Join Us for Arts X Fest at Wintersession
With generous sponsorship from McCarter Theatre’s Arts and Ideas program and the Department of Music at Princeton University, Princeton Arts Alumni is thrilled to invite you to Arts X Fest, a dynamic, interactive event exploring the transformative intersections between the arts and other fields.
We will be presenting a day of panels on Friday, January 17. Spots are limited, so reserve yours today!
TIME
Panels will take place throughout the day from 10:00am - 3:00pm; see below for a full schedule. Note that lunch will be provided for all registered attendees. Feel free to drop in for panels that fit your schedule.
LOCATION
The Berlind Rehearsal Room
McCarter Theater
91 University Place
To enter the Berlind Rehearsal Room, approach the McCarter building from University Place via the entrance beneath the words “Roger S. Berlind Theatre.” Stairs and a ramp from street level are available outside the entrance to the Berlind Theatre. Once inside the lobby, the Berlind Rehearsal Room is ahead to the right, on the same flat level as the lobby.
SCHEDULE (Panel Details Below)
10:00 AM — Welcome
10:15 AM — Arts X Technology
11:00 AM — Arts X Climate
11:45 AM — Arts X Entrepreneurship
12:30 PM — Lunch: Generously provided by the Department of Music for registered attendees
1:15 PM — Arts X Policy
2:00 PM — Arts X Education
SPECIAL THANKS
We are deeply grateful to our campus and community collaborators for offering their time, resources, expertise, and presence at ArtsXFest Wintersession 2025: GRADFutures, CreativeX, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, the Humanities Initiative, and others. Special appreciation goes to our sponsors, McCarter Theatre and the Department of Music at Princeton University.
Arts X Fest Panels
Arts X Technology
This panel will examine how the arts and technology in collaboration can spur innovation in both fields, as well as impact individuals, communities, and society. Facilitated by James Van Wyck, Assistant Dean for Professional Development at the Graduate School and Princeton Arts Alumni Board Member. Panelists include:
Penelope Georges | Associate Director of STEM Initiatives, Council on Science and Technology
Penelope holds a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University. She was a postdoctoral researcher in the Departments of Cell Biology & Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University and teaching faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology prior to joining the Council on Science at Technology at Princeton University. In her role as Associate Director of STEM Initiatives, she supports the Council's mission to create interdisciplinary courses and programming to promote the fundamentals of science and engineering throughout the entire Princeton community. Penelope develops and teaches integrative courses at the intersection of the arts, humanities, social and life sciences, and engineering. Further, she works to recognize and endorse equity-minded initiatives to stimulate STEM interest and literacy in all of Princeton University’s diverse constituents.
Dan Trueman | Chair, Department of Music
Dan Trueman is a musician: a fiddler, a collaborator, a teacher, a developer of new instruments, a composer of music for ensembles of all shapes and sizes. He has worked with ensembles such as So Percussion, the PRISM Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, Gallicantus, the JACK Quartet, as well as individuals like scientist Naomi Leonard, choreographer Rebecca Lazier, poet Paul Muldoon, director Mark DeChiazza, fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird, guitarist/songwriter Monica Mugan, and many others. Dan’s work has been recognized by fellowships, grants, commissions, and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the Bessies, the Fulbright Commission, the American Composers Forum, the American Council of Learned Societies, Meet the Composer, among others.
Lisa Margulis | Professor of Music & Director of Music Cognition Lab, Department of Music
Elizabeth Margulis is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Musicology, with affiliations in Psychology and Neuroscience. She studies the perception and cognition of music. She directs Princeton’s Music Cognition Lab, which brings together students and researchers to ask questions that lie at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. In particular, she’s interested in the aspects of musical experience that seem most powerful, but hardest to talk about. The lab uses experimental data as a provocative, illuminating way in to some of the most complex, subjective, culturally situated aspects of music, which in turn reveals neglected, broader aspects of human cognition and behavior.
