Miss Grace David (DC)
Miss Grace David is a Black, queer, and non-binary femme performance and textile artist based in the DC area. By using character performance, textile production, world-making, and storytelling, their work connects human emotion and personal experience with visual abstraction. Their work and film has been commissioned by Dance Place in Washington, DC, Tariq O’Meally’s BlackLight Summit, and shown at Kennedy Center. Miss Grace is the inaugural awardee of the HAUS AWARD in 2021 from haus of bambi recognizing DMV-based LGBTQ+ artists for work exploring the complexity of queer identity, and most recently was a 2024 Artist in Residence at The Nicholson Project.
Christine Delbeau (DE)
Over the course of her career, Christine Delbeau has performed in recitals at the nation’s most renowned concert halls, including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Weill- Recital Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center, and concerts at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. She has also performed in the highly acclaimed Fiddlefest Gala Concerts at Carnegie Hall and at the Tönhalle in Zurich, Switzerland.
An active chamber musician, Christine Delbeau has performed on numerous occasions in chamber music recitals with principal members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She collaborates with University of Delaware colleagues and other chamber musicians in national and international festivals and conventions throughout the United States and abroad.
Christine Delbeau is Professor of Piano at the University of Delaware School of Music. In addition to teaching piano students and music courses, she regularly presents master classes and serves as an adjudicator in the region and beyond. Former students are active performers and pedagogues in the United States and abroad.
Mary Hott, M.S., CBA (WV)
A native of Morgan County, West Virginia, Mary spent over 25 years in New England for college, music and work. She returned to her home state in 2006 and served as the executive director of the Morgan Arts Council in Berkeley Springs for five years. Since then she has served as a business coach for the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the WV Department of Economic Development were she coaches entrepreneurs and small businesses. She volunteers as a board officer for two WV arts organizations, assisting with fundraising, organizational development, and arts programming. Mary received an M.S. in Information Systems Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston and her B.A. from The New School in New York. She is a Certified Business Advisor through Kent State University and holds a marketing certification through Harvard University’s extension school. As a musician, Mary has produced two albums of original music and is currently writing the music for a third, focused on stories and voices from West Virginia. She performs regularly as a singer and instrumentalist and leads community singing circles.
Denise Humphrey (USVI)
Denise Humphrey is the Director of the Reichhold Center for the Arts at the University of the Virgin Islands, bringing over 27 years of experience in the theater industry. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, she trained as a set designer, lighting designer, and stage manager. Denise’s passion for the arts extends to education, where she spent five years teaching Drama, Speech, and Conflict Resolution at Charlotte Amalie High School. During her tenure, she created an after-school Stage Crew Program to offer students an alternative to street life by involving them in stage production.
At the Reichhold Center, Denise has developed a series of innovative programs to highlight Virgin Islands talent and culture. Notable initiatives include the Playing Ring Series, an interactive production focused on the origins of Virgin Islands traditions, and the RCA Sessions Series, which provides a platform for local artists to experiment and showcase seldom-seen aspects of their talents. She also was one of the founders of the Youth Moviemaking Workshop, a summer program teaching kids how to become filmmakers.
Currently, Denise is dedicated to rebuilding the Reichhold Center for the Arts after it was severely damaged by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. The Reichhold Center, the territory’s premier performing arts venue, has hosted legendary performers including Ray Charles, Celia Cruz, Shaggy, the Dance Theater of Harlem, and the Puerto Rico Symphony.
nibia pastrana santiago (PR)
Based in San Juan and trained in dance and improvisation, nibia develops site-specific “choreographic events” to experiment with time, fiction and notions of territory. Along with dance scholar Susan Homar, nibia is co-editor of the book Habitar lo imposible: Danza y experimentación en Puerto Rico (2023) published by Editorial Beta-Local and the English edition published by University of Michigan Press Inhabiting the Impossible: Dance and Experimentation in Puerto Rico (2023). In 2022, the exhibition Choreopolitics: Brendan Fernandes & nibia pastrana santiago was presented at MASS MoCa. nibia’s work has been commissioned by de Appel (2020) and the Whitney Biennial (2019), as well as been supported by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and the Puerto Rican Arts Initiative Fellowship (2020-2023). She worked as co-director at Beta-Local in San Juan, and for a period of five years served as the Dance Program Academic Coordinator at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce. She holds an MFA in Dance with a Minor in Latina/o Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a Postmasters in Performance and Scenography Studies from a.pass, Belgium.