an example of "the politically-driven work of the experienced and prolific site dance artists". Kreiter is one of a few women worldwide to have gained expertise in the art of Chinese pole acrobatics.
Job Titles:
- Artistic Director
- Executive Artistic Director, Zaccho Dance Theatre ( Board Member since 1980 )
Since 1980 Joanna has been creating work that uses natural, architectural and cultural environments as points of departure for movement exploration and narrative. Her stages have included grain terminals, a clock tower, the pope's palace, military forts, and a mile of urban neighborhood streets in the South Bronx. Her work has been commissioned by many arts institutions, including Dancing in the Streets, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Walker Arts Center, the Exploratorium Museum, the National Black Arts Festival, and Festival d'Avignon. She has also been honored with the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the United States Artist Fellowship, and a New York Bessie Award. Haigood is also a recipient of the esteemed Doris Duke Artist Award. Joanna has had the privilege to mentor many extraordinary young artists internationally at the National École des Arts du Cirque in France, the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in England, Spelman College, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, the San Francisco Circus Center and at Zaccho Studio.
A licensed attorney and life-long lover of the arts, Lisa has over 10 years experience in nonprofit operations and financial management. Lisa is also Board President and Executive Director for Independent Arts & Media, a San Francisco nonprofit that provides fiscal sponsorship and development support to non-commercial art and media-related projects. Since 2010, Ms. Burger has served on the Advisory Council for The Crucible, an Oakland nonprofit industrial arts education center. As an attorney with San Francisco public interest law firm the Lexington Law Group, Lisa's legal practice has been devoted exclusively to representing plaintiffs in environmental enforcement and consumer protection litigation.
Job Titles:
- Youth Performing Arts Program Manager
- Youth Performing Arts Program Manager & ZYC Production Manager
For more than 35 years Lizzy Spicuzza has been involved in the arts in San Francisco. First as a performer and them as a production manager, stage manager, lighting designer, producer, teacher and technical consultant. For the past 25 years Lizzy has worked with Zaccho Dance Theatre in many different capacities. Lizzy is also a long time member of Project Artaud and served on the Board of Directors for Theater Artaud Inc. for 18 years.
Meche is a native San Franciscan, singer-songwriter, music educator, aerialist, and aerial instructor. She feels fortunate to have been trained in aerial dance since she was 12 years old with Zaccho Dance Theatre's Artistic Director Joanna Haigood and is an alumna member of the Zaccho Youth Company. Since graduating from Berklee College of Music in 2018, Meche has also been a teaching assistant with Zaccho's youth education programs. Meche has a multidisciplinary approach to her artistic work. As a performer, Meche has collaborated with and performed for Flyaway Productions, Youth Circus Center Festival, and BAYCAT. She is also co-founder of The Humxn Collective, a creative consulting company for queer and BIPOC musicians. Over the years, Meche has contributed her songwriting, singing, and acting talents to Zaccho performances. She especially loves working with Zaccho because of the social justice aspects of their work. Through dance, choreography, and music, Meche hopes to inspire youth to learn more about themselves and their communities.
Job Titles:
- Director of Development, Midpen Media Center / Former Development Director, Literacy for Environmental Justice
Job Titles:
- Member of the ADVISORY BOARD
- CEO Bay Area Center for Arts & Technology ( BAYCAT )
Job Titles:
- Member of the ADVISORY BOARD
- Co - Founder, San Francisco Circus Center