Martha is a nationally
recognized choreographer/director and producer of large scale community
events and site-specific productions that engage culturally diverse
communities in dialogue about socio-political issues. She 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. In November 2002, she was nominated by her
peers to receive a prestigious BAXTEN Award in Arts Education. From
2003-2005, she was an Education Consultant for The Kitchen. Currently,
she is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Gallatin School for Individualized
Study and at the Tisch School of the Arts. She is noted for her fifteen
years of work in Red Hook, Brooklyn making the arts a vital component
of urban renewal efforts.
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. For six
consecutive years, she was awarded the New York Foundation for the Arts
Artist in the School Community grant for her work at PS 15 in Red Hook
and at the Brooklyn International High School. She has been a cultural
partner of Brooklyn International High School since it opened,
designing a variety of arts education programs for its multicultural
student population and producing its annual International Festival. A
frequent guest artist, Martha has taught choreography and community
arts at many colleges and universities including Cornell, Trinity
College, Queens College, Antioch, and Colorado College among others.
As a consultant for the
Third Millennium Foundation, she designed and implemented the 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.
She has taught
professional development workshops for artists, teaching artists and
school teachers for the Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Lincoln Center
Institute.
As Executive Director
of Dance Theatre Etcetera, she continues to work in collaboration with
many Red Hook organizations in developing arts programs for area youth
and is the Executive Producer of the annual Red Hook Waterfront Arts
Festival.