Arts X Climate
Illuminating intersections between the arts and climate advocacy can inform the future of both arts industries and our planet, while impacting individuals, communities, and society. Facilitated by Yassine Ait Ali, graduate student in the Department of French & Italian. Panelists include:
Rachael Z. DeLue | Professor in American Art, Department of Art & Archaeology; Director, Princeton Humanities Initiative
Rachael Z. DeLue is the Christopher Binyon Sarofim ’86 Professor in American Art at Princeton University. She is jointly appointed in the Effron Center for the Study of America. She is associated faculty in the High Meadows Environmental Institute, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative, and the Program in Media and Modernity. DeLue specializes in the history of American and transatlantic art and visual culture, focusing on intersections among art, science, and the history and theory of knowledge and on the transnational and transcultural formation of “America” as a contested geography, identity and idea. She serves as the editor-in-chief of the Terra Foundation Essays and edited Picturing (2016), the first volume in the series. She has also published George Inness and the Science of Landscape (2004), Landscape Theory (2008, co-edited with James Elkins), and Arthur Dove: Always Connect (2016). Other publications consider the French painter Camille Pissarro, Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled, Romare Bearden’s collages, Darwin and the visual arts, the relationship between art writing and medical diagnosis in the United States circa 1900, shoreline landscapes as symbols of empire, the supernatural in American art, and constructions of Native America within Anglo-American archaeology in the early republic. She is currently completing a book entitled Impossible Images and the Perils of Picturing.
Bethany Wiggin | Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor, HMEI
Bethany Wiggin is currently the Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities at Princeton University while on leave from her position as Professor in the Department of French and Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. From 2014-24, she served as the Founding Director of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities. Her scholarship explores histories of migration, language, and cultural translation since the Columbian exchange across the north Atlantic world; she is currently completing the monograph Utopia Found and Lost in Penn’s Woods while also laying groundwork for a new transatlantic project on energy infrastructure and anti-fossil-fuel networks. Simultaneously, she is at work on special journal issues on Environmental Futures and on Arts-Driven Methods for Energy Justice. She holds research to be a human right and regularly leads public research projects designed to connect academic and community expertise for environmental and climate repair. These projects have been supported by (selected) the National Geographic, Whiting, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations and include: Intersecting Energy Cultures, An Ecotopian Toolkit for the Anthropocene, Data Refuge, Futures Beyond Refining, and My Climate Story (selected). She has offered testimony about project findings to audiences ranging from school children, to the City Council of Philadelphia, the U.S. Congress, and UNESCO.
Arts X Entrepreneurship
A discussion of the inherent intersection between the arts and entrepreneurship and how that overlap can spur innovation in both fields, while impacting individuals, communities, and society. Facilitated by James Van Wyck, Assistant Dean for Professional Development at the Graduate School and Princeton Arts Alumni Board Member. Panelists include:
Manish Bhardwaj | Director of Design for Innovation Program, Keller Center
Manish Bhardwaj directs Keller Center's Design for Innovation program for faculty in the humanities and social sciences. He was previously the James Wei Visiting Professor at Keller, where he taught idealism in entrepreneurship. Manish is the CEO and co-founder of Innovators In Health, which is devoted to delivering world-class healthcare to the rural poor in India. Manish is also a Fellow of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. Manish believes that a venture to make the world more just is fundamentally a moral, not technical, undertaking. It requires cultivating a moral imagination, an ability to imagine why people do right or wrong, the root of empathy, itself the root of all enduring change. He believes that accompaniment, to stand with the marginalized, literally and figuratively, is a moral imperative, and in and of itself a powerful means of change.
