NYU Production Lab – Building the Next Generation of Artists

Program staff, speakers, and mentors:

Francesca Abbado (Program Associate, 2025) is currently pursuing an MA in Arts Politics at NYU Tisch. She holds a BA in Politics from SOAS, London (2015). After working at the European Parliament working with the Culture and Education Committee (2016), Francesca transitioned into the performing arts, serving as Production Manager for the Romaeuropa Festival (2018-2023). Passionate about the intersection of the arts and social change, she has also worked as a Project Manager for various cultural organizations, including Spazio Griot (2024), Palazzo delle Esposizioni (2021) in support of the UN SDGs, and Climate Art Project (2020), advocating for nature-based solutions. She now aims to research the contemporary performing arts fields through anti-colonial and environmental lenses with an outlook towards effective cultural policymaking.

Deborah Damast (Guest Speaker, 2024-25) is Program Director and Clinical Associate Professor of Dance Education at NYU Steinhardt where she teaches, mentors, and directs Concerts, Kaleidoscope Dancers and the Uganda study abroad program. She is Past-President of  NYSDEA,  serves on the Boards of Peridance and Misty Copeland’s BE BOLD program. Deborah is a recipient of the 2009 NYU GSU Star Faculty Award, the 2010 NDEO Outstanding Dance Educator Award, the 2017 Steinhardt Teaching Excellence Award, the 2020 Dance Teacher Magazine Award, the 2021 NDEO Executive Director Award, the 2022 NYSDEA Outstanding Leadership Award and the 2023 Martha Hill Mid-Career Award.  Her choreography has been shown at over 40 venues in NYC including Ailey Citigroup, Peridance, World Financial Center, Riverside Church, Judson Church, Symphony Space, Cooper Union, 92Y, 14th St. Y, Skirball Theatre, Radio City Music Hall and internationally in Japan, Uganda, Korea, Italy, and Canada. Deborah has taught for the Education Departments of Oregon Ballet Theatre, Steffi Nossen, LREI  and New York City Ballet, guest choreographed/taught for West Virginia University, Marymount Manhattan College, and Brigham Young University, and has written curriculum for Peridance, Paul Taylor, DEL, NYCB, and the NYC DOE. She has presented at numerous conferences including NDEO, NYSDEA, UDEO, Kyambogo, and CUNY. She participated in Motion Capture studies at NYU, collaborated with Music Performance and Music Technology, and at NYU was a co-recipient of Steinhardt grants Dance Literacy and Data Literacy, Internationalizing The Curriculum, and the 2020 Diversity Innovation grant.

Katherine Helen Fisher (Guest Speaker, 2024) Emmy-nominated director, choreographer, and performer Katherine Helen Fisher’s work uniquely intersects dance and emerging technology, creating immersive, interactive installations which center embodied ritual within non-linear narratives. With a distinguished performance history that includes Lucinda Childs Dance Company and the Philip Glass opera “Einstein On The Beach,” she has critically engaged with performativity and representation in her artistic research, blurring digital and physical boundaries. As co-founder of Safety Third, Fisher has directed significant works such as “One + One Make Three,” an access-centered dance documentary, and “Le Monstre,” a participatory performance garment that won a Jury Prize at the 21st International Symposium on Wearable Computers. Her work currently extends to choreographing for The Data Fluencies Theater Project, a Mellon-funded, interdisciplinary collaborative project which interrogates algorithmic and AI systems and embodied experience. Fisher holds an MFA in dance from Sarah Lawrence College and a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she is currently serving as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Collaborative Arts Department.

Sandy Garcia (Mentor and Facilitator, 2024-25) has been Director of Booking at Pentacle since 2016. Prior to that she was a booking representative, international tour coordinator, and director of administration at Rena Shagan Associates, Inc. where she represented artists that included Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, Black Grace, SITI Company and Martha Graham Dance Company among others. She has worked with major U.S. presenting organizations, artist management companies and internationally renowned artists in dance, theater, visual performance art and music including PERFORMA (NYC, NY), MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA), and Cal Performances (Berkeley, CA).

Sandy currently serves as the chair of Pentacle’s DEIA Committee and has been involved in ongoing efforts to advance more equitable practices in national dance touring. She was a member of the Dance/USA Equitable Contracting Joint Working Group, comprised of agents, managers and presenters who worked collectively to advocate for the implementation of equitable compensation and cancellation clauses in engagement contracts between touring dance companies and presenting organizations. She was also a member of Creating New Futures’ Contract Working Group and served as an advisor for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals’ ArtsForward Grants Program. Sandy was a mentor for Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Center Initiative and most recently worked with Fannie Bellefeuille (Executive Director, RUBBERBAND) to launch The Green Fund, an eco-touring initiative that provides funding to U.S. presenters who support environmentally conscious touring practices.

JEREMY LYDIC (Guest speaker, 2024) As Production Manager and Technical Director, Jeremy aims to support and uplift the collaborative process of performance-making. As Director of Production at Pomegranate Arts, selected credits include Taylor Mac’s Bark of Millions, A 24 Decade History of Popular Music, and Holiday Sauce (also Co-Set Designer), Robin Frohardt’s The Plastic Bag Store, Lucinda Childs’ Available Light and Portrait, several North American tours of Batsheva Dance Company, and the final production of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach in South Korea. Outside PM/TD credits include projects produced by The Park Avenue Armory, The Shed, Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto USA, and BAM. With Lydic! Design And Production, Lydic made selected props and effects for the Broadway productions of Frozen, Cats, Something Rotten, Fish in the Dark, Gigi, The Last Ship, Book of Mormon, and scores of others. Lydic’s directing credits include the 2020 virtual production of Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce: Pandemic!

