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Adam Fellers
Art Form: Theatre
Adam has 14 years of experience in the classroom and has been the Director of Theatre Arts at Ed White Middle School for 12 years. In 2010 he received Ed White Middle School Teacher of the Year. Adam has his Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and History from Texas state university as well as his Masters of Science in Education from Walden University. He is currently receiving his Doctorate in Education at the American College of Education. Adam currently serves as a City Commissioner for the Commission for the Arts for the City of New Braunfels, where he has already served six terms.
Dr. Aurelia Rocha
Combining her experience in arts administration, music education, and her research in arts for social change, Aurelia Rocha works to improve the quality of educational experiences for all youth. A native of San Antonio, she serves as a member of the Engagement Committee for the Excel Beyond the Bell, Out of School Time Collective, and she serves on the board of directors for El Sistema USA. Ms. Rocha holds degrees in fine arts, education, and cello performance from the University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas at San Antonio, and a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Texas Tech University. Her choice to work as a San Antonio Wolf Trap Teaching Artist allows Aurelia to continue work she considers vital to teachers, children, and education.
Austin Thompson
Austin Thompson traveled extensively growing up with both parents being in the Air Force. At 8 years old, he attended his first puppet show and grew up watching “The Muppet Show” which catapulted his interest in the world of puppetry. He has been hooked ever since and has wanted to learn everything he could about puppetry.
Austin would put on puppet shows with the sole puppet he owned for his parents and siblings, and as time went on, he purchased a few more puppets and would perform at churches and various talent shows. In college, Austin was hired by the City of Orlando Puppet Troupe where he was able to meet other puppeteers and continue to learn all that he could about puppetry. A highlight during this time was to perform a show for Heather Henson and her mother at the Puppet Slam Festival.
Austin now travels across the country with his wife (Air Force) connecting with different puppet guilds and puppeteers. From time to time he still goes to Orlando to perform in the Puppet Slams and has had the chance to meet Leslie Carrara-Rudolph. Austin started his own puppet troupe and company to educate children and adults about the joy of puppetry and the various puppet art forms. Crosstitch Productions (www.crosstitchproductions.com) has allowed Austin to continue to educate others in the art form of puppetry, techniques, and how
to fabricate puppets. Austin is currently working on a project to do puppet shows for Syrian, and South-Asian refugees.
Barbara Hand
Creation opens the brain. Barbara Hand has dedicated her life to helping young minds grow with over 23 years teaching in San Antonio elementary classrooms. Her goal is to continue developing curriculum and instructional practices that expand education to build more creative problem-solving thinkers. Beginning with an education in psychology she understands that the best instruction reaches for the whole child. Her arts integration methodology brings curriculum content and the arts to every learner. Specializing in visual arts she believes the knowing is in the doing. All children need to have art in their hands.
Ruthie Buescher
Trained in devised theater methods, Ruthie Buescher is a theater director who relies heavily on an English literature background in her work. She received an M.A. in educational theatre from NYU Steinhardt, with an emphasis on directing and devised theater, which is an ensemble-based method in which the actors and participants are given the power to tell their own stories. This type of theater lends itself very well to Arts Integration, which connects an art form and another subject matter with evolving objectives in both. She is committed to empowering students to express their own experiences--to trust and develop their own voices--which in turn will help our communities by investing in the cultural wealth within our schools. She has worked with Pittsburgh Public Theater, Pittsburgh's City Theatre Company, Brooklyn Acting Lab, NYC's New Plays for Young Audiences, Boston's Company One Theatre, and most recently completed a year of artist residencies focused on playwriting and developing physical theater workshops. Now settled in San Antonio, she is excited to bring devised theater methods to the students who make this city their home, and to empower them to share their own stories!
Tammy Frazier
Art Form: Theatre
TAMI KAI FRAZIER is an experienced speech and theatre teacher as well as a professional performing artist. She has served as artistic director for The Vexler Children’s Theatre in San Antonio, Texas and has co-produced the Sheldon Vexler Theatre in San Antonio with her husband Ken Frazier. Together they were awarded the Jasmina Wellinghoff Award for Artistic Contribution for Theatre. Tami has also received numerous Globe Awards for excellence in direction and costuming design. If you ask her, though, she will tell you her two wonderful sons, Kailyr and Konnor, are her greatest accomplishments.
