Team

DR. ANDY TEIRSTEIN

Translucent Borders Founder/Principal Investigator 

Arts Professor Andy Teirstein writes music inspired by the rich and diverse folk roots of modern culture.  A student of Leonard Bernstein and Henry Brant, Teirstein composes for the concert hall, film, theater, and dance. His CD, Open Crossings, draws on Balkan and Appalachian influences.  He has composed film scores for BBC and PBS.  A recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Richard Rodgers Foundation, he has lectured and toured internationally with Woody Sez,a show depicting the life and times of Woody Guthrie. Most recently, he received a fellowship from the American Lyric Theater as a composer of new opera. andyteirstein.com 

isabel Soffer

Translucent Borders, Co-Producer

Isabel Soffer has been at the forefront of global music and dance programming and the dissemination and preservation of traditional music from around the world, in the USA for more than twenty-five years. She is founder of Live Sounds, an independent company that produces, creates and curates international concerts, festivals and projects. Her innovative programming aims to encourage and cultivate ancient traditions, as well as to highlight musical styles at the intersection of old and new. She is co-founder/director of globalFEST, a non-profit organization that moves world music into the center of the performing arts field through an annual festival, a 2-day conference, a touring fund and national tour. livesounds.org,  globalfest.org, @livesoundsnyc, @globalFEST_ny

Lehuanani DeFranco

Translucent Borders, Project Consultant; Dancer/Choreographer

Based in Brooklyn, New York, Lehuanani DeFranco is a freelance dancer and a strong advocate for indigenous and environmental rights. She graduated with a MFA degree in Dance at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and currently works for Dia Art Foundation. Aiming to promote cultural awareness, Lehuanani furthers her own knowledge as a member of Hālau ʻŌlelo to learn ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language). She is also part of I Moving Lab: an international, indigenous, intercultural, interdisciplinary, global arts collective led by Jack Gray and Infinite Dakota.  She has performed works by Merce Cunningham, Robert Battle, Brian Brooks, Sydney Skybetter, Rubén Graciani, Jack Gray and The Martha Graham Dance Company; and worked with the Ensemble ACJW and The New York City Ballet.

Pamela Pietro

Director, Translucent Borders Israel program, 2017

Dancer, Teacher, Choreographer Pamela Pietro has made dances for companies internationally including in Malaysia, Philippines, India and Panama. She is an Award-winning teacher and scholar, a longtime faculty member of American Dance Festival, a Full-time, Associate Arts Professor in the Department of Dance at NYU Tisch, and a Neuromuscular Rehabilitation and Pilates Instructor. https://tisch.nyu.edu/about/directory/dance/106821567 http://www.pamelapietro.com/ 

WENDY PERRON

Translucent Borders, Copy Editor 2016-17

Author of Through the Eyes of a Dancer, Wendy Perron had a 30-year career as a dancer/choreographer. She danced with the Trisha Brown company in the 70s and later led her own group, which has performed throughout New York City. She has taught dance at Bennington and Princeton, lectured as a guest across the country, and curated exhibits on dance and the arts. The former longtime editor in chief of Dance Magazine, Wendy has also written for The New York Times, The Village Voice, and vanityfair.com. As editor at large for Dance Magazine she has a video series called What Wendy's Watching. She teaches a graduate seminar at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and posts commentary at wendyperron.com

Cari Ann Shim Sham

Translucent Borders, Filmaker/Photographer 2016-17

Cari Ann Shim Sham is an artist and NYC-based prestidigitator who lives a wild life often finding herself traveling across borders with cameras and projectors to capture, manipulate or throw light into screens, objects and spaces of all sizes. A newly annointed Associate Arts Professor of Dance and Technology at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Dance Department, Shim Sham is designing video art for The Strayhorn Projectby David Rousseve; is video artist for the interactive immersive inflatable project Dance Like No One is Whale Watchingand is director for The Parksville Murdersa 360 degree film VR episodic horror for Opera on Tap.  

DANA WHITCO

Tisch Initiative for Creative Research 

Dana Whitco directs NYU’s Tisch Initiative for Creative Research, a new strategic initiative designed to catalyze, nurture and promote the research praxis of Tisch faculty, students and staff. She is the Founding Director of the Center for Creative Research (Graduate School of Arts & Science, NYU) and Co-Founder of Positive Feedback, NYC's first inter-institutional consortium dedicated to supporting collaborations between artists and scientists working on issues of climate change.
https://tisch.nyu.edu/about/directory/general/95952626

Indah M. Walsh

Indah M. Walsh has danced in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the US. She holds a BFA in dance from Purchase Conservatory of Dance and an MFA in dance from Tisch School of the Arts. As an emerging choreographer, Walsh has showcased work at venues and festivals including the Watermill Center, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Take Root at Greenspace, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Dixon Place, Dance New Amsterdam, The American Dance Guild Festival, among others. Her work has been featured in California at the Dance and Movement Workshop for Educators and Backhausdance Platform Production in Irvine. Indah has taught and choreographed works for high schools, colleges, and dance conventions in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, California, and New York including: Peridance Capezio Center, Steffi Nossen School of Dance, Nevada Union High School, Taipei American School, Singapore American School, Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asia Schools Cultural Convention, Southwestern College, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
indahwalshdancecompany.com