Theodore Bale is dance critic and columnist at The Boston Herald and arts correspondent for The Cambridge Chronicle. His writing has appeared also in Dance Magazine, Dance International, Dancer, The Dance Critics Association Newsletter, Contact Quarterly, and several websites including Edge Publications, Dance Source Houston, and CultureVulture.net. Tedd has served as a board member for the Dance Critics Association and guest lecturer at Boston College and Boston University. In 2005 he was a Fellow at the NEA Arts Journalism program based at the American Dance Festival at Duke University. Mr. Bale received a B.A. degree from the Hartt School in Hartford, Connecticut, a Master of Technical and Professional Writing from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Tedd performed with the Northern Connecticut Ballet for seven years and studied Humphrey/Limon technique with Evan Williams at the Hartford Conservatory, and contemporary dance in Boston with Cheri Opperman, Ruth Birnberg, and Arawana Hayashi.

Ben Cameron, Program Director, Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in New York, NY. Previously, he served for more than eight years as the Executive Director of Theatre Communications Group (TCG). Prior roles include his work as Senior Program Officer at the Dayton Hudson Foundation, Manager of Community Relations for Target Stores (supervising its grantmaking program) and four years at the National Endowment for the Arts, including two as Director of the Theater Program. A former theatre professional, frequent public speaker and arts activist, Mr. Cameron has received honorary degrees from DePaul University in Chicago and American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, in addition to an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. In addition to his not for profit work, he has lectured on theatre aboard the Queen Mary 2 as an Oxford Lecturer on three separate cruises, has spent 11 seasons as a panelist on the opera quiz feature on the Live from the Metropolitan broadcasts from New York, has twice ridden his bicycle from Minneapolis to Chicago to raise money for AIDS relief services, and is currently a member of the Tony Awards Nominating Committee.

Suzanne Carbonneau is a dance critic and historian whose writings have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other publications. She directs the Institute for Dance Criticism at the American Dance Festival, and has served as Critic-in-Residence at the Joyce Theater in New York. Carbonneau is a Scholar-in-Residence at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and the Bates Dance Festival, and she lectures and writes about dance for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and other presenters across the United States. She is a dance consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts, where she has also served as a panelist. Carbonneau holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University and is a Professor at George Mason University. She is currently writing a biography of Paul Taylor.

Margi Cole is the Artistic Director of The Dance COLEctive who received a Lab Artist grant in 2005. Currently, she is a Lecturer and the Associate Chair at the Dance Center of Columbia College. Margi graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts, received a BA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Anne Dunning (Dance/USA Chair) became an associate at Arts Action Research, an international arts consulting group, in March 2004. Prior to that, she spent ten years with the Danny Grossman Dance Company where she was director of communications, associate general manager and administrative director. She has taken on numerous leadership roles in the arts community in Canada including founding chair of the national council of the Canadian Dance Assembly and whip of The Creative Trust endowment campaign. Before becoming involved in the arts, Anne studied biology at McGill University in Montreal where she received an honours BSc in ecology, evolution and behavior.

Teresa Eyring joined Theatre Communications Group (TCG) as executive director in March 2007. Prior to joining TCG, Ms. Eyring served as managing director of the Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) in Minneapolis. Eyring began her theatre career as director of development for the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington, D.C.. She was assistant executive director of the Guthrie Theater and managing director of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. Eyring’s past affiliations include service as chairwoman of the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, board member of WYBE-TV, executive committee member of the League of Resident Theaters; board member and Treasurer of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts; board member of Intermedia Arts, and board member of Ten Thousand Things Theater Company. Eyring holds a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from Yale School of Drama.

Kenneth J. Foster has been executive director at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts since October 2003. Foster has more than 20 years of experience as an arts administrator, curator, educator, and performing arts presenter. Prior to joining YBCA, he served as executive director of UApresents at the University of Arizona, a leading international performing arts presenting program offering more than 100 dance, music and theater performances a year. Prior to that, Mr. Foster served as professor and director at the Center for Performing Arts at Pennsylvania State University, as managing director at the Kirkland Fine Arts Center in Illinois, and as executive director at the multidisciplinary Town Hall Arts Center in Colorado. In addition, he has served as a board member for prominent arts organizations such as the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Dance/USA, and Chamber Music America, among others. Foster is currently an active member of The Africa Contemporary Art Consortium (TACAC) and Contemporary Arts Centers (CAC).