Jacque Salame
Jacque Salame began her dance training in the fall of 1984 at Incarnate Word College Ballet School. During her 14 years of dance training, Jacque attended 4 Joffrey Workshops; performed in 9 Nutcracker Ballets, 3 NutCarol Theatre Productions (as Clara, the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy), 12 Spring Recitals, Jesse Borrego's The Artist Who Danced with Death, and was a guest artist in a Spring Performance with Lawton Ballet Theatre. Jacque choreographed and danced in Amalia Ortiz’s musical, Carmen de la Calle, in 2011. In 2017, Jacque auditioned for the Cancion Cannibal Cabaret, a punk rock musical also written by Amalia Ortiz. She received the part of Red Harold and is still a member of the band today. Jacque’s journey into dance education started in 2012 while working at the San Antonio Food Bank and Centro para la Semilla. Jacque currently teaches the kids dance classes, adult ballet classes, and ballroom dance lessons. She also works with Urban 15 as a dance instructor for seniors.
Allison Hayes
Allison Hayes is a violinist and graduate of The University of Texas at San Antonio, where she studied violin under Dr. Stephanie Westney and viola under Allyson Dawkins, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education as well as her violin performance certificate. In addition to having given various chamber music performances, Allison has sat concertmaster in pit orchestras for musicals and operas, and has performed with the Lone Star Philharmonic, Symphony Viva, and with Sonido Barroco. She has premiered new compositions, and has participated in masterclasses given by William Hagen, Dr. Nicole Cherry, Dr. Alex Shiozaki, and Marisa Ishikawa. Allison teaches violin and viola lessons, her private studio comprised of students ages 5-18, and additionally teaches lessons and strings clinics at Alamo Heights Junior School, Alamo Heights High School, and Saint Mary’s Hall. This will be Allison’s second season performing as a Tobin Artist with the Early Arts Program.
Candice Preau
“To create one’s own world takes courage.” Georgia O’Keeffe
I am a visual artist, puppeteer, and creative writer. I have been writing for about as long as I have been creating art. The imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere. From a very young age, I discovered how I could create the most vibrant, unified, and peaceful world imaginable through art. At the age of 10, I began writing and illustrating short stories, and sharing them with family and classmates. My passion for visual art and creative writing followed me through high school and college, where my creations were published and awarded. Shortly after graduating college, I was able to truly immerse myself in the inspiring environment of New York City. Living in New York City intensified my passion for creativity, and I was able to lend my talents to a variety of industries, including media, fashion, and puppetry. Puppetry is the umbrella for all of my creative curiosities. I am excited to continue to evolve as an artist and I am most fulfilled when utilizing my talents to uplift others.
Chayito Champion
Chayito was born into a family of Flamenco artist who pass on and help develop her talent in Flamenco.
She has been performing and teaching for over 45yrs.
She has taught children and adults through city programs such as Arts Teach, CORE program for Dept. of Arts & Cultural SA. HISD Arts Specialists, JOVEN a Juvenile outreach program, Wellmeds of SA, Gonzaba Health Centers, St Mary’s Hall Dance Dept. and Teresa Champion Dance Academy. She is a International Flamenco Artist who wants to promote and preserve her Art by teaching the Art of Flamenco to youth to carry on as Dancers and future audiences and conserve Flamenco in SA and throughout Texas.
Dani Andrade
Dani Andrade is a San Antonio native. She began dancing as a toddler and has had fifteen years of training in ballet, tap, jazz, modern, contemporary, and hip-hop. She graduated from Texas A&M University in 2021 with a BS in Anthropology. While at Texas A&M, she was part of the school’s competitive ballroom team where she was trained in American, International, Country-Western, and Social styles of ballroom dance. Currently, she works as a dance teacher and choreographer at Jen’s Dance Spot and as a seasonal performer at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. Dani Andrade also performs in local professional theaters including The Harlequin and The Wonder Theater. She is excited to start participating in the Early Arts Program!
Gregory Messa
Messa has played percussion as a soloist and with groups across the USA. As a freelancer he has performed regularly with many groups including Symphony Silicon Valley, Opera San Jose, Monterey County Symphony Orchestra, Santa Cruz Symphony, The Oakland Municipal Band, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and more. Locally in San Antonio, he can be heard on percussion with Xichano-fusion band “Los Nahuatlatos”, and as a member of the Trinity Baptist Church Worship Team most Sundays.
In past years he has also been a regular performer with Broadway by the Bay, Woodminster Summer Theater in Oakland, CA, and the world-reknown Lamplighters Music Theater in San Francisco. Mr. Messa also premiered the musical “Paradise Square” as percussionist with Berkeley Repertory Theater. Greg also enjoys performing
chamber and solo percussion, and some performances may be found on his website at www.glmpercussion.com.
