 |
Marisol Best - Theatre
Marisol Best grew up in southeastern San Diego where she was introduced to community life from the passenger seat of an ice cream truck, driven by her mother who worked the route for 13 years. As they rode through the neighborhood streets, and she observed the daily lives of people of all cultures and backgrounds, her passion for telling stories developed. Beginning with a dual BA degree in theatre and Spanish from San Diego State University, Best later earned an MFA from the University of Florida where she studied acting and recieved additional training at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England. Best’s professional career developed through her work as an educator, co-writer and actor. While residing in Seattle, she served on the faculty of the Seattle Children’s Theatre and also worked for Living Voices and Open Door Theatre. In 2009, Best moved to Oaxaca, Mexico and founded Nundeya Theatre, where she trained future theatre educators. In 2010, she returned to San Diego and joined the La Jolla Playhouse as the Education & Outreach Associate.
|
 Marisol Best and San Diego Junior Theatre
Marisol Best’s project will create a new children’s play, to be developed through interaction and research within the San Diego community. It will explore the positive and negative effects of technology on multiple generations and the ways people communicate with each other.
www.nundeya.com
San Diego Junior Theatre (SDJT) was founded in 1948 and originally began as a community program of the Old Globe. SDJT develops and produces theatrical productions under the direction of Artistic Director Desha Crownover and offers year-round theatre education programs and camps for children in Balboa Park, La Jolla and throughout San Diego County.
www.juniortheatre.com
Back to Top 
|
 |
Wes Bruce - Multimedia
Growing up in the woods of northern California, Wes began an exploration of the outdoor world, beginning with the discovery of tree root formations and light. It was then that he began to deeply value the process of noticing, which lead to listening, asking, and learning and then to making. A 2007 graduate of Point Loma Nazarene University, he is first an explorer and then an artist, acting on the freedom and responsibility to be inspired, daydream, create, and connect. Through this trial and error process, he has experimented in a wide variety of mediums, including illustration, printmaking, fort building, poetry, and imaginative walking. Not tied to any specific discipline, he roams through his process focused more on ideas and connections than physical manifestation. He believes in the words of G.K. Chesterton, “The world will never lack for wonders, only wonder.”
|
 Wes Bruce and Lux Art Institute
Wes Bruce’s multimedia StructuresPoetryHumans will investigate the poetic connections between structures and human beings. The project will consist of a website where visitors can contribute to the project and an installation constructed at Lux Art Institute in which visitors can enter a living metaphor. The project will include photography, video, poetry, illustration, musical composition and installation.
www.structurespoetryhumans.com • www.wesbruceart.com
Lux Art Institute in Encinitas opened in 2007, led by Executive Director Reesey Shaw. It redefines the museum experience by offering the region's only residency program for contemporary, visual artists to develop new projects in a working studio environment while sharing their creative process and finished work with the public. Lux also presents permanent installations on its native-landscaped site and offers art education outreach and programming.
www.luxartinstitute.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Gilbert Castellanos - Music
Gilbert Castellanos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, where his father, a professional musician, instilled in him a love of classical music and big band jazz. After attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, and Cal Arts in Los Angeles, Castellanos quickly rose to national attention as a member of the celebrated band, Black/Note, with which he recorded three albums. Castellanos has thrived as a player, bandleader, composer and arranger having worked with world-renown artists including, Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, and Michael Buble. A passionate advocate for formal jazz education, Castellanos regularly conducts high school workshops and is a lecturer at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. You can find Castellanos performing on Wednesday nights at Super El Camino in San Diego, where he develops new material for his band, while providing up-and-coming players an opportunity to perform with seasoned professionals.
|
 Gilbert Castellanos and San Diego Repertory Theatre
Gilbert Castellanos’s Federal Jazz Project will be a theatrical workshop production that will explore the regional and bi-national history of jazz music and musicians in the 1950s and present day San Diego. The piece will weave together multi-generational real and fictional stories and sounds of musicians – both civilian and military - and from many races and ethnicities.
gilbertcastellanosjazz.com/
San Diego Repertory Theatre was founded in 1976 and is led by Artistic Director Sam Woodhouse. It is the resident and managing company of the downtown Lyceum Theatre, producing plays on three stages, showing artworks in their galleries and offering educational programming and training.
