World Alive! 2022 Program

OCTOBER 8,

Hotel and Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre

Our Evening

5PM

Cocktails

Music by Armond Vance

6PM

Dinner and Program

WELCOME

David C. Howse, Executive Director

Ronee Penoi, Director of Artistic Programming

AWARD PRESENTATIONS

C. Brian Williams

Executive Director, Step Afrika!

World Alive! 2022 Distinguished Artist Award

For his impactful contributions to ArtsEmerson as an artist and advocate

Susan Feder Program Officer, Arts and Culture program at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation World Alive! 2022 Champion Award

For her partnership with ArtsEmerson and support of the arts as a source of civic transformation

REMARKS

David C. Howse and Ronee Penoi

FRIENDS COMMITTEE CO-CHAIRS

Peggy Koenig

Patrick Lee

CLOSING REMARKS

David C. Howse and Ronee Penoi

Menu

ArtsEmerson Honors

C. BRIAN WILLIAMS

Alive!

Distinguished Artist

C. Brian Williams, Founder and Executive Director of Step Afrika!, is a native of Houston, Texas and graduate of Howard University. He is a National Heritage Fellow as designated by the National Endowment of the Arts, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Brian first learned to step as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. — Beta Chapter, in the Spring of 1989. While living in Southern Africa, he began to research the percussive dance tradition of stepping, exploring the many sides of this exciting, yet under-recognized American art form and founded Step Afrika! in 1994. Williams has performed, lectured and taught in Europe, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean and throughout the United States. He is the founder of the monumental Step Afrika! International Cultural Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Through Williams’ leadership, stepping has evolved into one of America’s newest cultural exports and inspired the designation of Step Afrika! as Washington, D.C.’s official “Cultural Ambassador.” Williams has been cited as a “civic/community visionary” by NV Magazine, a “nation builder” by the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and a “minority business leader” by the Washington Business Journal. He is the recipient of numerous Artist Fellowships; the Distinguished Arts Award from the Coalition for African-Americans in the Performing Arts; the Pola Nirenska Award for Contemporary Achievement in Dance. He is also featured in Soulstepping, the first book to document the history of stepping. He also earned the 2008 Mayor’s Art Award for Innovation in the Arts and has led the company to multiple Metro DC Dance Awards for “Outstanding New Work,”

“Excellence in Stage Design/ Multimedia” and “Outstanding Group Performance.” In 2018, Williams received the Mayor’s Arts Award for Visionary Leadership from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

SUSAN FEDER

World Alive! 2022 Champion Award

Susan Feder served as a program officer at the Mellon Foundation, in the Arts and Culture (AC) program, with responsibility for performing arts and related organizations. Working within AC, across the Foundation’s other program areas, and with leading national and regional arts service organizations, she has helped oversee a broad diversification of AC’s portfolio and range of supported activities. Before joining the Foundation, as vice president of the music publisher G. Schirmer, Inc., she developed the careers of many leading composers in the United States, Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Earlier in her career, she was editorial coordinator of The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (1986), program editor at the San Francisco Symphony, and an award-winning freelance writer on music. Ms. Feder obtained degrees in musicology from Princeton University (where she currently serves on the Music Department Advisory Council), and the University of California, Berkeley.

Ms. Feder is vice president of the Amphion Foundation; sits on the boards of Grantmakers in the Arts, the Kurt Weill Foundation, and the Charles Ives Society; and is on the Advisory Council for the Mosaic Fund. Her honors include the Concert Music Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), for which she was described as “Publisher, Advisor, Friend, and Champion,” an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for her program notes, and Musical America’s Profiles in Courage award (2014). She is the dedicatee of John Corigliano’s PulitzerPrize winning Symphony No. 2, Augusta Read Thomas’s Helios Choros, and Joan Tower’s Dumbarton Oaks Quintet.

Sponsors

PRODUCERS

Vivian Beard

The Burt Family

Peggy Koenig

Lars Charitable Fund

Alyce and Patrick Lee | Trinity Financial

Omar and Raynya Simmons

Ted and Mary Wendell

DIRECTORS

Pam and Bob Adams

Val Talland and Nagesh Mahanthappa

Richard and Kathy Taylor | Nubian Square Ascends Marillyn Zacharis

ACTORS

Boston Arts Summer Institute

Yoonhee and David Rhee

PREMIERE COUPLES

The Charlotte Foundation

Christine and David Letts Mike and Judy Rogers

PATRONS

Lori Smith Britton

Teri Groome and Paul Belanger

Jeannette Herrmann and Christopher Owens Jaqui Lindsay David and Tami Rich Barry Schaudt Sylvia Simmons Sandra Stratford Ann Teixeira

Shari and Bob Thurer

SPECIAL THANKS: Courtyard by Marriott.