Mr. Messa holds various degrees in music, including a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Performance from San Jose State University, and a Master Degree from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His teachers include Principal Percussionist with Symphony Silicon Valley Galen Lemmon, John Tafoya of Detroit Symphony Orchestra and former timpanist with the National Symphony in Washington DC, and virtuoso marimbist/composer Kevin Bobo. Other teachers include Craig Hetrick and Braham Dembar of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Anthony Cirone (San Francisco Symphony-Ret.). In addition to orchestral percussion, he also was a member and teacher in the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets Drum and Bugle Corp organization.
As a devoted music educator, Greg teaches classes and lessons online at West Valley College, including founding and directing the West Valley College Percussion Ensemble and teaches private lessons locally in San Antonio, Texas.
Mobi Warren
Mobi Warren has loved engaging with puppets since childhood. Her hand built puppets have performed in classrooms and neighborhood parks, at art exhibits, poetry readings and community gatherings. They make regular appearances at Storytelling in Nature programs for young children and families at Phil Hardberger Park and Friedrich Wilderness Park, a creative extension of Warren’s Master Naturalist training. Warren serves on the Board of the National Capital Puppetry Guild and helps facilitate their Education and Ecopuppetry Committees. She is also a retired teacher who has taught every level from prekindergarten to seniors in high school to adults.
In addition to puppetry, Warren is a poet, translator, and fiction writer. She is translator from Vietnamese of The Dragon Prince: Stories and Legends from Vietnam by Thich Nhat Hanh (Parallax Press) and author of the YA novel The Bee Maker, as well as a poetry collection, Thread and Nectar). Warren is co-founder of a regional collective of writers and artists committed to environmental awareness and protection, Stone in the Stream/Roca en el Rio, and has offered workshops at Gemini Ink including The Poet as Citizen Scientist and Puppetry for Writers: Animating the Inanimate.
On Puppetry, her central passion as an artist, Warren says: “Through the magic of puppetry I strive to celebrate and open others to the animacy of the living world and to all the connections we share, human and non-human alike. Puppetry nurtures imagination and empathy. Puppets invite us to play and in that playing, borders that separate us from each other dissolve. Oh, and I should mention singing because all my puppets like to sing whether they are a fairy tale character, a bee, or a rock.”
Princeso Santamaria
Princeso is a Xicanx poet known for their playful, interlingual, and multicultural poetics. Their longstanding passion for empowering youth voices is demonstrated through years of empowering young leaders while working with system-impacted advocates. Recently, Princeso worked with Gemini Ink to coordinate creative writing programs for over 100 students, many of them from San Antonio’s underserved communities. Princeso is a contributing author for Ofrenda Magazine and Gemini Ink’s Writer’s Desk. Their work has been feautured by El Comalito Collective, the Gender Equity Resource Center at UC Berkeley, the Puente Program at Laney College, the Ethnic Studies Department at Cal State Fullerton, and foolsFURY SF Theatre.
Sarah Davis
Sarah Davis is an active member of the San Antonio performing arts community with experience in dance, acting, and music. With over 20 years of performance experience, including 8 years as a member of the Appalachian Ballet Company, Sarah brings her own flare to San Antonio. Unique to Sarah's experience is her work using the performing arts to develop the social and emotional skills of young students. As a Certified Child Life Specialist, Sarah assists educators in understanding how to teach communication and mental health skills through the performing arts. Currently Sarah runs a private practice called Thriving Play that provides 1:1 social and emotional support to students and their caregivers, as well as professional development for organizations that serve children and teens. Sarah is also the resident choreographer for the JCC Starz program and a performer with Woodlawn Theatre and San Antonio Dance Fringe.
Tanesha Payne
Tanesha Payne (she/they) is a dancer, creator, advocate, and teaching artist based in San Antonio, TX. With a Summa Cum Laude MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University and a BFA in Dance Studies from Texas State University, she founded and leads sumRset Movement, a professional contemporary dance company in Central Texas. Tanesha blends academic insight with personal experience to shape her performance and educational approach. As the newest addition to The Tobin Center's Generation NEXT education department, Tanesha merges her fervor for arts integration, 20 years of teaching experience, and her Wolf Trap and Focus 5 certifications to foster the next generation. Her journey highlights include receiving a City of San Antonio Individual Artist Grant and representing San Antonio in THE OFFICE Performing Arts + Film’s Artist at Work workforce
resilience program. Currently, Tanesha serves as an Artist in Residence at UTSA through their Democratizing Racial Justice Program, generously funded by the Mellon Foundation. Eager to continue her artistic and educational growth, she eagerly anticipates joining Jacob's Pillow's Curriculum in Motion cohort in the Fall of 2024.