Aaron Landsman | Lecturer in Theater, Lewis Center for the Arts
Aaron Landsman is a playwright, organizer and teacher. His awards include a Creative Capital Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Princeton Arts Fellowship. He is the founder of Perfect City, a working group at the intersection of art, organizing, popular education and design. With Ebony Noelle Golden/Betty’s Daughter Arts, Perfect City has been supported by a START Fellowship at Princeton as well as the Design for Innovation Fund. Landsman’s current theater works include Night Keeper, a performance that is being released as an album on Hallow Ground Records; and All The Time in the World, a game-based piece about collective self-regard and social media. Landsman co-authored The City We Make Together with Mallory Catlett, published by The University of Iowa Press in 2022. His writing appears, or will soon, in The Washington Post, Theater Magazine, The Iowa Review and Urban Omnibus.
Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa | Founder & CEO of MUKA!
Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa is a Zimbabwean gwenyambira, composer, and singer whose storytelling serves to bridge Zimbabwe’s past and present, in order to inform a self-crafted future. Her craft combines music and healing, drawing from the generations of Svikiro (spirit mediums) and N’anga (healers) in her bloodline. Tawengwa is also the founder and music director of the Mushandirapamwe Singers, a Zimbabwean vocal ensemble. Tawengwa earned her bachelor's degree in Music Composition at Princeton University (cum laude), her master's degree in Voice Performance from the University of Kentucky, and is a doctoral candidate in Voice Performance at the University of Kentucky.
Arts X Policy
A conversation examining how government partnerships with the arts, arts lobbying, and arts funding in public policy impact communities in New Jersey and beyond. Facilitated by Victoria Gruenberg, Princeton Arts Alumni Governance Director and theater director. Panelists include:
Andrew Binger | Program Officer, Community Partnerships, New Jersey State Council on the Arts
Andrew Binger is the Program Officer for Community Partnerships at the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In his role, Andrew manages the Local Arts Program, a $6 million partnership initiative that provides funds to each of New Jersey’s 21 counties via a designated county arts agency (CAA). CAAs use these dollars to support their own local arts development programs as well as to provide arts grants to local, grassroots organizations to further their arts programs and initiatives. In addition to managing this extensive grant program, Andrew plays a vital role in the Council’s emergency preparedness efforts and supports work that advances inclusion in the arts and initiatives around the interconnection of arts and health. Andrew represents the Council in various cross-sector collaborations, including the NJ Department of Transportation’s Transit Village Task Force, Revolution NJ, and Performing Arts Readiness, to name a few. Andrew’s work at the Council focuses on enhancing community engagement in the arts and supporting the intersections of the arts, health, and community development. With a strong commitment to fostering cultural vitality, Andrew continues to make a significant impact in the local arts landscape.
Adam Perle | CEO, ArtPride New Jersey
As President & CEO, Adam Perle manages all ArtPride New Jersey operations. He leads the senior management team and is responsible for organizational strategy, resource development, fiduciary oversight and more. Prior to joining ArtPride New Jersey, Adam was the Vice President of the Princeton Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce, where he led membership efforts and was instrumental in the expansion of the Princeton Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau. Before his work in the nonprofit sector, Adam worked on several political campaigns at the local, state, and federal levels.
Arts X Education
A discussion of teacher training methods and arts curricula that support youth while moving the needle on equity and inclusion in the arts, as well as improving educational outcomes for all students. Facilitated by Pilar Castro-Kiltz, founder of Princeton Arts Alumni and CEO of More Canvas. Panelists include:
Kahina Haynes | Executive Director, Dance Institute of Washington
Kahina Haynes, Executive Director of The Dance Institute of Washington since 2016, is a passionate arts activist and the visionary architect behind one of Washington, D.C.’s leading models for advancing equity in community health, development, and achievement outcomes. Utilizing an innovative and holistic systems approach, The Dance Institute of Washington uses it platforms to educate, create, and advance practices to address longstanding disparities in the dance industry. Following the untimely passing of the Institute’s Founder Fabian Barnes, Haynes led a strategic revitalization of the organization which saw a breadth of new radical program designs, the award of a groundbreaking federal funding appropriation of $1 million from the U.S. Congress, and a multi-year facilities renovation to outfit the flagship site to expand on its 44,000 family reach.
