The Bessies Award Special Citation 2020 Honoree Jacqulyn Buglisi for the Table of Silence Project
Artistic Collaborators
A. Christina Giannini | COSTUME DESIGNER
A. Christina Giannini (Costume Designer) has designed for Broadway, Off-Broadway, television, and for dance companies in eleven countries. She has twice received the Venezuelan Oscar for best costumes. Her designs can be seen in the repertoires of BDT, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and State Street Ballet, Santa Barabara.
Rossella Vasta | VISUAL ARTIST
Born in Palermo on August 30th 1962, in 1987 Vasta took her Master Degree in Philosophy at the University of Perugia. Her thesis was Visual Education for the Development of Creative Personality. In 1997, after living for a few years in the US, Vasta decides to show in Perugia at Palazzo della Penna, together with the artists she was in contact with while in New York. Between 1999 and 2000 she is in Germany where in the Cistercian Abbey of Marienstatt she realizes the works which will be exhibited at the Bochum Museum. Vasta has lectured for several academic institutions such as the American University of Washington DC, Chautauqua Institution in Buffalo, New York, Cardinal Stritch in Milwaukee and Montana State University in Bozeman. First prize for painting at the Florence International Biennial in 2003, Vasta has widely exhibited in Italy and abroad. She is Academic of Merit and member of the Board of Directors of the Academy of Fine Arts Pietro Vannucci in Perugia. In 2012 Rossella Vasta has been conferred with an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Humane Letters by Cardinal Stritch University, the biggest of the 22 Franciscan Universities in US.
Jack Mehler | LIGHTING/SET DESIGNER
JACK MEHLER (Lighting/Projection Designer) has designed more than a dozen ballets for BDT since 1998. Other dance credits include: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Donald Byrd/Spectrum Dance, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Joffrey Ballet, and Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, among others. He was 2012 Korean Musical Theatre Awards Lighting Design of Year for his work on Elisabeth. Jack also provides owner's design representation for organizations building performance and rehearsal spaces.
Clifton Taylor | LIGHTING DESIGNER
Taylor’s designs for BDT have included Requiem, Frida, Acapelorus: A Walrus Tale and The Conversation. Clifton Taylor has created lighting, projection and scenic designs for theater, dance and opera companies around the world. His designs for dance have been commissioned for the repertories of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Rambert Dance Company (London), American Ballet Theatre (NY), the San Francisco Ballet, the Scottish National Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Ballet de Lorraine (Nancy, France), Ballet Jazz de Montreal, the San Francisco Ballet, Maggio Danza (Florence, Italy), Sardono Dance Theatre (Indonesia), and the Ballet Company of Rio de Janeiro among many others. He is currently the resident designer for Karole Armitage Gone! , Philadanco, and Elisa Monte Dance and has designed extensively in the companies of Lar Lubovitch, Jacqulyn Buglisi, Ron K. Brown and Larry Keigwin. Other recent collaborators include: Benoit Swan Pouffer for Cedar Lake, Pascal Rioult, Septime Webre for the Washington Ballet among many others. His designs have been featured at the world's major arts festivals including the Venice Bienalle, Vienna Festival, New Crowned Hope, Jacob's Pillow, Singapore's Festival of Asian Arts, Arts Summit/Jakarta, the Hong Kong Festival, the Istanbul Festival, the Hamburg Summer Festival, The Lincoln Center Festival and BAM/Next Wave. In addition, Mr. Taylor has worked as a theater consultant on new large scale theatrical venues in several countries and is a sought after teacher and lecturer on theatrical lighting especially in the area of color. In 2003, he led a master class for Indonesian theatrical designers in Solo, Indonesia. With Beverly Emmons, he has taught at New York’s Broadway Lighting Master Class since 1997, and is a former member of the Juilliard School’s Dance Faculty.
Paola Prestini | COMPOSER
Named by NPR as one of the Top 100 composers in the world under 40, Prestini has been commissioned and performed by The New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Symphony, the Kronos Quartet, New York City Opera (VOX), Opera America, and the Washington Chorus, and performed by soloists such as Maya Beiser, Isabel Leonard, Jeffrey Zeigler, Helga Davis, Chris Burchett, and Hila Plitmann. Her interdisciplinary collaborations with artists Erika Harrsch, Ali Hossaini, Carmen Kordas, and S. Katy Tucker have been lauded by TimeOut NY as “Ingeniously staged concert pieces that gracefully walk the line between opera and performance art.” Her work has been presented worldwide, in venues ranging from Zankel Hall, the Kennedy Center, The Kitchen, HERE, The Whitney Museum, the River to River festival, Le Poisson Rouge, PS 122, and the Stone in New York, to Italian festivals such as Etnafest and Milano’s Teatro Manzoni, and BEMUS in Belgrade, Serbia. Ms. Prestini’s grants and awards have come from New Music USA, ASCAP, the BMI Fund, NYSCA (two Individual Artist grants), the Trust for Mutual Understanding, Concert Artist Guild, The Cary Trust, and the ASCAP Morton Gould Composers Award. She received her BM and MM at The Juilliard School and has studied with Samuel Adler, Robert Beaser, and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
Daniel Bernard Roumain | COMPOSER
Daniel Bernard Roumain (Composer) is perhaps the only composer whose collaborations span the worlds of Philip Glass, Cassandra Wilson, Bill T. Jones, Savion Glover and Lady Gaga. DBR made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2000 with the American Composers Orchestra performing his Harlem Essay for Orchestra, a Whitaker commission. He has since composed works for the Albany Symphony; the American Composers Orchestra; the Boston Pops Orchestra; and the Stuttgart Symphony. Recent work includes Symphony for the Dance Floor, the latest of the three commissions he has received from Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. DBR earned his doctorate in Music Composition from the University of Michigan under the tutelage of William Bolcom and Michael Daugherty.
Andy Teirstein | COMPOSER
Andy Teirstein (Composer) writes music inspired by the rich and diverse folk roots of modern culture. A student of Leonard Bernstein and Henry Brant, Teirstein composes for the concert hall, film, theater, and dance. He has composed for choreographers including Stephen Petronio, Donald Byrd, Chris Elam, Liz Lerman, Cherylyn Lavagnino and James Martin. His newest CD, Open Crossings, draws on Balkan and Appalachian influences. He has composed film scores for BBC and PBS, and an opera, A Blessing on the Moon. His musicals, Winter Man and Skels both receieved NEA Awards. Andy studied with Stephen Sondheim & Arthur Laurents at NYU and went on to achieve a Ph.D. in music composition. He extended his musical education in the pubs of Ireland and performing as a musical clown with a Mexican circus. He is currently an Associate Arts Professor at NYU.