Staff
Our staff is a dedicated team of four artists, Faith Elder, jose e. abad, Karla Quintero, and Rebecca Fitton. We share a passion for dance and social justice that manifests in Bridge Live Arts' organizational culture and programming. We are active in the dance field as choreographers, teachers, performers, activists, writers, community builders, and more.
Faith Elder (they/she) is a multidisciplinary artist and administrator, currently exploring life in the Bay Area as a dancer, educator, and advocate for the arts. Their multifaceted background reflects a deep commitment to the arts, fostering community ties to bridge the worlds of theater, dance, and government.
Faith completed their B.A. at the University of Washington, where they studied political science, public policy, and dance. As a fellow with the Center for American Politics and Public Policy, they investigated the relationship between arts communities and governments, with a special focus in federal arts funding structures. This experience enriches her approach to arts administration, advocating for equitable practices in response to state failures.
In addition to producing, choreographing, and dancing across the west coast, Faith was recently selected for Seattle Repertory Theatre’s Professional Arts Training Program (2022-2023) and Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Next Generation Fellowship (2023-2024).
Faith Elder | they/she
Programming & Marketing Assistant
Photo by Ivan Mrsic
jose esteban abad (they/them) is an Afro-Carribean Filipinx multidisciplinary choreographer, Vertical Dancer, DJ, and curator based in unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Territory (San Francisco). Their work explores the complexities of identity at the intersection of gender, sexuality, class, race, and geography. Rooted in collaboration and improvisation as tools of resistance and liberation, abad’s work centers QTBIPOC experimental collective process-based practices of becoming and re-membering to highlight the most intelligent technologies that exist in this world—our bodies, ancestral wisdom, and nature.
They have performed and taught nationally and internationally in the Philippines, Palestine, Mexico, and Europe, individually, and in collaboration with Ishmael Houston Jones, Alleluia Panis, Joanna Haigood, Anne Bluethenthal, Keith Hennessy, Sara Shelton Mann, Skywatchers, Jess Curtis/Gravity, RUPTURE, Bandaloop, TRY, KulArts, and others.
jose e. abad | they/them
Director of Community & Curation
Photo by Robbie Sweeny, commissioned by Gravity
A Black and white photo of Jose from the chest up. They are a Black Filipino person, with short curly hair smiling looking happy towards the left in front of a textured black backdrop.
Karla Quintero co-directs Bridge Live Arts with Cherie Hill and Hope Mohr and serves as B.L.A.'s Director of Marketing and Development. Quintero graduated from Barnard College with a BA degree in Urban Studies and later earned a BFA from the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance. For five years she worked for the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives (NYC) supporting pedestrian safety and community health efforts in Latino and immigrant communities. Karla's performance work explores intimacy, consumption, and biculturalism. Recent highlights include the dance film Flavedoom, which screened at the 2021 San Francisco Dance Film Festival. Karla also enjoys performing in the works of other artists, including Gerald Casel, Catherine Galasso (NYC), Hope Mohr, and Maxe Crandall.
As an arts administrator, Karla worked with PUSH Dance Company coordinating their annual mixed-genre dance festival, PUSHfest for many years. She also served as the Production Manager for the Festival for Latin American Contemporary Choreographers in 2019.
Karla Quintero | she/her
Marketing & Development Coordinator
Photo of Karla Quintero by Neha Gautam
Contact
Rebecca Fitton is from many places and peoples. She cultivates community through movement, food, and conversation. Her work in the dance field as an artist-scholar, producer, and advocate centers on shifting cultural policy, asian american communities, and disability justice. She has been an artist-in-residence at Center (MI), The Croft (MI), LEIMAY (NY), EMERGENYC (NY), and received a 2020 New Work Grant from Queens Council on the Arts (NY).
Fitton serves as the Studio Director for Will Rawls, performs and writes audio description for Adrienne Westwood, and organizes direct action with Structures for Change and Dance Artists’ National Collective. She was a member of Dance/NYC’s Junior Committee from 2018-2020 and in 2021 was part of Dance/USA’s Institute of Leadership Training. She holds a BFA in Dance from Florida State University and an MA in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas at Austin.
Rebecca Fitton | she/they
Director of Operations & Development
Photo of Rebecca Fitton by Sarah Annie Navarette
Image description: Rebecca, a mixed race Asian American person with messy short brown hair smiles. Their hands are in the pockets of a short sleeved, navy corduroy jumpsuit.
Board of Directors
B.L.A's Board of Directors is a passionate team of creatives, artists, and engaged individuals working to re-imagine Board leadership for a more equitable field. Board members contribute their time and resources to support Bridge Live Arts' mission in a way that feels personally significant and meaningful.
