Staff
Our staff is a dedicated team of four artists, Rebecca Fitton, jose e. abad, Preethi Ramaprasad & Karla Quintero. 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.
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.
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.
Rebecca Fitton | she/they
Director of Operations & Development
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.
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.
jose e. abad | they/them
Director of Community & Curation
Preethi Ramaprasad is a dancer, curator, musician, and researcher. Her journey teaching and performing Bharatanatyam has led to artistic community-building endeavors across India, Europe, and the United States. She co-runs When Eyes Speak Choreography Festival, Varnam Salon, and Performing Voices of Bhakti which aim to create safe spaces to share South Asian expression in the diaspora. Ramaprasad has a doctorate in Critical Dance Studies from UC Riverside where her dissertation focused on representation and the performance of myth among transnational Bharatanatyam practitioners.
In 2025-2026, Ramaprasad’s collaborator Nikhil Mandalaparthy and her were awarded the Bridge Live Arts Community Engagement Residency, which helped them curate a discussion series “The Body is Poetry” in response to global xenophobia and communalism. In the same year, Ramaprasad was awarded the YoungArts mid-career residency which aided the creation of her latest choreographic work, “Love Language.” In 2024, through the San Francisco Arts Commission and San Francisco Public Library Residency, she created “Yours, Tenderly,” a short screen dance extolling the historical significance of the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco.
Ramaprasad's work has also been supported by American Society for Theater Research, Gluck Fellowship, Zellerbach Family Foundation, American Conservatory Theater, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, SAFEhouse Arts Lead Resident Fellowship, and the All-Rounder Yuva Kala Bharati for Young Artists. More at preethiramaprasad.com.
Photo of Preethi Ramaprasad by Manasi Mahesh
Preethi Ramaprasad | she/her
Interim Co-Director
Karla Quintero (she/her) is the Marketing & Development Coordinator for Bridge Live Arts. She has been an administrator with the organization since 2017, including serving as Co-Director from 2020 - 2022. During this time, she co-curated “Power Shift: Improvisation, Activism, & Community” with Cherie Hill & Hope Mohr and the bilingual media series Danzacuentos: Voz, Cuerpo, Y Raíces (danzacuentos.org) with David Herrera & Mario Ismael Espinoza for B.L.A.’s Anti-Racism in Dance Series.
As an arts administrator, Karla has also 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. Prior to moving to the Bay Area, she worked in NYC for the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives supporting pedestrian safety and community health efforts in Latino and immigrant communities.
Like her B.L.A. colleagues, Karla is also performing artist whose practice centers dance improvisation, and is shaped by years of practice, research, and collaboration in interdisciplinary contexts. Quintero holds a BA degree in Urban Studies from Barnard College and later earned a BFA from the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance.
Photo of Karla Quintero by Neha Gautam
Karla Quintero | she/her
Marketing & Development Coordinator
Contact
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).
Joshua Bristow (he/him) is a producer and administrator based in South Carolina. He has worked at institutions supporting process and performances at Jacob’s Pillow, the Brown Arts Institute at Brown University, Work Light Productions, Spoleto Festival USA, PURPOSE Productions, and The Yard.
Joshua is currently the Development Associate for NCCAkron, a national center for choreography which supports process, creative and administrative inquiry, and positive failure.
In 2025, Joshua founded Big + Tall Performance Works, a company that supports artists in the development and presentation of new work. In this capacity, he works with slowdanger (MD), Kimberly Bartosik (NYC), and previously with Company SBB // Stefanie Batten Bland (NYC).
He holds a BA in Arts Management from the College of Charleston and enjoys speaking about the field of arts administration. In his free time, he is trying to build a practice of rest and self-care (and is taking recommendations).
Joshua Bristow
Photo by Ghristopher Duggan
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
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).
Sharmi Basu (they/them) is an artist, activist, and arts administrator whose work bridges creative practice, community advocacy, and social justice. They bring deep insight into the challenges artists face in sustaining their practice and have spent over a decade managing operations, events, fundraising, and finances at organizations. Basu holds an MFA from Mills College and a double BA from UC Davis in Political Science: Public Policy and Technocultural Studies. They are currently the Executive Director of Vital Arts.
Sharmi Basu
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).
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)
jose e. abad is B.L.A.'s Director Community & Curation.
jose e. abad
Photo by Robbie Sweeney
Staff Representative