LIZ LERMAN (Founding Artistic Director) is a choreographer, performer, writer, educator, and speaker. Described by The Washington Post as “the source of an epochal revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art,” her dance/theater works have been seen throughout the United States and abroad. Her aesthetic approach spans the range from abstract to personal to political, while her working process emphasizes research, translation between artistic media, and intensive collaboration with dancers and communities. She founded Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 1976, and has cultivated the company’s unique multi-generational ensemble, with dancers whose ages span six decades, into a leading force in contemporary dance. Liz has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the American Choreographer Award, the American Jewish Congress “Golda” Award, and Washingtonian magazine’s 1988 Washingtonian of the Year. In 2002 her work was recognized with a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, and she has also been awarded the National Foundation for Jewish Culture’s Achievement Award and honored with induction into the University of Maryland’s Hall of Fame. Liz’s work has been commissioned by Lincoln Center, American Dance Festival, BalletMet, and the Kennedy Center, among many others. From 1994 to 1996, in collaboration with the Music Hall of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Liz directed The Shipyard Project, which has been widely noted as an example of the power of art to enhance such values as social capital and civic dialogue. From 1999 to 2002 she led Hallelujah, which engaged people in 15 cities throughout the United States in the creation of a series of dances “in praise of” topics vital to their communities. Her current projects include Ferocious Beauty: Genome, an investigation of the impact of genetic research in our lives, and a commission from the Harvard University School of Law for a work observing the human rights legacy of the post-WWII Nuremberg Trials. As a frequent keynote speaker and panelist, Liz addresses arts, community, and business organizations both nationally and internationally. She consults regularly with the Mellon Orchestra Forum and Synagogue 2000, and recently participated in Harvard University’s Saguaro Seminar, which gathered thinkers to promote the growth of civic connectedness in the United States. She is the author of Teaching Dance to Senior Adults (1983) and the co-author of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process (2003), and has written articles and essays for such publications as Reconstructionism Today, Faith and Form, Movement Research, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Community, Culture, and Globalization. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Milwaukee, Liz attended Bennington College and Brandeis University, received her B.A. in dance from the University of Maryland, and an M.A. in dance from George Washington University. She is married to storyteller Jon Spelman. Their daughter, Anna, was born in 1988.

JOHN BORSTEL (Humanities Director) is responsible for developing the Dance Exchange’s Tool Box project, an online/in print initiative to document and disseminate Dance Exchange methodology. John serves as chief editor for many publications generated by the organization, and serves as an advisor for special projects involving humanities field work. He directed the Dialogue Audit project, an initiative funded by Animating Democracy to survey the impact of the Dance Exchange’s work as a form of civic dialogue. John has been a member of the Dance Exchange staff since October 1993, when he returned to the fold after being a student and community performer during the Dance Exchange's early years; from 1993 to 2000 he served as the company’s Director of Development. His arts administration experience encompasses fund-raising, marketing, public relations and educational programming for Central City Opera in Colorado, The Pennsylvania Opera Theater, and the Washington Bach Consort. John is co-author (with Liz Lerman) of the book Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: A Method for Getting Useful Feedback on Anything You Make from Dance to Dessert published in 2003. He has led training sessions in the Process at conferences, colleges, and arts organizations throughout the U.S. A visual artist in photography and mixed media, John’s work has been seen in solo and group exhibitions and in publications including The Washington Post. He holds a B.A. in English from Georgetown University.

JANE HIRSHBERG (Managing Director & CEO) joined the staff of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in October 1998. Prior to that, Jane was manager of the Culture in Community Fund at the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) in Boston, Massachusetts. Before coming to NEFA, Jane was the Director of Development & Education at The Music Hall, a multi-disciplinary arts presenting organization in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Her responsibilities there included directing The Music Hall’s Shipyard Project, a two-year endeavor which, in its simplest form, was a collection of personal stories from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard put to movement by the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and members of the seacoast community during a series of culminating events in September 1996. Her work on that project is what gained recognition from NEFA, and eventually resulted in her present position with the Dance Exchange. Jane received her Master of Music in Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, and her Bachelor of Music from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has served as a panelist for grant reviewing throughout New England, in Maryland, and for several national programs, and enjoys talking in various forums about community building through the arts. She recently relocated to Catonsville, Maryland, where she lives with her husband, a furnituremaker, and two daughters.

Contact information: 301-270-6700 ext 12 janeh@danceexchange.org

ELIZABETH JOHNSON (Associate Artistic Director) is a choreographer, dancer, educator, and the director of the Dance Exchange’s Teen Exchange program. In her decade with the Dance Exchange, Elizabeth has collaboratively created dances in communities from Eastport, Maine to Los Angeles, California; from Kyoto, Japan to Vancouver, Canada. She works with youth, seniors, religious communities, high school teachers, lawyers, scientists, and professional dancers – with a particular focus on teens and embodied learning. Her work with young people has been featured across the country as well as at home in the metro-DC area. She is a yoga practitioner, runner and rock climber and her choreographic work is driven by athleticism, physiology, and the desire to connect movement with meaning. Elizabeth graduated Magna Cum Laude from Connecticut College with a B.A. in Dance and a minor in Theatre, and has studied at London Contemporary Dance School. Recently, Elizabeth was the Dance Exchange artistic lead on the multi-media exhibit “Cells: The Universe Inside Us” at the Maryland Science Center which opened March 2009 and taught at Arizona State University as Faculty Associate for the Herberger College Department of Dance for spring semester 2009.  In this position she is created a site specific performance work that connected dance students with communities with ideas inspired by and in collaboration with the Global Institute of Sustainability.