Kay Gayner | Artistic Director, National Dance Institute
Kay Gayner was named Artistic Director of National Dance Institute in 2021, after having served as Associate Artistic Director from 2017-2021. She is responsible for the direction of NDI’s In-School Program, which currently serves approximately 6,500 children in New York City public schools. Ms. Gayner began teaching for National Dance Institute in 2000 and has served as Co-Creator and Co-Founder of the NDI DREAM Project since 2014 and Director of International Projects since 2011. Her work has been performed at venues including the NYU Skirball Center, LaGuardia High School for Music and Art, Symphony Space, NJPAC, the New York Historical Society, the American Airlines Theatre, Ontological at St. Mark’s, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Ms. Gayner won a gold medal for choreography at the Shanghai International Children’s Festival in 2013.
Brooke Boertzel | Director of Education, McCarter Theater
Brooke Boertzel’s professional passion involves utilizing theater as an educational tool for exploring social, emotional, and academic content. Brooke holds an MFA in Acting from the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University and an MA in Educational Theatre from NYU. She’s served on panels and as a guest lecturer at NYU, Hunter College, Baruch College, Teachers College at Columbia University, City College of New York, Brooklyn College, Rutgers, and Princeton University, covering such topics as arts integration, assessment, and evaluation, applied theatre, curricula design, and developing theatre and curricula with and for special populations, including English Language Learners and students with disabilities. Before working at McCarter, Brooke served for 11 years as the Director of Education at New York City Children’s Theater, previously named Making Books Sing. Utilizing her expertise in arts integrative learning, she co-created Alice’s Story and Fair and Square, two nationally recognized interactive anti-bullying applied theater programs featured on the cover of Time Magazine for Kids in 2012. Brooke served on the Board of Directors for the New York City Arts and Education Roundtable from 2013-2018, where she advocated for quality arts programming for NYC public schools while also acting as the Chair of their Membership Committee.
Be a Part of Arts X Fest
Princeton Arts Alumni (PA2) is marking our first 10 years with an alumni-led arts festival called Arts X Fest.
Arts X Fest is a year-long series of discussions exploring crossroads between the arts and other fields. Centered around the phrase “where art and ______ intersect,” each event will be hosted by partners and alumni (which could mean you!), taking place in person and online.
Bringing together varied perspectives, Arts X Fest aims to illuminate the impact, power, and ubiquity of the arts in shaping our society.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Interested in attending an event?
Never miss an event - subscribe to the newsletter! We will list all Arts X Fest events there, including how to join ArtsXFest from the comfort of your own home or in your own community.
Interested in organizing, curating, or hosting an event?
We are here to help realize your visions for an Arts X [Your Idea] event. We invite you to propose an event in your community, workplace, virtually, or perhaps even your home. If you have any questions, please reach out directly to the PA2 team at pton.arts.alumni@gmail.com
Interested in donating to Princeton Arts Alumni or Arts X Fest?
Interested in starting a regional chapter of PA2 alumni?
Feel free to reach out directly to Pilar Castro-Kiltz at pton.arts.alumni@gmail.com to let us know. One of the goals of Arts X Fest is to increase collaboration and communication with each other regionally. If this sounds like something you’d like to be involved in, reach out!
MORE INFORMATION
The X in “Arts X Fest” represents both the Roman numeral for 10 (for our 10th anniversary) as well as an ‘intersection’ between the arts and these other aspects of our everyday lives.
These events will happen nationally at various locations, both online and in-person, and will allow the PA2 community to showcase events in their own hometowns — and some, in their own backyards.
The arts have a profound impact on our world. Where art intersects issues, disciplines, industries, and our daily reality, it has the power to be a mechanism for change in our society. Let us discuss, engage, and innovate together in articulating and magnifying the impact of the arts on humanity.
Arts X Fest Events
Events will be announced on a rolling basis. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get regular updates.