Usha
Usha has trained under Guru Dr. Sreedhara Akkihebbalu -Founder President of Kaveri Natya Yoga, San Antonio, USA. She has also trained under Guru Rama Vaidyanathan for an intense summer workshop in India. Usha has attended many workshops conducted by renowned dancers - the Late Guru Bhanumati, Swapna Sundarai, Indira Kadambi, Janaki Rangarajan, Lavanya Ananth.
Usha has been mentoring students of Kaveri Natya Yoga for a decade. In 2017, she started teaching her own students in Corpus Christi and San Antonio, she is the founder/director of
Rasa School of Indian Performing Arts. She has performed widely in Texas. Usha conducts and performs lecture demonstrations in the San Antonio-Austin area and brings Bharatanatyam to new communities, such as public libraries, senior centers, retirement centers and schools. She has participated in all Annual Productions of Kaveri Natya Yoga, such as Shakti, Vikramorvashiyam, RadhaMadhava, Shivagamiyan Shabdam, Purandara Dasa , and andYoga Vibhuti. In 2023, She played the lead role Krishna in Production Geeta Govindham. She has a wide range of students ranging from kindergarteners to adults who perform for fundraising events, community outreach programs, and cultural and educational forums in Texas.
Apart from dance Usha is an experienced and certified Zumba teacher for Gold’s Gym and LA Fitness. She has collaborated for events for Diwali San Antonio for Sister city collaboration with Chennai, India Association of San Antonio, Sai Baba Temple, Hindu Temple of San Antonio, Hindu Temple of Corpus Christi and various other cultural organizations in South Texas.
Victorya Ross
My name is Victorya Ross (yes, that’s really how it’s spelled). At the very core of who Iam is an artist who comes alive in all areas of performance. From dancing and singing, to acting, I’ve loved to entertain from a very young age. I started performing publicly at the age of 10, which often consisted of singing for the locals and tourists
who’d flood downtown San Antonio. I am a proud Chicana, who’s been singing a variety of music, and dancing for over a decade. I graduated from an acting conservatory, where I studied voice, film and theatre, and have been a part of multiple productions. I’m a licensed cosmetologist, and am working as a part-time barista and teaching artist, when I’m not performing with my cover band, Jackie Not Marilyn.
Anani Rhames
Anani Rhames is a multi-lingual national and international vocal performer and recording artist. She sings in English, Spanish, Italian, Latin, German, and plays piano, violin, guitar, and percussion. For maintaining a superior rating for three consecutive years, she was awarded a Gold Cup trophy in Music Theory, Vocal (Classical & Musical Theatre) and Piano Performance. She has had the privilege of sharing the stage with various mainstream artists. She is also a singer/songwriter and composer. Her talent growth is attributed to 17+ years of Musical Theatre (Singing, Acting & Dance) in over 25 live stage productions, 10+ years of concentrated studies in classical vocal performance and studies, as well as 10+ years of performance and studies in piano. She is passionate about sharing her talents. She has facilitated positions in performing arts educations as an Assistant Director, Vocal Director, Choreographer, Stage Manager and Teaching Artist.
Danielle McCune
Danielle McCune is a teaching artist that specializes in dance and musical theatre from the San Antonio area. She brings over ten years of teaching experience between dance and theatre, primarily working with ages 2-12.
Dancing is where her passion for the arts truly blossomed. Danielle began taking dance classes in an after-school program during Kindergarten and by age 9 was dancing in a studio. Several years later, she began assistant teaching and then eventually teaching on her own. She enjoys inspiring dancers to become the best that they can be and is now a mentor for assistant teachers at the studio that she grew up in.
Danielle is a graduate from Texas State University, where she holds a BFA in Theatre (Performance and Production emphasis) and a Minor in Music. She is also a proud member of the school’s College of Fine Arts and Communication’s Council of Scholars, in addition to multiple honor societies. Over the years, she has been involved in close to forty productions in the San Antonio/New Braunfels area, most of which she has choreographed. Fifteen of these productions were working with students ages 4-19 to bring classic favorites to life. She now works with CYT in New Braunfels to train young performers, as well as mentor their teen leadership program.
Since her Wolf Trap training in 2016, Danielle has completed residencies in eight school districts and twelve different schools. She enjoys sharing her love of the arts and the confidence it has given her (on and off stage) with her classroom teachers and finding their special way to incorporate the arts into their school day.
Grace Featherston
Grace Featherston is a Teaching Artist who specializes in Drama and Trauma–Informed teaching practices. Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, she received her BFA in Theatre Education from The University of Texas at Austin. Since graduating, Grace has worked as a professional Teaching Artist, Administrator, and Actor in multiple theatres and schools in Texas and in New York. When not teaching, you can find her on stage or screen.
Tobin Center Residents