Richard Gibbs, MD had a first career in professional dance, touring several years each with the Hamburg Ballet, the Royal Winnipeg Ballets and First Chamber Dance Company. Returning to school in his mid-thirties, he received his undergraduate degree from Harvard and an MD form Yale University where he met and married former U.S. Ski Team member, Dr. Tricia Hellman Gibbs. Together they decided to pursue family medicine and completed their post graduate training at the University of Washington. Accepting an invitation to direct the medical care for the San Francisco Ballet, the Gibbs’s moved to San Francisco where they also opened a private practice in family medicine. Recognizing the large number of San Franciscan’s without medical insurance, the Gibbs’s founded the San Francisco Free Clinic in 1994, which provides free medical care to the uninsured. He holds clinical appointments as an Associate Professor at the UCSF School of Medicine and as an Assistant Professor at Yale University. In addition to his work as Supervising Physician for the San Francisco Ballet, he still teaches ballet and occasionally choreographs. Since 2001, Dr. Gibbs has chaired the Dance/USA Taskforce on Dancer Health. The Gibbs’s have five children live in Mill Valley.

Sandra Gibson has served as the President & CEO of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (Arts Presenters) since July 2000. Gibson has been instrumental in positioning the association as a leader in advancing the profession of performing arts presenting. Gibson’s nearly 30 years of experience in arts programming, presenting and arts management began with the Department of the Arts at UCLA Extension and continued with her tenure at the American Film Institute (AFI), where she held a number of senior level positions. Prior to joining Arts Presenters, Gibson was Executive Director of Public Corporation for the Arts, the Long Beach Regional Arts Council and Executive Vice President and COO for Americans for the Arts. In 2004, Gibson was appointed to the United States Commission to UNESCO. Gibson holds a B.M.E. in Music Education/Instrumental Music from Wittenberg University, an M.M. in Music History from Northwestern University and has completed coursework for the PhD in ethnomusicology at UCLA.

Rachel Howard is the Dance Correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle. She has covered dance for the Chronicle since 2003. She began her arts writing career at the Santa Barbara Independent and later the Orange County Register, and has also served as the dance critic of the San Francisco Examiner. Her memoir about her father’s unsolved murder, “The Lost Night,” was published by Penguin Group in 2005 and acclaimed as “enthralling” by the New York Times. She divides her time between freelance dance writing and literary projects, and posts her reviews regularly to her blog at www.rachelhoward.com.

Sharon Gersten Luckman is Executive Director of Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation after serving as Development Director. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Ms. Luckman began her career as a dance teacher and went on to direct New York's 92nd Street YM/WHA Dance Center from 1978 - 1986. She later became Development Director of Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation and for three years was Executive Director of Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. Additionally, she has taught Arts Administration courses at New York University's School of Continuing Education. In 2002 Ms.Luckman received the Arts Management Award for Career Service and in June 2004 she was awarded the Arts & Business Council's Encore Award for Arts Management Excellence.

Douglas McLennan is an arts journalist and critic and the founder and editor of ArtsJournal.com, the leading aggregator of arts journalism on the internet. Each day ArtsJournal combs through more than 200 publications worldwide and posts links to the best cultural stories. He is also the newly-appointed director of the National Arts Journalism Program. Prior to starting ArtsJournal, Mr. McLennan was arts columnist and music critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A former concert pianist, he has a Master's degree in music from the Juilliard School in New York. He has written on the arts for numerous publications, including as music critic for Salon.com, and for Newsweek, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and the London Evening Standard. He has been a music critic for National Public Radio's All Things Considered and is a recipient of several awards for arts criticism and reporting, including a National Arts Journalism Program Fellowship at Columbia University and a Deems Taylor/ASCAP Award for music journalism.

Robert B. Middleton, Sr. has been providing insurance and risk management services nationally since 1986. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the USF&G School of Insurance. Bob is currently the Director of the Insurance Program for the Performing Arts, a division of Mary Donnellly & Parr, Inc. He and his wife and three kids live in Baltimore, where they actively support the Arts.

CJ Mitchell is the Executive Director of Links Hall, Chicago's home for independent dance and performance: www.linkshall.org. He is a board member of Moly Shanahan/Mad Shak (CDF 2006 Lab Artist), an associate member of Goat Island Performance Group, and runs the False Walls record label.

Janelle Ott has been the dance specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for over nine years. Prior to joining the NEA, she was employed at Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance. While at Dance/USA, she helped with the administration of two re-granting programs: American Dance Touring Initiative and Philadelphia Repertory Development Initiative, acted as the liaison to the board of trustees, and administered Dance/USA’s grants. Other arts organizations she has worked at include Cleveland Ballet, The Washington Ballet, and Karamu House. She is a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College where she majored in business and minored in dance. She received her M.A. in arts management at American University, where she currently is an adjunct faculty member.

Julia Rhoads is a choreographer and Artistic Director of Lucky Plush Productions. In addition to earning a CDF Lab Artist Award in 2005, Rhoads has received a Cliff Dwellers Foundation Award for Choreography, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for Choreography in 2000 and 2006, and a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship to pursue her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently on faculty in the theater department at Columbia College Chicago.

