Leadership Committee

DANC’s Leadership Committee is responsible for governing DANC by ensuring DANC’s actions and decisions are made in alignment with DANC’s Mission and Guiding Principles. DANC’s Leadership Committee is responsible for managing DANC’s critical operations, including but not limited to: Managing internal and external communications, overseeing membership matters, curating and coordinating general membership meetings, maintaining and distributing access to documents, facilitating elections, distributing money and other resources, centering the perspectives and prioritizing the needs of DANC’s BIPOC and disabled members. The power of changing DANC’s leadership structure is held within general membership.

A photo of April leaning back against limestone rock. She is a white woman with freckles and long, dark reddish-brown hair, wearing a cream shirt and brown leaf-shaped earrings. She is looking straight into the camera with her head slightly in profile and wearing a small round dark colored necklace.
Image Description: A photo of April leaning back against limestone rock. She is a white woman with freckles and long, dark reddish-brown hair, wearing a cream shirt and brown leaf-shaped earrings. She is looking straight into the camera with her head slightly in profile and wearing a small round dark colored necklace.

April Biggs

Envisioning Coordinator

April Biggs is a queer, disabled dance artist who splits her time between the unceded territories of the Kiikaapoi peoples, colonially known as Milwaukee, WI, and the Lenapehoeking peoples, colonially known as Brooklyn, NY. Her choreographic, pedagogical and advocacy work is based in a framework of Disability Justice, an intersectional lens that centers the most marginalized and celebrates the nuanced, full and exquisite experiences of disabled people. From 2005-2014, she made dance work under the moniker Biggs & Co., presenting several dance works and evening-length productions in venues across NYC and the Greater & Western NY regions including Movement Research, DTW, Dixon Place, the Merce Cunningham Studios, and the ALT Theatre. April has performed the work of Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, Ronald K. Brown, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and Michael Helland, and has been a company member of Anne Burnidge Dance, Third Rail Projects, silverbrown dance, and VANdance. She has taught contemporary technique, improvisation, composition, contact improvisation, and ballet extensively throughout the US, including at the University at Buffalo, Ohio State University, and now, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 

April was a 2020 Dance/NYC Disability.Dance.Artistry.Dance and Social Justice Fellow and a 2006 LMCC Swing Space grant recipient, has served on grant panels and as an NHSDA adjudicator, is a development consultant to Rutgers’ Integrated Dance Minor, a lead member of Creating New Futures’ (CNF) Disability+ Working Group, and a Visioning Coordinator for Dance Artists’ National Collective (DANC). She has presented on disability in dance at the 2021 National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) Virtual National Conference, 2021 Dance/NYC Digital Symposium, 2021 Dance/USA Virtual Conference, the 2020 Arts Midwest/Western Arts Alliance Joint Conference, and the 2018 Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Conference.

April holds a BFA in Dance from Florida State University, an MFA in Dance from the Ohio State University, and an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from The New School. She is a published poet and dance journalist, and is amidst writing a memoir.

A photo of Réka, a woman with light brown skin with brown eyes, hair and bangs wearing a black tan top and smiling in profile. She is in front of black background.
Image Description: A photo of Réka, a woman with light brown skin with brown eyes, hair and bangs wearing a black tan top and smiling in profile. She is in front of black background.

Réka Echerer

Communications Coordinator

Réka Echerer (she/her) hails from Vienna, Austria and has performed with the Vienna State Opera, Sue Bernhard Danceworks and Kizuna Dance. She has performed works by Merce Cunningham, Gabrielle Lamb,  Aszure Barton and currently dances with the Metropolitan Opera and Megan Williams Dance Projects. She is a proud member of Dance Artists’ National Collective and Dancers of the Met and currently resides on the stolen lands of the Lenapehoking/Canarsie lands also known as Astoria, Queens. 

A black & white photo of Vanessa. She is sitting on a sunlit dance studio floor. She is behind her walker named Pluto. She is gaze upwards towards the handle of her walker. She is wear a tulle dress and she has her hair pulled back.
Image Description: A black & white photo of Vanessa. She is sitting on a sunlit dance studio floor. She is behind her walker named Pluto. She is gaze upwards towards the handle of her walker. She is wear a tulle dress and she has her hair pulled back.

Vanessa Hernández Cruz

Communications Coordinator

Vanessa Hernández Cruz (she, her, hers) is an emerging Chicana disabled dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, poet & activist. She resides in the unceded lands of Tongva/Kizh/Los Angeles, California. She graduated from California State University Long Beach with her Bachelor of Arts in Dance Science.

