Andrew Simonet (Artists U Founder and Director) is a choreographer and co-director of Philadelphia's Headlong Dance Theater, along with his collaborators Amy Smith and David Brick. Since 1993, Headlong has created collaborative dance theater in Philadelphia, and toured nationally. Recent projects include CELL, a performance journey for one audience member at a time guided by you cell phone, Hotel Pool, a dance theater piece performed in and around a hotel swimming pool, and Hippie Elegy, a duet mourning the decline of hippie values set to music by Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. Andrew is in charge of fundraising and development for the company, securing grants from funders such as the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, The Creative Capital Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation MAP Fund, The Japan Foundation, and The National Endowment for the Arts. Headlong's work has been produced by The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Dance Theater Workshop (NYC), P.S. 122 (NYC), Central Park Summerstage, The Jade Festival (Tokyo), The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. Headlong's work in the Philadelphia arts community includes hosting Dance Theater Camp, a month of workshops and collaboration for professional artists that is entirely artist-run and free for all participants. Andrew created and ran the Dance Program at the Lawrenceville School, a private high school in New Jersey, from 1995 to 2005. Andrew lives in West Philadelphia with his wife Elizabeth and their sons Jesse Tiger and Nico Wolf.
Jennifer Childs (Facilitator) is the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of 1812 Productions, Philadelphia’s all comedy theater company. For 1812 she has written and directed The Big Time, Another Big Time, Like Crazy Like Wow, Something Wonderful Right Away, Always A Lady, Double Down, This Is The Week That Is, Let’s Pretend We’re Married and, in collaboration with composer James Sugg, the original musical Cherry Bomb. In addition to her work at 1812 she has performed and/or directed for the Wilma Theater, Philadelphia Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre, Arden Theatre Company, Prince Music Theatre, Mum Puppettheatre, Act II Playhouse, Lenape Regional Performing Arts Center, Lantern Theatre Company, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival and ComedySportz. She is a two-time Barrymore award winner including the 1999 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Theatre Artist. She is the recipient of two Independence Foundation Fellowships in the Arts and serves on the Mayor’s Cultural Advisory Council.
Anna Drozdowski (Facilitator) works in management and planning; strategizing with artists who make honest, ambitious work. Through Ladybird, her consultancy, she undertakes projects in dramaturgy, production, and organizational development Her research and creative work has been supported by the Chicago Seminar on Dance and Performance, the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the NEA Arts Journalism Fellowship at the American Dance Festival, The CEC New Edge residency and the Fulbright Program, through which she spent a as a fellow in residence at the Royal Danish Ballet. Currently she is a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Speaker, curatorial advisor for Philadelphia Dance Projects. Anna has recently worked with the Mural Arts Program/How Philly Moves, Headlong Dance Theater, Ballet Hispanico, The School of American Ballet, Team Office!, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, Group Motion, Anonymous Bodies, Karen Getz, Meredith Rainey, Subcircle, Emmanuelle Delpech Ramey, Jebney Lewis and The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival. She has written critically on movement for Philadelphia Weekly, The Bournonville Daily and the Dance Advance archive, including Braiding/Unbraiding/Rebraiding which documents Headlong Dance Theater’s work with choreographer Tere O’Connor and Embedded with Faktor T. She is a member of the Hemispheric Institute of Politics and Performance, and the Nordisk forum för Dansforsking. Anna sits on the advisory committee of Dance/USA Philadelphia and holds a master’s degree in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She enjoys cross stitching obscenities and grocery shopping slowly.
Makoto Hirano (Facilitator) is a Philadelphia-based dance/theatre/spoken word artist. As the founder of performance ensemble OMNiBUS, his works have been presented nationally in numerous venues and festivals. Performer/collaborator highlights include work with Bill Irwin/ PTC, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Subcircle, Nichole Canuso Dance Company, Kate Watson-Wallace/anonymous bodies. Next up, Makoto will be working with Thaddeus Phillips/Lucidity Suitcase for WHaLE OPTICS, Walnut Street Theater's Miss Saigon, and begin touring his award-winning solo show, Boom Bap Tourism. A former-U.S. Marine, Makoto studied dance at Columbia College Chicago (IL) and earned his BFA at Temple University (PA).
Kate Watson-Wallace (Facilitator) a 2007 Pew Fellow in the Arts in Choreography, is a choreographer and performer based in Philadelphia. She is director of anonymous bodies, an interdisciplinary performance company that creates site-based installation. Projects include: CAR, a performance for 4 audience members who sit in the back seat of a moving car; HOUSE, a show inside a rowhome; STORE, a performance piece inside an abandonded mega-store; and currently Everywhere, an online dance contest and perpetual performance made online by audience/performers. She has been presented throughout the U.S. at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, ODC Dance (San Francisco) Velocity Dance (Seattle) Joyce Soho (NYC), Bryn Mawr College, Kelly-Strayhorn Theater (Pittsburgh), Movement Research at Judson Church (NYC), Wave Rising series (NYC), Indian University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Dance Projects, The Annenberg Center, and DanceBoom at the Wilma Theater. Her works have been funded by the Rockefeller MAP Fund, Doris Duke Foundation, Dance Advance (a program of the Pew Charitable Trusts), the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Independence Foundation. She has been in residence at Susan Hess Modern Dance, Community Education Center, and the ArtsParlor. She has choreographed music videos for Animal Collective and Black Dice. She currently dances with Headlong Dance Theater. She has been a guest artist at Drexel University, The University of the Arts, Franklin and Marshall College, Temple University, Swarthmore College, Muhlenberg College, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Kate creates site-based performances that re-imagine our everyday spaces. Her work choreographs spectator as well as performer, taking audiences on intimate, human-scale journeys through a row house, a parking lot, a dance club. Audiences meet the human body up close.
