2013 Honoree Bios



Cathy Edwards is a curator of live performance in multiple disciplines. She is recognized for championing artists whose work embraces emerging ideas and forms, her commitment to contemporary dance, and her expertise in festival-related programming. She is currently the Director of Programming at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, CT (September 2006 to present). She served a three-year term as the Artistic Director of the Time-Based Art Festival at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in Portland, OR (October 2008 to September 2011). Previously, she was Artistic Director of Dance Theater Workshop in New York City where she worked from 1996-2006. From 1990-1995 she was Co-Director of Movement Research. The New York Times has lauded Edwards for supporting "provocative, experimental choreographers," and for "daring curatorial choices [that] showed her to be as creative and imaginative as many of the artists she booked." She has consistently sought to dedicate resources and attention to commissioning and presenting a next generation of important performing artists in theater, dance and music.

Edwards has served on numerous grant-giving and funding panels, including for the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the MAP Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts, United States Artists, the Japan Foundation, and Creative Capital. Edwards has also attended numerous international arts festivals and conferences as an invited guest and as part of international delegations as well as for curatorial research. Her writing has been featured in Inside Arts, a publication of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, in the Dance/USA Journal, in the US Artists Fellowship Catalogue, among others. She serves on the board of directors for Movement Research in New York and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters; she is a past board member of the National Performance Network. Edwards is a mentor to young professionals in the performing arts, active in New England Presenters, and committed to the professional development of artists in her local community



Sam Miller began his career in theater at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island where he was raised. His subsequent work in the theater, primarily as a stage manager, was at Hartman Theater, American Place Theater, Williamstown Summer Theater Festival, and the Folger Theatre.

Sam's first job in dance was as Founding Managing Director of Arizona Ballet in Phoenix, Arizona. He then worked at Pennsylvania Ballet as Development Director before joining Pilobolus as Managing Director. After Pilobolus, he joined Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 1987 as Managing Director, becoming Executive Director and President in 1990.

In 1995, Sam became Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), where he launched a number of regional and national projects including the National Dance Project (NDP), the Center for Creative Research, the Contemporary Art Centers Network, and the Favorite Poem Project with Robert Pinsky. After ten years at NEFA, Sam became President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a ten-year initiative to improve conditions for independent artists in the US. In 2010, he became President of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC).

In 1991, Sam founded the Cambodian Artists Project, a continuing effort to restore and advance Cambodian performing arts. He currently serves on the Board of Amrita in Phnom Penh. Sam also founded and is the Director of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University.

Sam serves as President of the LINC Board and on the advisory board of ODC/SF. Sam has produced the Jamison Project, Men Dancers, The Ted Shawn Legacy, Dance the Spirit of Cambodia, and the Eiko and Koma Retrospective Project and served as artistic advisor on White Oak Dance Project’s "Past/Forward." Consulting clients have included the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Pew Center for Arts and Culture, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Danspace Project, IMG, and ArtsEmerson. Sam is a graduate of Wesleyan University, and lives in Brookline, Massachusetts and New York City with his wife Anne. They have two grown sons, Alex and Owen.



Jennifer Monson is a choreographer, performer and teacher. Since 1983, she has explored strategies in choreography, improvisation and collaboration in experimental dance. In 2000, her work took on a radical new trajectory towards the relationship between dance and environment. This has led her into an investigation of cultural and scientific understandings of large-scale phenomenon such as animal navigation and migration, geological formations such as aquifers and re-functioned sites such as the abandoned Ridgewood Reservoir. These investigations provide the means to unearth and inquire into choreographic and embodied ways of knowing and re-imagining our relationship to the environments/spaces we inhabit. Her project BIRD BRAIN (2000- 2005), iMAP/Ridgewood Reservoir (2007) and the Mahomet Aquifer Project (2008-2010) are projects that have radically reframed the role dance plays in our cultural understandings of nature and wilderness. Her early choreographic work has been performed in experimental New York City venues such as The Kitchen, Performance Space 122, and Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church; as well as nationally. The BIRD BRAIN project and the theatrical version Flight of Mind were performed at Dance Theater Workshop, NYC; the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN; Diverseworks, Houston, TX; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Tigertail Productions, FL; and Helena Presents, Helena, MT. Her solo work has been presented at Festival de Danza Post Moderna in Caracas, Venezuela; the Performance Space in Sydney, Australia; Chisenhale Dance Space in London, England; Festival de Danza Post Moderna Havana, Cuba; as well as in Tokyo, Bagamoyo, Melbourne, Perth, Barcelona, Prague and elsewhere. Monson has received a wide range of foundation support for her artistic work. Her multi-year project BIRD BRAIN has received funding from the Rockefeller MAP Fund, New York Foundation for the Arts BUILD grant, Creative Capital Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Jerome Foundation, New England LEF Foundation, Altria Group, Inc., National Dance Project, National Performance Network, the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

In 2004, Jennifer Monson incorporated under the name iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance. iLAND investigates the power of dance in collaboration with other fields to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. It is a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, and cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields. In addition to serving as Artistic Director of iLAND, Monson is currently a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign as part of a new initiative of the Environmental Council. Monson is also a Professor at Large at the University of Vermont, a six-year term in collaboration with the dance, environmental studies and libraries departments.

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