www.sdrep.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Kira Carrillo Corser - Multimedia
Kira Carrillo Corser’s art making has increasingly mixed new media technologies with traditional techniques. She says, “Working collaboratively to include video, writing, songs, costumes and puppetry makes my work more successful and meaningful.” A graduate of San Diego State University with an MFA, Corser has earned more than 50 awards for her projects, including support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the James Irvine Foundation. Her work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian, National Steinbeck Center, and the Museum of Photographic Art. Corser’s books, which all originated in San Diego, include: When the Bough Breaks (New Sage Press); Struggle to Be Borne (SDSU University Press); and Home Street Home (American Red Cross.) She taught eight years at California State University Monterey Bay and was staff photographer for KPBS television for ten years.
|
 Kira Carrillo Corser and Jean Isaacs San Diego Dance Theater
Kira Carrillo Corser will collaborate with Jean Isaacs San Diego Dance Theater on The Door is Open: An Intergenerational Dance Project, a full-evening performance featuring ten older dancers. The artist will capture the seniors’ narratives on film and project them on the theater’s walls, interspersed with real-time close ups of the performers and audience. A 23-minute creative film of The Door is Open will also be produced.
San Diego Dance Theater was founded in 1972, with Jean Isaacs as Artistic Director since 1997. They present dance concerts with a widely diverse group of dancers and provide training for dancers of all ages at Dance Place San Diego in Point Loma’s Liberty Station. Their most visible project is the annual “Trolley Dances,” for which they create six new site-specific dances along the San Diego trolley line.
www.sandiegodancetheater.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Monique Gaffney - Theatre
Since graduating from Columbia University with an MFA in acting, Monique Gaffney’s first two loves of theatre and dance have continued to fuel her career. Gaffney, who is drawn to politically and socially conscious theatre says, “It is not enough to know that you are meant to be an artist. It is not enough to love what you do. It is not enough to simply be passionate. I believe one must be brave enough to act; hence perform by action.” Gaffney is artist-in-residence at Cygnet Theatre, and has been a member of Omo Aché Afro-Cuban Music & Dance Company since 2001. She has performed in more than 30 theatrical productions, including the award-winning I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to me by a Young Lady from Rwanda (Patte Award) at 6th@ Penn Theatre and Yellowman (Craig Noel Award) at Cygnet Theatre. In addition to her work as an artist, Gaffney serves as executive director of Common Ground Theatre, which produces classics and new works by and/or about people of African descent.
|
 Monique Gaffney and La Jolla Playhouse
Monique Gaffney will create a multimedia work about the life of Henrietta Lacks, a black tobacco farmer who became ill with cancer and whose tissue cells –without her knowledge - were later used for scientific and medical research. The story, which will be told from the perspective of Henrietta, will also look at human experimentation on other African American women and its implications for bioethics.
The La Jolla Playhouse, founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, is a nationally-acclaimed, Tony Award-winning theatre in residence on the campus of University of California, San Diego. Led by Artistic Director Christopher Ashley and Managing Director Michael S. Rosenberg, the Playhouse presents a season of classics, new plays and musicals, as well as numerous education and outreach programs that serve the San Diego community.
www.lajollaplayhouse.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Justin Hudnall - Literary Arts/Multimedia
Justin Hudnall graduated with honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BA in Dramatic Writing. He took a break from the arts for three years to pursue his other love, a career in emergency international aide work with the United Nations Children’s Fund where he served in New York and Southern Sudan. As an artist and humanist, the bulk of Hudnall’s work has focused on recording, facilitating and presenting the stories of overlooked and unseen populations. He enriches his practice by teaching creative writing and performance to marginalized groups, including homeless teens and combat veterans. He is currently executive director and co-founder of So Say We All, a nonprofit organization developed to support the professional development needs of artists.
|
 Justin Hudnall and San Diego Writers, Ink
Justin Hudnall’s The Far East will be both a print/multimedia anthology and performance, to be comprised of curated personal narratives, interviews and histories from across San Diego’s East County communities and their residents.
www.sosayweallonline.com
San Diego Writers, Ink offers classes and workshops in all genres; reading and writing groups; and author readings, salons and other literary events at The Ink Spot in downtown San Diego. They also provide opportunities for publication and a literary community for San Diego writers.