Vanessa challenges the dance field and says: “Let’s hold all dance companies accountable to hire disabled dancers.” Her artistic journey is rooted in providing greater opportunities for other disabled artists in the dance field. This is accomplished by seeking out and infiltrating spaces where disabled people of color are not present. In those spaces she creates change and possibilities. 

 Her lifetime aspirations are to continue to perform, choreograph, create, and to continue to pave an easier path for future disabled artists through her activism.

A photo of Alex, a white person with a light mustache and stubble, sitting in a sunny bright green grassy park lawn with trees behind, wearing a black coat and black ball cap.
Image Description: A photo of Alex, a white person with a light mustache and stubble, sitting in a sunny bright green grassy park lawn with trees behind, wearing a black coat and black ball cap.

Alex Rodabaugh

Treasurer

Alex Rodabaugh is a choreographer, dancer and performer based in NYC. Alex recently showed work in Dance and Process at the Kitchen. Alex has worked with artists such as Tess Dworman, Simone Forti, Miguel Gutierrez, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Derek Smith and Bailey Williams among others. Alex’s work has also been shown at Movement Research at Judson Church, Draftworks, Double Plus at Gibney, PRELUDE, and American Realness Festival. See more at www.alexrodabaugh.work.

I was a co-founder of DANC back in 2018 and have been steadily involved since then. I have seen my role as providing a floor for DANC and making sure that it continues moving forward especially in moments of confusion and struggle. As the treasurer and overseer of the bank account, I intend to continue this role of creating foundational stability that allows us to grow in collective power.

A photo of Tony. Tony is a light brown skinned male with a black durag covering his hair holding a phone in front of a mirror in the bathroom.
Image Description: A photo of Tony. Tony is a light brown skinned male with a black durag covering his hair holding a phone in front of a mirror in the bathroom.

Tony Wright

Envisioning Coordinator

Hi, my name is Robert wright. I am a african american male (pronouns he/him) and I’m 19 years old. I have been a dancer for 9 years now. The artforms I practice are hip hop and tutting mainly although I have some knowledge of most street artforms. I was born and raised in st.petersburg Florida and I graduated from Pinellas Park high school in 2020. I’m interested in becoming the visioning coordinator because I believe that what you’re doing can not only help choreographers but it can also help street dancers. One of my goals is to help bring together all dancers whether they do freestyle or choreo. I think this organization has the potential to help make that future a reality.

A young woman with tan skin, curly dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and a black off the shoulder top smiles and looks forward
Image Description: A young woman with tan skin, curly dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and a black off the shoulder top smiles and looks forward

Elise Logan

Meeting Coordinator

Elise A. Logan is a recent graduate at Barnard College where she studied Dance and Interdisciplinary Race & Ethnicity Studies. She is a Black-Latinx woman and a dancer, choreographer, writer, and community organizer from the Los Angeles area. In her research, she looks to explore concepts of memoir, memory, and how documenting movement can be a method for storytelling in order to reveal truths about the personal knowledge of the mover, their reality, and the times they live in. Elise uses a multimodal approach to creative research and honor sites of collective memory, movement memoir, narrative, resistance, and community-building by using a collaborative and feminist approach to research. She is a student of Modern dance (Cunningham, Graham, Limón-based techniques), Ballet, Hip Hop (choreography, House, waving), Improvisational practices, Jazz, and Screendance. 

A photo of Emily, a white woman with closely shaved brown hair against a plain background.
Image Description: A photo of Emily, a white woman with closely shaved brown hair, against a plain background. Emily’s head and shoulders are pictured, and they’re looking into the camera.

Emily Hansel

LOA (Letter of Agreement) Coordinator

Emily Hansel (she/they) is a San Francisco-based dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, arts administrator, and artist advocate. Originally from Rochester, Minnesota, Emily received her BFA in Dance from the University of South Florida. She currently dances for Post:ballet, Robert Moses’ KIN, Mark Foehringer Dance Project, and Christy Funsch, and recently performed Cunningham repertory in Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists In Conversation with Merce Cunningham at 100. Emily has also performed with Garrett + Moulton Productions, FACT/SF, ZiRu Dance, The Anata Project, Talli Jackson, Marika Brussel, Alma Esperanza Cunningham, and others. She also choreographs and produces her own work, teaches dance, and works in a plethora of administrative roles.