Jessi Barber (she/her) is a queer production manager, technical director, lighting designer and stage manager with over a decade of professional production experience in the Bay Area/Ohlone Land. She is a member of the non-hierarchical Steering Committee that produces the Queering Dance Festival (QDF), and has served as Production Manager at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (Berkeley) and as Producing Lead for Joe Goode Performance Group (SF).
Afia Thompson-Co-founder of Bahiya Movement has performed nationally and internationally. Trained in West African, hip-hop, and modern dance. She continues to perform, teach, and direct dancers of all ages, gender, and body size. Afia and her daughter Nafi Thompson Artistic Director of Bahiya Movement created Believe In Self emerging artists mentorship program in 2018, a six-week residency for dancers looking to deepen their ongoing artistic practice, create connectivity within the Bay Area and instill skills to succeed as professional artists. www.bahiyamovement.com
Afia Thompson
Photo courtesy of the artist
Board Member
Jessi Barber (she/her) is a queer production manager, technical director, lighting designer and stage manager with over a decade of professional production experience in the Bay Area/Ohlone Land. She is a member of the non-hierarchical Steering Committee that produces the Queering Dance Festival (QDF), and has served as Production Manager at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (Berkeley) and as Producing Lead for Joe Goode Performance Group (SF).
Holly Jones is a field based arts advocate, practitioner, and producer who is passionate about radical accessibility, equitable curatorial practices, and trust-based philanthropy. She is the Producing Director at Jacob's Pillow and serves on the boards of Bridge Live Arts, The Clive & Valerie Barnes Foundation, New England Presenters and The Croft Residency. Jones holds a masters degree in nonprofit leadership from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice and a B.F.A. in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College. She enjoys performing annually in The Bang Group's Nut/Cracked production and teaching community classes at Berkshire Pulse.
Holly Jones
Photo by Gracce Copeland
Board Member
Jessi Barber (she/her) is a queer production manager, technical director, lighting designer and stage manager with over a decade of professional production experience in the Bay Area/Ohlone Land. She is a member of the non-hierarchical Steering Committee that produces the Queering Dance Festival (QDF), and has served as Production Manager at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (Berkeley) and as Producing Lead for Joe Goode Performance Group (SF).
Jessi Barber (she/her) is a queer production manager, technical director, lighting designer and stage manager with over a decade of professional production experience in the Bay Area/Ohlone Land. She is a member of the non-hierarchical Steering Committee that produces the Queering Dance Festival (QDF), and has served as Production Manager at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (Berkeley) and as Producing Lead for Joe Goode Performance Group (SF).
Jessi Barber
Photo courtesy of the artist
Board Member
Lins Derry
Lins Derry is a researcher and principal at metaLAB (at) Harvard, an experimental arts, humanities, and design lab, where she researches how "choreographic interfaces" and "data kinesthetics" can be developed toward both functional and aesthetic ends. For more than a decade Lins was a performer with prominent American and Canadian dance companies, including Jose Navas/Compagnie Flak and Hope Mohr Dance, as well as a solo artist via her platform, Linsdans. In 2018, she began to look for a new medium that could elicit a similar social impact as dance but across multiple settings. This led her to the pervasive field of design where she now works at the intersection of data representation, human-computer interaction, and choreography.
Lins Derry
Photo c/o the artist
Advisory Board Member
Jessi Barber (she/her) is a queer production manager, technical director, lighting designer and stage manager with over a decade of professional production experience in the Bay Area/Ohlone Land. She is a member of the non-hierarchical Steering Committee that produces the Queering Dance Festival (QDF), and has served as Production Manager at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (Berkeley) and as Producing Lead for Joe Goode Performance Group (SF).
Rose Huey (they | she), is a third generation Chinese-American movement educator, dancer, and arts administrator born, raised and living on occupied Lisjan Ohlone land (Oakland, CA). Rose believes in the pivotal role of artists as agents of social change and the power of art to transform lives and uplift societal health. They are curious about embodied practice as a portal for ancestral connection, centering joy in creative spaces, and learning from the weird, wild, beauty of nature. They are a company dancer and Director of Education with the vertical dance company BANDALOOP, sharing free public art performances globally and working towards creating safer, accessible spaces for all bodies to experience vertical joy.
Rose Huey
Photo courtesy of the artist
Board Member
(See bio above in staff section)
Rebecca Fitton is B.L.A.'s Director of Operations and Development, and the staff's board representative.
Rebecca Fitton
Photo by Sarah Annie Navarette
Staff Board Member