Rebecca Arends is a New York City based dancer, choreographer, and educator. She is the founder of RAREdancework and her choreography has been presented at Carnegie Hall, The Barnes Foundation, Dixon Place, Greenspace, Constellation Chicago, Drexel University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Rebecca is the director, choreographer and co-creator of The Unwritten Law which Victoria Ordin of Broadway World hailed, “65 minutes of the most powerful theater I’ve ever witnessed.” She currently teaches dance at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City (AMDA) and serves as the Academic Department Director of the Ballet & Modern Dance Departments. Prior to working at AMDA, she was an Adjunct Professor and Assis- tant Director of the Drexel Dance Ensemble at Drexel University and resident jazz/contem- porary instructor for Sparks Dance Company at The University of Pennsylvania. REBECCA ARENDS attended The Ailey School (Oprah Winfrey Foundation Fellowship) under the direction of Denise Jefferson. For nine seasons, she toured with the Seán Cur- ran Company; serving as cultural ambassadors of the U.S. State Department, SCCo toured throughout Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan). Additional notable cred- its include Seán Curran Company & Ustatshakirt Plus (Dream’d In a Dream), Seán Curran Company + The King’s Singers (Travel Songs), Anybodys (El Paso Opera’s West Side Story), The Kiss (Tino Sehgal, Guggenheim Museum), Trainor Dance and Rosario. She was Dance Captain in Washington National Opera’s production of Terence Blanchard’s Champion at The Kennedy Center and was in the original cast of both Champion and Mr. Blanchard’s opera, Fire Shut Up in My Bones which premiered at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
In her first role as film producer, Chicago-based violist Nora Williams is a varied performer with a penchant for chamber music, Nora delights in exploring old and new gems from the chamber repertoire and in connecting her audiences with the depth, vitality and intimacy that small ensembles provide. As an active participant in Chicago musical life, Nora has been a board member of the Musicians Club of Woman, and was a 2007 Artist-in-Res- idence at the venerable arts-based Cliff Dwellers Club. Nora is co-pro- ducer of the WW Salon Chamber Salon series and the Golden Triangle Chamber series. Further afield, Nora is a faculty member of the Interhar- mony International Music Festival in Italy since 2012. Nora is a native of the San Francisco Bay area with a bachelor’s degree in music from Stanford University. She spent two years of graduate study at Indiana University. Her teachers and mentors include: Bernard Zaslav, Alan deVeritch, Serge Collot, and Burton Kaplan. JULIA C. LIU DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Julia C Liu is a Providence, Rhode Island based artist, director, and Emmy nominated cinematographer seeking to promote diversity in front of and behind the lens. Her passion for visual storytelling started through her comics, evolving to filmmaking as a way to bring her illustrations to life. Liu is a camera operator in the International Cinematographers Guild, an associate member of the Society of Camera Operators and a graduate of Brown University.
