photo credit Daniel Terna 2022
JENNY ROMAINE is a NYC based director, designer, puppeteer, and educator who co-founded the Obie winning Great Small Works visual theater collective to keep theater at the heart of social life. She is music director of Circus Amok and has directed/ designed puppet pageants, street spectacles, operas, toy theater shows, acts for clubs, black box productions, and works for puppets on film including “Muntergang and other Cheerful Downfalls,” The Sukkes Mob featured in Punk Jews, The Spectacle of the Rising Tide for the River to River Festival, NYC. Romaine anchors puppet theater workshops co-led by formerly incarcerated individuals for youth in NYC jails with Inside Change, and has, for two decades, directed the JFREJ/Aftselakhis Spectacle Committee's pan Jewish Purim shpil extravaganzas serving thousands. Romaine has worked as a puppeteer with GSW, Amy Trompetter, Bread and Puppet Theater, Viva Di Concini, Chinese Theatre Works, and Janie Geiser. She is featured in "Dazzle Camouflage: Spectacular Theatrical Strategies for Resistance and Resilience" a monograph by Ezra Berkley Nepon and is a founding member of Naming The Lost /Memorials.
Carol Prud'homme Davis
Carol Prud’homme Davis was born in Texas and moved to NYC in 1980, after graduating from Texas Christian University to pursue a career in dance. In 1994 she received a master’s degree in administration and Supervision in the Visual Arts from Bank Street and Parsons School of Design.
She danced professionally, and was Artistic Director of “us” Productions, in where she choregraphed and produced dance/theatre pieces with her company, ages 4 to 65. She served as the Visual Artist in residence with the Sandra Cameron Ballroom Studios and is the Visual Artist in residence the Peridance Dance Center. Her artwork was shown in the first American Contemporary Dance Museum exhibition and is now in the permanent collection of the museum.
She has drawn live and now via zoom, dance classes, rehearsals, and performances for over 100 professional dance teachers, performers and companies spanning over a variety of techniques.
She can also be seen on the street and subway drawing her fellow human beings.
Her exhibitions include: The Infinity Dance Theatre, The East Texas Fair, Anna Sokolow Dance Theatre Ensemble and Francesca Todesco web gallery. Her work was featured in the “We Are All Bowery” Lower Manhattan Cultural Council project and the which was displayed in the Cooper Union windows in NYC. "Homeless Street Artists and Resident Bowery Artists projection exhibition in 2020 at the 6th Street and Avenue B, Alison Cook Beatty Dance exhibtion: from Concept to Production....in the Raw, LES Resident Artists and Homeless Street Artists exhibition at the Elizabeth Street Garden and Cross Pollination produced by Putnam Dance Project. Carol’s work inspired by Yukiyo Yuki will be featured in Japan’s Y Ballet program, August “22. Her piece “My Reaction My Reflection” is featured in the art video: “PAUSE” which was Awarded the Tagore International Film Festival (India) - Winner Experimental Film Critic’s Choice Award La Paz International Film Festival (Bolivia) - Winner Best Experimental Short Film New Orleans Second Line FF - Winner Best Dance Film.
She is now illustrating a book for Jeanne Donough based on Jazz dance pioneer Lynn Simonson. Carol illustrated the "Helmet" children's puppet production and illustrated the book cover of "A Dancer Writes Haiku" by Marie Paquet-Nesson.
Carol is the artist in residence with Peridance Dance Center, SarAika movement collection andTheresa Stanley
Theresa Stanley has been a devoted, innovative educator who has been touching young minds and lives for over thirty years. Currently, a drama specialist at the Bedford Village School located in Brooklyn; she has assisted in setting the stage for our children to claim their position in the spotlight of theatre. As a NYC elementary school pedagogue, she has left positive imprints upon the hearts and lives of so many young people via her productions of musical and stage performances. It is through various forms of art expression that children’s self-esteem and sense of worth is cultivated. As a part of Inside Change, Theresa hopes to continue to reach young minds whose main purpose on earth is to shine like diamonds.
Michael Manswell
Michael Manswell, Artistic Director, Teaching Artist, Choreographer, Singer began his performance life as a storyteller at Arts Festivals in his native Trinidad & Tobago, winning many prizes and awards. He studied music with Lindy-Anne Bodden-Ritch at St Mary’s College and at Brooklyn College (CUNY) with Tom Cultice. As a singer he has toured Europe, the UK, and the Caribbean and has performed as a soloist in many productions of opera and oratorio including Dido & Aeneas, The Marriage of Figaro, Die Fledermaus, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Handel’s Messiah, Missa Criolla and Missa Luba. He studied dance at the Trinidad Dance Theater with Dr. Eugene Joseph training in Modern, Ballet, Jazz, Ballroom, and Folkloric styles. Michael worked with Geoffrey Holder on “Dougla II” and “La Valse des Bakas” for TDT and toured with the company in the USA and the Caribbean. A prolific choreographer he has created several works currently in the repertoire of Something Positive Inc, the performing company he now directs. Something Positive has recently returned from performing in Morocco and the Ivory Coast and has also performed in Costa Rica, Belize and Trinidad & Tobago. An avid folklorist and an Orisha devotee in the Yoruba religion, Mr. Manswell presents lectures and workshops in dance, music, and traditional religious practice and works closely with the Caribbean Cultural Center and the Interfaith Center in their programs. One of “Brooklyn’s Black Men of Distinction 2000” and one of “Brooklyn’s Black Dance Kings (2010)”, Michael is currently an Adjunct Prof (Dance) at Lehman College (CUNY) and teaches for Something Positive Inc., Purelements An Evolution in Dance, the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI), and E.M Techniques.
Marina Celander