www.sandiegowriters.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Maria Juan - Dance
Blurring the line between the concert and digital art worlds, Maria Juan pushes boundaries in choreography, teaching and the business of art. Originally from Florida, Juan is a graduate of the University of South Florida, with a BA in dance studies and a minor in television production. While there, she performed with several companies including Moving Current Dance Collective, BellaDanza and MusInc., an artists’ collective she co-founded. Intrigued by how performing arts and digital media can co-exist, she also founded her own multi-media arts agency, mjuanstudio. After moving to California, Juan dove headfirst into the dance scene. She has performed in works by Bradley Michaud (Los Angeles) and Jean Isaacs (San Diego) among other emerging southern California choreographers. With her training in digital graphics, Juan has collaborated on several projects, including the award-winning Wallflower that combined contemporary dance with digital art video installation.
|
 Maria Juan and Malashock Dance
Maria Juan’s Nonsensical Ambling of Wondrous Kinds will be a digital art performance and a contemporary re-telling of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, set in downtown San Diego. Utilizing stop- motion photography, animation and graphics in collaboration with dance theatre movement, the work will culminate in a completed dance for camera work.
mariajuan.com
Malashock Dance advances the art and experience of dance by creating original works that communicate, challenge, entertain and encourage new forms of personal expression. Founded in 1988 by John Malashock, the company has created many new dance works, often in collaboration with composers, playwrights, artists and other arts organizations. The Malashock Dance School features ongoing technical training for dancers of all ages and provides arts education outreach programming.
www.malashockdance.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Phil Johnson - Theatre
Phil Johnson is a theatrical performer who writes as well as produces the art he makes on stage. His long and extensive history includes performance in the Broadway production of Les Miserables, in the Canadian production of Sunset Boulevard, and a tour with Les Miz and the 1st National Company of Miss Saigon. On television he appeared in the ABC sitcom, Notes from the Underbelly. A local favorite, his stage work includes among others: Little Shop of Horrors, Cygnet Theatre; Putnam County Spelling Bee, North Coast Repertory Theatre; and, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Old Globe Theatre. In Los Angeles, his stage credits include, Possible Worlds at the Strasberg Institute and numerous workshops for Disney Studios. Johnson writes, produces and performs an original sketch comedy show, Casa del Haha with Señor Phil at North Coast Repertory Theatre. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Johnson was also a Fellow at the 1998 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center Cabaret Symposium.
|
 Phil Johnson and North Coast Repertory Theatre
Phil Johnson will adapt Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles into a one-man production that will be a satire of the overly dramatic style of 1940s mystery/suspense movies and an homage to the inherent theatricality of the original text.
www.philjohnson.net • www.casadelhaha.com
North Coast Repertory Theatre was founded in 1982 and is led by Artistic Director David Ellenstein. North Coast Repertory Theatre presents classic and contemporary theatre in their 194-seat intimate venue in Solana Beach. They also offer educational programming.
www.northcoastrep.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Vicki Leon - Visual Art
Vicki Leon’s innovative approach to the medium of glass allows for fine detail, vibrant color, sculptural form and the interaction of environment and viewer. “I am inspired by the beauty and interplay of light. My work often asks the viewer to rethink the obvious by offering an optical experience out of the ordinary.” The memorable CaliforniaScope, a giant kaleidoscope installed on the San Diego waterfront in 2008, is an example of Leon’s work, offering a surprising interactive experience of light and beauty. One of Leon’s greatest honors was to collaborate with renowned feminist artist, Judy Chicago. The Leon/Chicago collaborations continue to be exhibited worldwide and are in the permanent collections of the Canadian Clay and Glass Museum and the Santa Fe Museum of Fine Art. Leon’s own wall pieces and sculptural editions are in myriad private and prominent collections around the world.
|
 Vicki Leon and Mojalet Dance Collective
Vicki Leon will collaborate with choreographer Faith Jensen-Ismay on the Quilts of Light Dance Project. Quilts of Light will be an artistic study of light and movement and will consist of a glass sculpture that will be brought to life through interactions during dance performances.
www.vickileonartist.com
Mojalet Dance Collective is a contemporary dance company led by Artistic Director Faith Jensen-Ismay that often utilizes classical music and large ensembles of dancers as well as provides dance classes at the Vine at the Bernardo Winery, a performance space in Rancho Bernardo.
