DIRECTORS

Allan Schindler

Allan Schindler is Professor of Composition and Director of the Eastman Computer Music Center at the Eastman School of Music. He is also co-founder and co-director of the IMS festival. Allan has recently been awarded one of the most prestigious awards in composition, a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. Currently six of his compositions are available in commercial compact disc recordings, including a recently released SACD disc recording of Precipice by marimbist Nathaniel Bartlett, and many of Schindler's works also are available in European and American score publications. Further information on Schindler's compositions, writings, recordings and current activities is available on the composer's web site at http://ecmc.rochester.edu/allan/writing.htm
allan@ecmc.rochester.edu

Stephanie Maxwell

Stephanie Maxwell teaches film, video, and animation production and history courses in the School of Film and Animation at RIT. She has taught, lectured, and conducted workshops in many international venues. Her unusual and award-winning animated works have exhibited in many international film and television programs and festivals, including retrospectives in New Zealand, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, LUX in London, and the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris. Her works are collected by museums as works of art. Stephanie is co-founder and co-director of the IMS festival. people.rit.edu/sampph; sampph@rit.edu

Jack Beck

Jack Beck is Associate Professor in the School of Animation at RIT and an active artist. In 2005, Jack traveled to Churchill, Manitoba on the Hudson Bay to shoot polar bears for a film, Fossil Light, with filmmaker Tony Gault. Currently, he is working on a short called Post Script with his cousin, Laird Wynn, a composer. He was also recently an editorial analyst of two feature films, one of them was screened in the Sundance competition.
jabpph@rit.edu

Juanita Suarez

Juanita Suarez, Associate Professor, PhD, Texas Woman’s University, MFA, University of Utah, holds a joint position in the Department of Dance and Arts for Children Program at SUNY Brockport. She is a co-founding member of the Latina Dance Project, a national/international ensemble of Latina performers. The LDP supports the creative voice of the Latina experience and premiered an Aztec-based dance theater project titled Coyolxauhqui Re-Members at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January 2006. The work was also recently performed in Lisbon, Portugal.
jsuarez@brockport.edu

Kely Ferris

Kelly Ferris received her MFA in Dance Choreography and Performance at the SUNY College at Brockport. Presently, she performs as a company member of BIODANCE and the Kista Tucker Dance Company. Ferris serves as the Eastwest Somatics Network treasurer, membership coordinator, and conference chair. She is the Founder/Chair of the Brockport NDEO Student Chapter and was awarded the Elsa Posey Student Scholarship for Organizational Leadership in 2006. Originally from Tennessee, Ferris co-founded and directed Metal Velvet Dance Project in Memphis from 2000-2004. She has taught at SUNY Brockport, the University of Mississippi, the University of Memphis, The Hochstein School of Music and Dance in Rochester, The Center for Arts Education for the Memphis Arts Council, and the Theatre for Youth Program at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis.