VSA arts Institute ›  Past Institutes ›  VSA arts Institute: Stevenson, WA ›  Meet the Faculty

2006 VSA arts Institute Faculty

Deborah Brzoska

Deborah Brzoska is a nationally recognized leader in arts education who has worked with teachers, school districts and arts organizations in more than forty states on interdisciplinary learning and arts assessment.  She was the founding principal of an award-winning arts-centered public school and has been a school designer for the Small Schools Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Recently, Ms. Brzoska led arts curriculum, professional development and research efforts for the state of Hawaii and she has written about arts education for The Kennedy Center, the national Arts Education Partnership and The College Board.

 

Hilary Easton

Hilary Easton is an arts education consultant, evaluator, and professional developer of teaching artists for numerous organizations both within New York City and nationally, working with organizations such as the New York Philharmonics School Partnership Program, the 92nd Street Ys Educational Outreach Program, Arts 4 Learning/Miami, the Delaware Institute for the Arts and Education, and Arts Horizons. Ms. Easton has taught at colleges and universities including Princeton University, Connecticut College, New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts, and the University of Montana. She has been published in the Teaching Artist Journal: The Purpose of Partnerships: An Outline of Benefits and Shortcomings, and Publishing Musical Compositions in the Classroom: The Writers Process at Work in a Teacher/Teaching Artist Collaboration.From1998-2006, she was a professional developer for the teaching artists at Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education: guiding them in their work with students, and working with associated Institutes nationally. She was instrumental in the development Lincoln Center Institutes Focus School and Higher Education Collaborative program, and for many years a highly respected LCI teaching artist. Ms. Easton is a dancer and choreographer whose work has been presented at American Dance Festival, The Danspace Project at St. Marks Church, the University of Texas, Lincoln Center, and Central Park Summerstage. She has received awards including The Paul Taylor Fellowship, and grants from organizations such as the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Jerome Foundation. She holds an MFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Ms. Easton has been a member of the VSA Institute Faculty since 2002.

  

 

Dawn M. Ellis

As a researcher, consultant, and artist, Ellis helps connect the national, state, and local arts and education communities, both in the public and private sectors.  Through work with national associations and organizations, such as the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and VSA arts, Ellis facilitates professional development processes for those involved in arts, education, and leadership.  As a consultant for the Ford Foundation, Ellis facilitated the research basis for their involvement in arts integration as connected to urban reform.  From Tennessee, Wyoming, Rhode Island, to Delaware, Ellis has helped states use research shape their arts education priorities.. 

Since 2005, Ellis has been researching and writing an arts education professional development compendium, with lessons learned for school districts, commissioned by arts councils and philanthropies in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley.  Recent research projects include: For the Greater Good: A Framework for Advancing State Arts Education Partnerships (National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, 2003); Community Schools of the Arts: An Arts Education Resource for Your Community (Americans for the Arts, 2003); and A Broad Brush: Access and Arts Education Insights from School Districts (VSA arts, to be published).  In addition, Ellis served as the primary researcher for Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons from Districts That Value Arts Education, the first nationwide inquiry into school district strategies for sustaining arts education and helped shape Creative America: A Report to the President, which described the cultural sector in the mid-1990’s and resulted in numerous new programs and collaborations. 

Ellis served under Governor Ruth Ann Minner on the Delaware State Arts Council as the Chairman of the Grants and Programs Committee and still serves on the editorial board of The Teaching Artist Journal.  As an administrator, Ellis worked as the director of education programs at the Vermont Arts Council and as executive director of Very Special Arts Vermont.   As an educator, Ellis developed a music program at a school for youth with emotional and behavioral disabilities, served as an interdisciplinary Vermont artist-in- education.  She continues integrate music, poetry, movement, and drama for students of all ages, from workshops to institutes.

 

Christine Goodheart

Christine Goodheart is a consultant to arts and education organizations and is based in Rochester, N.Y.

From 2000-2006, she served as Executive Director of University-Community Partnerships at the University of Washington in Seattle.  In this capacity, she worked to connect the resources of the University of Washington to a range of communities locally and statewide and to showcase work between the UW and diverse communities. While in Seattle, Christine served as the lead consultant for ArtsEdWashington's Principal’s Leadership Initiative, served on the boards of the Seattle Center Foundation and Arts Corps and served on the education advisory committee of the Seattle Art Museum.

From 1987-2000, she worked in a variety of capacities at the Lincoln Center Institute in New York City, most recently as Program Development Director, working with K-12 schools and higher education institutions throughout the metropolitan region.

Christine has consulted widely with staff, constituents, and boards in school districts, higher education institutions, arts centers, arts councils, museums and education agencies to develop arts education programs. She currently serves on the national faculties of VSA arts and the Empire State Partnership Project.

 

Russell Granet

Russell Granet is the Director of Professional Development and Peer Exchange at the NYC Center for Arts Education.  Russell is the former Director of Education at The American Place Theatre and worked as a Senior Teaching Artist for the Creative Arts Team’s special needs program, Special Express.  He is currently an adjunct professor at the City University of New York and since 1995 has been teaching a three part, graduate level course on special education and the arts for New York University’s Program in Educational Theatre.  He has been an arts education consultant for more than fifteen years on the East and West Coast and has worked with both public and independent schools.  He has served as an arts panelist, commencement and keynote speaker, and conference presenter at local and national conferences on arts education partnerships, evaluation and assessment and artist training in arts education.  He was a founding board member of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable and currently serves on the board of the American Place Theatre and is the Art Education Chair of the Columbia County (NY) Council for the Arts Board.  He is a graduate of Emerson College, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and holds an M.A. in Educational Theatre from New York University.

 

Gordon Sasaki

New York City based artist Gordon Sasaki’s work blends classical techniques of art making with contemporary ideas of identity and culture.  Combining an unexpected use of images and materials, his mixed and multi-media works purposefully cross over traditional categorical boundaries while expanding our ideas of what art can be.  His work is exhibited internationally and is held in many corporate and private collections.

A wheelchair user since a 1982 automobile accident, Gordon brings to his workshops a unique combination of personal insight, academic training and over twenty years of experience working with special needs populations.  With an emphasis on the creative process in both his art and teaching approach, he uses the inherent universal qualities of the arts to adapt lesson plans to individual needs.  Through his workshops he presents alternative teaching strategies for the classroom, using multi-sensory and inclusive formats that address the needs of all students.  With an emphasis on creating practical and inclusive lesson plans in a noncompetitive and fun learning environment.

A recipient of numerous awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Award, Gordon continues to expand on preconceptions of defining art and artists.  He is a dedicated proponent for the inclusion of the arts as a life tool, invaluable to everyone and relevant to all aspects of daily life.  Gordon implements his ideas through his teaching in universities, museums, schools and private institutions, including workshops and presentations for the New York City Department of Education, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Arts and Design and the International Center for Tolerance in Education.  He currently teaches in the education department of Community and Access at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. 

 

Deborah Stuart

Deborah Stuart has had wide ranging experience with the arts and education.  A specialist in children’s music and folklore, she has worked for the past forty years with students and educators in schools across the US, in Central and South America, and in Europe, both as a residency artist and as a teacher trainer.  Her training primarily focuses on the integration of music as well as other art forms into the classroom curriculum with particular emphasis on meeting the needs of all learners through arts-based approaches.  In addition she works with art and music specialists to facilitate the inclusion of students with different learning needs into their classrooms.

For thirty years a member of the NH State Council on the Arts Artist Roster, Deborah  performs with the folk music groups Home for Dinner and Colburn and Stuart, which included a month long tour of the former Soviet Union as well as venues throughout the US and overseas.  Her numerous school residencies have taken her from New England to Alaska, Florida and Great Britain.

As an arts administrator, Deborah was for ten years the Executive Director of VSA arts of NH and then was President and CEO of VSA arts in Washington, DC.  Deborah is the editor and contributing writer for the VSA arts early childhood resource book Start with the Arts. She also is the author of the companion parent book Start with the Arts at Home.  She designed and edited a series of books for use by teachers and youth workers which support creative writing, poetry writing and journaling in inclusive settings.

As a speaker and presenter, Deborah has participated in many conferences, institutes and workshops throughout the country.  She was Assistant Director and Instructor of Record at several colleges and universities for The Vermont Institute for Teaching the Arts, a Lincoln Center Aesthetic Education modeled project.

Deborah was awarded the New Hampshire Governor’s Arts Award for Distinguished Arts Leadership for her work in using the arts as an effective tool for including students with disabilities in classrooms and communities.