AMELIA COX (Creative Producer & Production Manager) makes things happen. For several years post-college she worked nationally and internationally with Double Edge Theater (MA) and the Gardzienice Center for Theatre Practices (Poland). After a foray into corporate life as creative director for a greeting card company in California, she came to the mid-Atlantic region as the technical director of Baltimore Theatre Project. Since 2005 she has worked at Dance Exchange, leading production for the premieres of Small Dances About Big Ideas, Ferocious Beauty: Genome, Man/Chair Dances, Funny Uncles, Imprints on a Landscape: The Mining Project, 613 Radical Acts of Prayer, The Farthest Earth from Thee, and Drift, in addition to remounting several other dances and traveling to sites as disparate as Vancouver, BC, to Burlington, VT for the company’s animated keynotes. She holds a BA in Theatre from Hope College (MI), and an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College (NC).

THOMAS DWYER began a dance career with Liz Lerman after retiring from the U.S. government service in June 1988. During his time with the Dance Exchange he has become a teacher of creative movement for senior adults in community settings. His choreography, known for modern dance employing community-based seniors, has been presented at Dance Place and The Church Street Theatre in Washington, DC, and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland.

CASSIE MEADOR is a choreographer, performer, and teacher based in Washington, DC. Originally from Georgia, she joined the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 2002. As a company member, she has created dances in communities throughout the U.S. and internationally in Japan, Canada, Ireland, and Guyana. As an educator, she has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Dance Center–Columbia College in Chicago, American University, Wesleyan University, Kyoto Arts Center, American Dance Festival, and the Bealtaine Festival. Cassie received her BFA in Dance from The Ohio State University, where she was the recipient of an honor’s research scholarship in Choreography. Cassie currently serves as Project Director for multiple projects at the Dance Exchange and continues to make her own work within the company. In 2006 she had the honor of co-directing the premiere of 613 Acts of Radical Prayer: Opening Acts with Liz Lerman at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center – and went on to create new versions of the work at Brown University and the Bealtaine Festival in Ireland. In 2008, Cassie received a grant from the John F. Kennedy Center Local Dance Commissioning Project as one of three outstanding local choreographers and she presented her new work, Drift, on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in September 2008. In 2009, Cassie was part of the Feet to the Fire project at Wesleyan University, where she co-taught a course on tropical ecology with artist Matt Mahaney and Professor Barry Chernoff. The team traveled to Guyana and worked with science and art students to bring both artistic and scientific tools to bare on such topics as ecology and global warming. Recently, Cassie was recognized with a Metro DC Dance Award for Emerging Choreographer in 2009.

SHULA STRASSFELD began dancing “too late” and has been dancing ever since. After training in NY with members of the Jose Limon Company and with Collette Barry and Susan Klein, she spent two years in Boston studying and performing with Amy Ellsworth, Susan Rose and Joy Kelman. While living in Israel, Shula taught at the Bat Dor Studios and The Rubin Academy of Hebrew University. She also taught and choreographed for the Apprentice Company of the Kibbutz Dance Company. For five years she was a soloist with the Mirali Sharon Dance Company performing throughout Israel and in Europe and the US. Returning to North America, she danced with South Street Dance Company and Sybil Dance Company in Philadelphia and with choreographers Jan Van Dyke and Sandra Neels in North Carolina. Shula lived in Toronto for 18 years -- for six years she was Artistic Director of Me’irim Dance Company, the resident company of the Toronto JCC. Her work was also presented in the Toronto Fringe Dance Festival and by Ballet Creole and Dancemakers. Shula has an M.A. in Dance from Columbia University and was Artist-in-Residence at York University Dance Department. She also taught at the School of Canadian Dance Theatre and in the Professional Program at Ballet Creole. She joined Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 2007.

BEN WEGMAN, a native Midwesterner, received his early training at the Joffrey Ballet School and Point Park University. He has performed with numerous companies including Jeanne Ruddy Dance, Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers, Keith Thompson’s danceTactics, Headlong Dance Theater, CityDance Ensemble, SCRAP Performance Group, and Troika Ranch. Benjamin enjoys Mexican food, napping with his cat, and arguing politics in the District. He joined the company in 2007.

MARTHA WITTMAN has been teaching, dancing and choreographing for more than 50 years.  As a young performer she danced with the Juilliard Dance Theatre under the direction of Doris Humphrey and in the companies of Ruth Currier, Joseph Gifford and Anna Sokolow. For many years she was an associate choreographer with the Dances We Dance Company directed by Betty Jones and Fritz Ludin.  Her awards include three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Doris Humphrey Fellowship from the American Dance Festival, Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland Council on the Arts, and two awards from Dance/USA’s National College Choreography Initiative. She was a long-term member of the Bennington College dance faculty in Vermont, and has been a guest artist, teacher and choreographer in numerous colleges, universities and summer dance programs around the country. Martha joined the Dance Exchange in 1996 and has been happily working with them ever since.

Back to top
Back to Who We Are page