THE EXPONENTIAL FESTIVAL

Darian Dauchan

Performer, Poet

DARIAN DAUCHAN is an award winning solo performer, actor, and poet who has appeared on both Broadway (Twentieth Century) and Off-Broadway Theatre (Jean Cocteau Rep., Classical Theatre of Harlem). TV and Film credits include Law and Order, Nickelodeon's Bet the House as Darian the "SoundFX" Guy, and the Lionsgate feature film Things Never Said. He was a member of the 2006 National Poetry Slam Team for the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe, was crowned the 2007 Urbana Grand Slam Champion for the Bowery Poetry Club, was a 2008 Nuyorican Grand Slam Finalist, and was the 2009 New Word Artist for Urban Word NYC in conjunction with the Dance Theatre Workshop now known as New York Live Arts.  He's also the 2012 winner of The Jerome Foundation's Stakeholder's Choice Award and one of his most recent shows Death Boogie, A Hip Hop Poetry Musical, was the 2012 winner of two Edinburgh Fringe Festival Musical Theatre Matters Awards for BEST New Music and BEST Innovation of a Musical.  Black Sheep his fifth solo was show commissioned by the Kitchen Theatre Company with the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts, and placed 3rd for Best Play at the 2015 Downtown Urban Theater Festival.    His band The Mighty Third Rail are 2015 American Music Abroad Finalists for the U.S. State Department, and in 2014 performed at SPKRBOX, the first Hip Hop Theater Festival in Norway.  Death Boogie, the album, along with their debut album Classic  is now available on iTunes.  www.dariandauchan.com

 

Andrew Dinwiddie

Co-Curator and Prodcuer, CATCH

Andrew Dinwiddie has been a co-curator/producer of the OBIE-winning CATCH Performance Series since 2004. He's worked at Ralph Lauren Corporation, New York Live Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, Rooftop Films, and most recently at BRIC / Celebrate Brooklyn!. He has served on the Selection Committee for the New York Dance and Performance Awards, the Advisory Council for The Field Leadership Fund, the Artistic Advisory Board for The Bushwick Starr, the Curatorial Advisory Committee for the Knockdown Center and is an occasional Contributing Editor to the Movement Research Performance Journal. He's presented his own work at The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, The Chocolate Factory Theater, the Bushwick Starr and the Chocolate Factory Theater in New York, and at the Bryant-Lake Bowl in Minneapolis, The Time Based Art Festival in Portland, The Fusebox Festival in Austin and the San Diego Museum of Art. He's had the pleasure of performing for many fantastic people, most regularly with David Neumann / advanced beginner group.

 

Alec Duffy

Artistic Director, JACK and Hoi Polloi

Duffy is an OBIE-Award winning theater-maker and the Artistic Director of the Brooklyn performance venue JACK, founded in 2012, as well as of the theater company, Hoi Polloi, which he founded in 2007.  Recent theater work includesOur Planet (Japan Society, 2013), Beckett Solos (JACK, 2013), Baal (JACK, July 2012) Three Pianos (as creator/performer), produced at New York Theater Workshop and at American Repertory Theatre in 2010-12, All Hands, The less we talk and Dysphoria (Ontological Theater) and The Top Ten People of the Millennium Sing Their Favorite Schubert Lieder. Awards and honors include OBIE Award (Three Pianos), TCG Alan Schneider Director Award Finalist, NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors, selected for Oskar Eustis’ Collaboration Class, Soho Rep Writer/Directors Lab, Sloan Project Commission and Drama League New Directors/New Works Fellowship (Dysphoria).

 

Caleb Hammons

Producer/Curator/Professor

Caleb Hammons is a cultural producer and curator working in NYC and the Hudson Valley. He is currently the Associate Producer at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, and co-curator of the Obie-award winning CATCH performance series. In 2012 and 2013 he co-curated the Prelude Festival in NYC. 

 

David Herskovits

Artistic Director, Target Margin Theater 

David Herskovits is the Artistic Director of Target Margin Theater in New York. He has directed man plays and operas for the company and also for The Lincoln Center Festival, The Bonn Biennale, The Prototype Festival, Theatre for A New Audience, Bang on A Can, and many others. David’s next production with Target Margin—Drunken With What?—opens at The Abrons Arts Center in February. His new production of Porgy and Bess will premiere at The Spoleto Festival USA in May. www.targetmargin.org

 

Kirstin Kapustik

General Manager, Chez Bushwick

Kirstin Kapustik works as a producer, curator, administrator and teacher in Brooklyn. She received a M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University in 2009 in choreography and performance and has worked at Center for Performance Research, The Whitney Museum, New York Live Arts, The Watermill Center, Danspace Project and currently is the General Manager of Chez Bushwick, a producing and presenting entity in Brooklyn offering affordable rehearsal space to dance and performance artists.  

 

Sue Kessler

Executive Director and Co-Founder, Bushwick Starr

Sue Kessler is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Obie award-winning Bushwick Starr theater in Brooklyn, NY. After attending Skidmore College, Sue performed, directed, and composed music for the New York based experimental theater company, Fovea Floods, and served as their Company Manager for five years. In 2007, Sue co-founded The Bushwick Starr and helped transform it from a humble black box theater into a thriving arts center that has become a popular destination for ground-breaking performance and enriching community programs. Sue is currently developing a Theater Management program at the Skidmore College Department of Theater.

 

Katie Melby

Producer, Cloud City

Katie Melby (Producer at Cloud City) is a Lecoq-trained theatre artist based in Brooklyn. She is currently co-directing and starring in "Rise and Fall," a Brecht-Bacchanallian party show with her arts collective BREAD as part of Exponential Festival running at Cloud City. She is co-founder and co-Artistic Director of 3 Sticks, a physical theatre company dedicated to making new work, that she runs with her partner composer/performer Andrew Lynch. Their work has been presented by Ars Nova, Columbia Stages, One Arm Red, Governors Island art Fair, and Dixon Place amongst others. Recent puppeteering credits include Basil Twist's "Sister's Follies" at Abrons Art Center, "Rite of Spring" at Lincoln Center, Mabou Mine's "La Davina Caricatura" at La Mama, "The Cat Who Went to Heaven" at BAM, The Chilean tour of Chris Green's FIrebird, and Jessica Scott's "Ship of Fools" at HERE Art Center's Culturemart. 

 

Moe Yousuf

Theater-maker / Co-Artistic Producer Target Margin Theater

Moe Yousuf is a theater-maker and arts administrator. Previously, he’s worked with the Henry Street Settlement and The Foundry Theatre and presented work at Abrons Arts Center, PRELUDE, Dixon Place, SoHo Rep Walkerspace, The Bushwick Starr Reading Series, The Secret Theatre, Co-Prosperity Sphere, and Rubber Rep Pilot Balloon.