Creative Team
Tammy Nguyen
Librettist and Designer, DirectorTammy Nguyen creates lush paintings, drawings, artist books, prints, and zines that explore the intersections between geopolitics, ecology, and lesser-known histories. A story teller, Nguyen’s multidisciplinary practice takes two forms—her more traditional fine arts practice and her publishing practice, embodied through her imprint, Passenger Pigeon Press.
Nguyen received a B.F.A. from The Cooper Union in 2007 and an MFA from Yale in 2013. She was a Fulbright Fellow in 2007 and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2023. She has exhibited around the world including the 2022 Berlin Biennale and Greater New York 2021 at MOMA PS1. Her institutional solos include ICA Boston and the Sarasota Museum of Art. Her work is included in many institutions including LACMA and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She serves on the faculty at Wesleyan University.
Neely Bruce
Neely Bruce is a prolific composer, pianist, conductor, and leading scholar of American music whose career spans more than five decades. His original operas include Americana, or A New Tale of the Genii (1985); Hansel and Gretel (1996), and the one-act opera Pyramus and Thisbe (1965). His most recent stage work is Flora: An Opera, an expanded version of a 1728 ballad opera. Bruce’s largest composition, Convergence (2000), was presented at Lincoln Center. As a conductor, he has led the 20th-century revival of George Bristow’s opera Rip Van Winkle and premiered several major works by Henry Brant. As a pianist, Bruce is renowned for his interpretations of American composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was one of the seven harpsichordists who premiered HPSCHD by John Cage and Lejaren Hiller in 1969. Bruce is the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music at Wesleyan University.
ComposerChoreographerKiara Benn
Kiara Benn is a movement artist and creative producer committed to expanding access to the performing arts. She has collaborated with production companies, artists, and cultural organizations to develop impactful projects in museums, theaters, and community spaces. As project manager at For Freedoms, she helped to produce initiatives like Hear Her Here, a series of murals, programs, and salons highlighting Black femme visions in partnership with Converse. As a choreographer and performer, she contributed to opera productions like Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels’s 2022 opera Omar, which was directed by Kaneza Schaal. Alongside her artistic practice, Kiara serves as assistant curator of performance at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts.
Associate DirectorR.R. Sigel
Liza Couser is a director of funny, complex, ensemble-driven new work based in New York City. Select Recent Credits include We Do The Same Thing Every Week (Director, A.R.T./New York Gural Theatre); Katie Laid An Eggy (Director/Composer, Prototype 237), Depresh Mode (Director/Composer, Center At West Park), Meat (Director, The Tank NYC), Tracy Triceratops And The End Of History (Director, Vox Lab), Oratorio For Living Things (Assistant Director, Ars Nova). Liza is the co-founder of Attractive Nuisance and Primetime Theater Festival, and she was the creative producer of Colt Coeur’s Polylogues at Here Arts Center. Liza earned her BA in Theater and Linguistics from Dartmouth College. She Is A Member Of C4 Choral Collective and an alum of the Roundabout Directors Group, SDCF Observership, Ars Nova Artistic Fellowship, Prototype 237 Artist Residency, and 24 Hour Plays Nationals.
Producer / Asst. Curator of Performance, CFAJamal Jackson
Jamal Jackson is the founder of Jamal Jackson Dance Company. Jamal Jackson Dance Company (JJDC) was founded with the purpose of fusing various traditional African dance styles with Modern techniques and diverse contemporary music styles to create a new, unique technique that is relevant to a multifarious community. JJDC’s study and movement language are initiated by forming the connections between the artistic and communal practices of the Bambara, Malinke, Wasalu, and Khassonke peoples of Mali, West Africa and the traditions and histories of people in the US. The movement and storylines of JJDC’s work focus on redefining ideas of community and blurring divisive lines, while still celebrating the beauty of individual cultures. Their mission is to create space and empower people to actively engage in their narratives while presenting work in different communities.
ProducerLiza Couser
RR Sigel is a creative producer and creator who is interested in how media, journalism, live performance, and interdisciplinary collaborations can develop new understanding of the systems that surround us and paths forward. Sigel likes being a creative brain in a roomful of analysts and an analytic brain in a roomful of creatives. Sigel produces pop-up performances, fully-staged operas, live art and media installations, televised in-studio performances, concerts, tours, creative development processes, artist residencies, and things that don’t fit in boxes. Sigel splits time between Brooklyn and Catskill, NY.
Joshua Lubin-Levy
Joshua Lubin-Levy is a scholar, dramaturg, and curator. He is the Director and Chief Curator of the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University and the Editor-in-Chief of the Movement Research Performance Journal. He received his doctorate from the Department of Performance Studies, New York University (2020). Working across the visual and performing arts, he has helped to realize such ambitious projects as “Edges of Ailey,” a survey of the life and work of Alvin Ailey presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is currently working on a monograph on the photography and performance work of Jack Smith. He was a 2025–2026 Fellow with the Center for Curatorial Leadership, and a 2016–2017 Helena Rubinstein Critical Studies Fellow in the Whitney Independent Studies Program.
Executive producer / Director, CFA