Ntshadi Mofokeng (Program Associate, 2024) is a cultural worker who writes and curates, organizes to support artists’ rights, and engages with cultural policy. She is contributing to the proliferation of narratives about and experiences of contemporary dance from Africa. Her experience as an interdisciplinary arts administrator includes working with the Institute for Creative Arts at the University of Cape Town and Gregory Maqoma Industries as well as serving on the inaugural national steering committee of the Theatre and Dance Association (TADA). She has been selected as an International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) Global Fellow and the inaugural class of the Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation Leadership Initiative. Prior to that, she served in various organizing and management roles within Equal Education, a youth led social movement. She graduated cum laude from Bryn Mawr College with a BA in Political Science.

Sophie Myrtil-McCourty (Mentor and Facilitator, 2024-25) is the founder and president of Lotus Arts Management, one of the country’s premiere boutique dance agencies. For the past several years, Sophie has supported the professional development of award-winning dance companies such as A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, CONTRA-TIEMPO, Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group, and Seoul-based, Bereishit Dance Company through consistent domestic and international bookings. Most recently, she welcomed to her roster the critically acclaimed Ronald K. Brown / EVIDENCE and mesmerizing choreographer and performer, Shamel Pitts with his afrofuturistic arts collective, TRIBE.

Sophie has served on several panels both nationally and internationally. In the US, she was on the committee of the 2015 Wassaic Festival; sat on the board of Tennessee Presenters; and was an Advisory Council Member of the Field Leadership Fund, which is based on the premise that advancements in diversity among leadership will lead to a more equitable arts sector in New York City and beyond. Most recently, Sophie was invited to participate in the Performing Arts Market Seoul program of Korea Arts Management Service; the Project NEXT program of the Korean Foundation for International Exchange; and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre’s Producers Gathering, where she shared her expertise in the booking field. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Dance/USA.

David Thomson (Mentor and Guest Speaker, 2025) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice interrogates presence and absence in the performance of identity, using image, text, performance, and installation as containers for inquiry. He has worked extensively across the fields of dance, music, performance, and theater, working and collaborating with artists such as Trisha Brown, Ralph Lemon, Sekou Sundiata, Marina Abramović, Yvonne Rainer, and Okwui Okpokwasili/Peter Born, among many others. Recent projects include Movement Director and performer in Matthew Barney’s film installation Secondary, an essay in Yvonne Rainer’s Remembering a Dance: Parts of Some Sextets, 1965/2019 (Performa), and a contributing artist to Cane: A New Critical Edition (the3rdthing.press), marking the 100th anniversary of Jean Toomer’s 1923 novel. Thomson’s work has been recognized with awards and fellowships from United States Artists[Ford], New York Foundation for the Arts, Yaddo, MacDowell, Rauschenberg, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Thomson was honored with a Bessie for Sustained Achievement (2001) and for Outstanding Production for he his own mythical beast (2018). In 2017, he co-initiated The Artist Sustainability Project with Kate Watson-Wallace to expand the practice and discourse of financial, artistic, and personal empowerment. In 2024, he co-developed the Artist Resource Collective, a financial wellness and professional development program for YoungArts.  

Maleek Washington (Mentor and Facilitator, 2024) is a performer, choreographer, and teaching artist. A native New Yorker from the Bronx, he began his dance training at Harlem School of the Arts, Broadway Dance Center, and the Laguardia High School for the Performing Arts, and attended The Boston Conservatory on full scholarship. He began his professional career with CityDance Ensemble in Washington DC, before returning to NYC to collaborate with McArthur Genius Awardee Kyle Abraham as a part of Abraham.In.Motion (@aimbykyleabraham) for 4 seasons. He then became the first African-American male to perform in the critically acclaimed immersive show Sleep No More (Punch Drunk). 

Maleek choreographed for rap legend Nas’ 2022 “Big Nas Masterclass” commercial and video, assisted choreography for Spike Lee’s Mont Blanc commercial, and has performed for Sia, Phish, Rihanna, and NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar LIVE. He has been a member of Camille A. Brown and Dancers for 5 seasons and was an assistant choreographer for Porgy & Bess (Grammy Winner) and Fire Shut Up In My Bones at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. 

His performance talents have been recognized nationally at prestigious venues including The White House, The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, The Joyce Theater, and the Apollo Theater. He has been commissioned to present works by renowned organizations both nationally and internationally, and is a highly sought after teaching artist. Maleek is honored to be a 2022 Princess Grace Award Winner in Choreography, a 2021 Bessie Nominee as an Emerging Choreographer, and is a Co-curator of the 2019 Bronx APAP Dance Festival at Hostos.

Noa Rui-Piin Weiss (Guest Speaker, 2024-25) is a dancer, writer, and arts administrator based in Brooklyn. His writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Danspace Journal, Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence, Gibney Imagining Journal, Culturebot, and The Amp. Noa’s most recent performance collaborations include works by Jade Manns, Nattie Trogdon + Hollis Bartlett, Alexa West, Mia Martelli, Hope Mohr/Maxe Crandall, Miranda Brown, and Maxx Love. He has performed at Joe’s Pub, The Brick, Pageant, and Dixon Place, among other venues. He is currently the Programming Manager at The Joyce, and has worked as an administrator at arts organizations across the city.

Janet Wong (Guest Speaker, 2024-25) is the associate artistic director of New York Live Arts and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. She trained as a classical dancer in Hong Kong and London, and worked professionally in Berlin before moving to New York in the nineties. She sometimes designs projections for performance.