www.mojalet.com
Back to Top
|
 |
Manuel Paul López - Literary Arts
Manuel Paul López was born in the U.S.-Mexican border region of El Centro, California. He says that his work is largely inspired by his experience as a Chicano male and the geographical, political, and cultural contexts of the area in which he was raised, an area plagued by high unemployment rates and negative stereotyping. “My motivation as a writer is to create a body of work that challenges these perceptions,” says Lopez. After earning degrees from the University of California, San Diego (BA) and San Francisco State University (MA), his writing career began to evolve. His work has been published in Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingue, The Bitter Oleander, ZYZZYVA, and Rattle, among others, and anthologized in Roque Dalton Redux (Cedar Hill Publications). A Canto Mundo Fellow, Lopez has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His first book entitled Death of a Mexican and Other Poems was published by Bear Star Press in 2006 and awarded the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize. His chapbook, 1984, has just been released by Amsterdam Press.
|
 Manuel Paul Lopez and Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company
Manuel Paul Lopez will complete a book-length manuscript of poems, short stories and non-fiction personal accounts entitled, The Yearning Feed, that will explore life along the U.S.-Mexican border, particularly concerning environmental and immigration issues. The project will result with a public reading and performance of excerpts of the book.
http://manuelpaullopez.blogspot.com/
Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company is led by Executive Artistic Director Seema Sueko and presents original and lesser-known socially-conscious productions in their 107-seat downtown San Diego theatre, providing a forum for diverse and underrepresented groups, as well as educating youth.
www.moolelo.net
Back to Top
|
 |
Jason Low - Film
After graduating Magna Cum Laude, with a BA in film from the University of California Santa Cruz, Jason Low began working at a movie theatre between occasional stints with various film and video production companies. He was promoted based on a mutual agreement between himself and customers that he would be better suited behind the scenes, in projection, rounding out his film education. His film credits include, Reflections, a short, experimental autobiographical documentary about the role of film culture and practice in dealing with issues of absence of loss. life, his second short film, was screened at the 2010 Santa Cruz International Film Festival. Guided by maxims, “Film is truth, 24 frames a second” and “Every cut is a lie,” Low makes movies about people relating to people, lost loves, himself, and cats. He lives in San Diego despite the sunshine.
|
 Jason Low and San Diego Asian Film Foundation
Jason Low’s semi-autobiographical project, entitled Ghosts of the California Sun, will consist of expressionistic Super 8 film and HD video diaries which will examine Asian-American masculinity through a road trip along the California coast.
http://ghostsofthecaliforniasun.wordpress.com/
The San Diego Asian Film Foundation began in 2000 and is led by Executive Director Lee Ann Kim. SDAFF focuses on Asian American and Asian international cinema and presents an annual film festival and related programming in Mission Valley, shows films on digital cable, and offers film screenings, discussions and classes in Point Loma’s Liberty Station and throughout San Diego County.
www.sdaff.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Brandie Maddalena - Visual Art
Brandie Maddalena is a social sculptor and installation artist who helps communities shift their perspectives of daily life by revealing its magic. In 1999, while a student at San Francisco Art Institute, Maddalena helped establish Dot-to-Dot, an installation which brought together hundreds of low-income San Diego and Rosarito elementary school children and dozens of artists for learning through the arts. Her sculptural installations revitalize objects that communities discard. In 2011, she participated in Burning Man, an annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and self-reliance as the lead artist for the San Diego CORE project, Quemaduras del Sol. Keeping with Burning Man tradition, the 20-foot-tall, climbable, interactive and rotating installation was torched. A mother of two young children and resident of City Heights, Maddalena is drawn to art that engages families and brings people together for reflection and a re-examination of community priorities.
|
 Brandie Maddalena and Young Audiences of San Diego
Brandie Maddalena’s The Nature of a Door is to be Opened will be a social sculpture and installation that will connect children from City Heights and their families, older youth, local artists, nonprofits and educational institutions. The artwork will consist of sixty stacked cabinets housing audio recordings of the favorite memories of children and complementary artworks to be made by older children in response to the memories.
maddalenaarts.com
Young Audiences of San Diego is led by Executive Director John Highkin and provides schools with performances, hands-on workshops and artist residencies by musicians, dancers, actors, visual artists, writers and storytellers and offers professional development programs to teachers and artists.
