BIOGRAPHIES:

ELLEN JACOBS: PRESIDENT/PUBLICIST
A native New Yorker, Ellen has been working in the performing arts as a writer and publicist since she graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she received a B.A. in English. Her dance training began at the age of three, when her mother took her for interpretative dance for children at the Jefferson School in Greenwich Village, followed by Saturday mornings at the Neighborhood Playhouse. After four years at the School of American Ballet she finally learned that "real" dancing was hard work. She had been working on a combined MFA in dance and writing in Madison, when she accepted a writing position at Dance Magazine. Later she took a job as a writer for a visual arts encyclopedia. In the summer of 1970, she began her first job as a publicist: director of publicity for the American Dance Festival. That fall, she served as BAM’s program book editor. Over the next few years, in addition to returning to ADF for the next two summers, she worked as a writer and publicist. As a publicist, she directed media relations at BAM, was director of public relations for the Creative Artists Public Service Program, and spent three years as associate director of public relations for the New York State Council on the Arts, where she also served as publications editor. Her last job before creating her own firm was as a press representative at Gurtman and Murtha, where she handled many major dance companies and individual musicians and ensembles. Her articles and reviews have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Soho Weekly News, Changes, The Daily News Magazine, Playbill, Dance Magazine and Arts in Society, among others. She also contributed chapters to "The Poor Dancer's Almanac" and “The Whole Earth Catalogue of Dance.”

JULIA WHITNEY BARNES: ART DIRECTOR
Julia has been with the company for over a decade taking on a variety of roles including overseeing the marketing, print and web design and visual arts publicity. Julia earned a MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College, City University of New York in 2006 and a BFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design in 2001. Julia was born in a pastoral town in Vermont and grew up in several New England towns. Julia is also a mixed media artist who has spent the last dozen years making indoor and outdoor works related to the natural world. Her art studio is located in a large, converted factory building, along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, where she recently completed, in conjunction with Art Assets, a site-specific outdoor painting directly along the Canal at the site of a future Toll Brothers development. Another public art piece currently on view is part of a project called Artbridge, which features original works of art installed on scaffolding on the historic London Terrace building in Chelsea. During the summer of 2008, Julia's installation Gilded Phytophillic Bats, comprised of dozens of life-sized, gold-plated ceramic bats, and based on species indigenous to the area, hung in a willow tree as part of the exhibition "Relative Environment" in Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, directly north of the Brooklyn Bridge. Julia is part of an all-female art collective, tART, whose combined work was featured in 2008 Rabbitholestudio Gallery and in 2009 at A.I.R. Gallery. Julia participated in the International Open Art Residency on the Island of Dreams in Greece in 2008. One of Julia's installations was published in "500 Ceramic Sculptures," by Lark Books in May 2009. Julia’s work has been on view in several museums including the Chelsea Art Museum (NYC), Brooklyn Historical Society Museum (Brooklyn, NY), Annmarie Garden & Sculpture Park, Smithsonian Institute (Solomons, MD) and the Old Stone House Museum (Brooklyn, NY). For more information visit: www.juliawhitneybarnes.com (PORTRAIT BY IAN PASQUER)

CHRISSY TULLY: ASSISTANT PUBLICIST
Chrissy Tully graduated Cum Laude from George Mason University in May 2010 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance.  Her dance training began at the age of four in Dublin, Ireland.  In 1995, she moved home to New Jersey where she furthered her training at a pre-professional level.  While at George Mason University, Chrissy was enrolled in the National Society for Collegiate Scholars and served on the GMU Dance Company Executive Board.  She attended the Trisha Brown Winter Dance Intensive, the Doug Varone Summer Dance Intensive, and the NYU Tisch Dance Summer Residency Festival.  Chrissy served as an intern for EJA during the summer of 2009. It was there that Chrissy developed the desire to engage more deeply in the administrative side of the dance world.  Chrissy moved to New York City upon graduation, with the hopes of pursuing a career in arts administration. She began working as the Administrative/Development Assistant at Brooklyn Ballet until December 2010, when Chrissy was hired by EJA in the role of Assistant Publicist.

LIZ YOUNG: PUBLICITY INTERN
Liz Young graduated Magna Cum Laude from Connecticut College in 2010 with a double major in Dance and Philosophy. Awarded the Dance Department Award "to one student for outstanding work in all areas associated with the study of dance," Liz's choreography represented the college at the American College Dance Festival in 2008 and 2010, and was one of two students pieces featured in the Dance Department Faculty Concert in 2009 and 2010. As an undergraduate, Liz performed in pieces choreographed by esteemed faculty David Dorfman, Lisa Race, Adele Myers, and Heidi Henderson as well as guest artists Monica Bill Barnes and Nicholas Leichter. In 2009, Liz spent half a year in Prague working, studying, and writing a thesis on the Czech contemporary dance scene. In addition to interning for EJA, Liz interns for New Dance Alliance, helping to organize their annual festival for experimental performance art, Performance Mix. Ultimately, Liz hopes to choreograph, and is co-producing an evening-length performance at Galapagos Art Space in the Spring of 2011. To view her work, please visit her Vimeo page at http://www.vimeo.com/user4321887.

NATHALIE MATYCHAK: PUBLICITY INTERN
Nathalie Matychak was born and raised in New York and began her professional dance training at LaGuardia Arts High School. During high school, Nathalie studied on scholarship at Studio Maestro, the Joffrey Ballet School, and the Paul Taylor School.  She has danced in works created by Milton Myers, Sidra Bell, Adam Barruch, Nathan Trice, Stacy Spence, and Kyle Abraham.  During her time at NYU, Nathalie choreographed "Whipt!" for the Second Avenue Dance Company and had showings of "Three Sixty" and "stoopid". Since receiving her BFA in Dance from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in May 2010, she has worked as an arts administration intern with Parsons Dance and Ellen Jacobs Associates in addition to founding her company, BANGdance. To view her choreography and learn more about BANGdance, visit her the process blog at www.bangdance.blogspot.com

JAY VAN BUREN: WEB DESIGN CONSULTANT
Fine artist and web designer Jay Van Buren escaped from Kansas in 1997 to follow his dreams in New York. He received a BFA in painting from the University of Kansas in 1994, and a MFA in painting from Parsons Scool of Design in 1999. After a two and a half year stint as senior designer at the Forbes's Favorite-award-winning financial site, Multex.com, he has spent the last 5 years creating unique, highly creative and effective web sites for a variety of arts and arts-related companies including Twyla Tharp, Jeff Bailey Gallery, painter and Yale university Proffessor Frances Barth, National Public Radio program On The Media and award-winning site for Bellwether Gallery. Jay has worked closely with EJA to develop this website, train the staff, and find new ways to use the web to its best potential. For more information visit: www.early-adopter.com.

DON LEDERMAN: BOOKKEEPER