Lawrence Rothfield is the co-founder and faculty director of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago. He is responsible for setting the research agenda of the center, whose mission is to help policymakers and stakeholders in the arts, humanities, and heritage by providing analyses that are objective, intellectually rigorous, and conceptually sound. The center recently published two books on cultural heritage protection, Robbing the Cradle: Lessons Learned from the Looting of Iraq's Cultural Heritage, and What Went Wrong?: Behind the Looting of the Baghdad Museum. He’s also written Chicago Music City, a report comparing Chicago's music industry and its live music scene to those in 50 other cities. He is currently overseeing a major new project on the impact of cultural "scenes" on regional urban development.

Cookie Gregory Ruiz, C.F.R.E., (Chair Elect) Ms. Ruiz has more than 20 years experience in the areas of strategic planning, program development and non-profit fund-raising/management, which includes work with the United Way and the American Red Cross. In 2002 she was awarded the professional designation of Certified Fund Raising Executive (C.F.R.E.), by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She has served as a speaker, facilitator and presenter for a variety of leadership conferences. Ms. Ruiz is currently on the Executive Committee of the national Board of Trustees of Dance/USA, the national Board of Directors of American Arts Alliance, the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), the Board of the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Board of Directors of KMFA, the Board of Governors of KVUE’s “5 Kids Who Care” awards program, Chair of Austin’s Performing Arts Research Coalition, and is a community advisor to the Young Women’s Alliance (YWA). In 1996 Ms. Ruiz joined the staff of Ballet Austin as development director, became general manager in 1997 and executive director in 1999.

Marc A. Scorca joined OPERA America in 1990 as president and CEO, where he is responsible for the strategic leadership and management of the entire organization. Since that time, the OPERA America membership has grown from 120 opera companies to nearly 2,500 organizations and individuals. A strong advocate of collaboration, Scorca has led several cross-disciplinary projects and is a member of the Board of Directors and an officer of the American Arts Alliance, Opera Europa and Opera.ca. Scorca has led strategic planning retreats for opera companies and other cultural institutions internationally, and has participated on panels for federal, state, and local funding agencies, as well as for numerous private organizations. He also appears frequently in the media on a variety of cultural issues. Scorca attended Amherst College where he graduated with high honors in both History and Music.

Andrea E. Snyder has served as executive director of Dance/USA since February 2000. Director of the National Initiative to Preserve America's Dance (NIPAD) since 1993, Snyder served as assistant director of the National Endowment for the Arts Dance Program from 1987 to 1993. Previously, she was a booking agent for Sheldon Soffer Management, executive director of Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, administrator of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts dance department, associate administrator for the Cunningham Dance Foundation, and assistant to the director of the Dance Notation Bureau. In addition, Snyder has been a dancer and teacher, and an adjunct professor at The American University. She earned a BS degree from The American University and a master’s in arts management from New York University. Snyder also serves as moderator of The Kennedy Center’s America Dancing Series post-performance artist/audience discussions.

Douglas C. Sonntag was appointed director of the Office of National Initiatives at the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004; they administer several signature programs including Shakespeare in American Communities, Jazz Masters on Tour, Save America’s Treasures, American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius, Poetry Out Loud, and The NEA Arts Journalism Institutes. Mr. Sonntag also serves as the director of dance for the National Endowment for the Arts; a position he has held since 1997. Previously, he served as program administrator and senior program specialist for the Arts Endowment’s Dance Program where he supervised grants to dance companies, dance presenters, dance media grants, and dance preservation projects. From 1981-1986 Mr. Sonntag was general manager of the Repertory Dance Theatre in Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition, he was an associate instructor for the University of Utah's Institute of Arts Administration and a staff specialist for the Department of Ballet. Mr. Sonntag has served as a judge for the American College Dance Festival/Dance Magazine Awards, as a panelist for the Utah Arts Council, the Jerome Foundation, and the Carlisle Project and has spoken at and served on panels for many organizations both nationally and abroad. Mr. Sonntag attended the American College in Paris and the University of Utah graduating with a B.F.A. in Ballet and an M.F.A. in Theater with an emphasis in arts administration.

Joanne Steller, Vice President, Consulting Services at TRG, manages client services in marketing consulting. She is responsible for a portfolio of clients that includes the Joffrey Ballet and Washington Ballet, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Wang Center (Boston) and Clay Center (Charleston, WV), the orchestras of Arkansas, Cleveland, Elgin (IL), and North Carolina, and the Virginia Arts Festival. Before joining TRG in 2000, she spent 17 years as Director of Marketing for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, marketing varied series and special events in all performing arts disciplines. Prior to the Kennedy Center Ms. Steller worked in retail and public relations on the East Coast.

Steven Tepper is associate director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy and assistant professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University. Tepper is author of The Creative Campus: Who’s Number One?, a cover story for the Chronicle of Higher Education which helped to launch a national movement to re-examine the relationship between art, creativity and higher education. He has also written and spoken widely about the creative economy, public art, and arts participation in America. He holds degrees from Princeton, Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.