www.yasandiego.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Margaret Noble - Multimedia
In 2002, Margaret Noble started her career in the field of sound art as an electronic music DJ for the underground club community of Chicago. In 2005, she branched out into more experimental interests and began performing live soundscapes and electro acoustic music to new audiences. During this time, she also completed an MFA in sound art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Always influenced by her experiences growing up in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood, she continues to perform as an experimental composer and mixed media artist in solo exhibition and in collaboration with other contemporary artists. Her works have been showcased in a variety of installations, experimental theaters and dance productions. Noble’s artist residencies include the MAK Museum of Vienna and the Salzburg Academy of Fine Art. She has received the Hayward Prize, the International Governor’s Grant and the Microsoft Innovative Educator Global Award for her practices as an arts educator.
|
 Margaret Noble and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
Margaret Noble’s 44th and Landis will be an installation and performance that will recreate a child’s view of City Heights through blended histories of the 1980s and the 1800s. Utilizing sound art, archival photography and visual design, this work will be a mash-up of urban pop culture and Victorian aesthetics. A limited edition paper doll book will also be produced.
http://margaretnoble.net/
The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego is led by Director Hugh Davies and exhibits, interprets, collects and preserves art created since 1950 in all media in two locations (downtown San Diego and La Jolla) and provides educational programming.
www.mcasd.org
Back to Top
|
 |
Javier Velasco - Dance/Theatre
Javier Velasco has produced dance works for productions at the La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, and the San Diego Opera and has a long-standing relationship as a director/choreographer with the San Diego Repertory Theatre. New York credits include original choreography for SUDS: The Rocking 60’s Musical Soap Opera and Back to Bacharach and David. Formerly adjunct professor of dance at San Diego State University, Velaso also taught through The Old Globe Masters Program and at the University of California, San Diego. He currently serves as artistic director of the San Diego Ballet having created more than 70 original pieces for the company since its inception. “I truly believe that the creative process works best when it is a joyful, ecstatic one,” says Velasco. “I value beautiful immediacy; the juxtaposition of chaos and order; and illuminated ambiguity – all as a mirror of being a human being.”
|
 Javier Velasco and Moxie Theatre
Javier Velasco will present a staged workshop production of Eternally Bad to be performed at Moxie Theatre. It will be a dance and theater piece based on a book about mythological “bad girl” goddesses from around the world and will feature an original score by local blues artist, Candye Kane.
http://dance-to-the-piper.blogspot.com
Moxie Theatre was founded in 2005 and is led by Artistic Director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg. Moxie Theatre primarily presents under-produced female playwrights, particularly with plays which defy stereotypes of what women write about, in their 132-seat theatre at the border of the College and Rolando neighborhoods.
www.moxietheatre.com
Back to Top
|
 |
Joel P. West- Music
Joel P. West started writing folk songs in 2004 and has since developed into a composer, both for film and for his chamber-influenced band, The Tree Ring. As a musician, his published work serves as a catalyst for his audiences. “I seek to craft songs that are not complete in themselves but instead, open up a state of mind, a string of thoughts, or simply a place of rest for the listener.” He has released three solo projects and one with The Tree Ring, which won a San Diego Music Award for best Americana album in 2011. His music projects include Generous Shadows (2011), Dust Jacket (2008) and Something Makes us Move (2007). He has scored film work for companies such as The Learning Channel and Starbucks, and most recently, the feature film, I am not a Hipster, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. West earned a BA at Point Loma Nazarene University in 2006 where he studied graphic design.
|
 Joel P. West and Camarada
Joel P. West will collaborate with Camarada to write, record, perform and release a full-length record with his band, The Tree Ring, which marries folk-influenced songwriting and chamber music. The project will be inspired by San Diego landscapes and will include a film piece for one song from the record.
www.joelpwest.com
The Chamber Music Ensemble Camarada, led by Artistic Director Beth Ross Buckley, is dedicated to presenting performances of musical masterworks. Established in 1994, Camarada's goal is to create an inviting and expansive artistic experience for audiences. Camarada concerts present chamber music by pairing performers of the highest caliber with intimate spaces throughout San Diego.
www.camarada.org
Back to Top
|