SUMMER 2012 Sam’s first job in dance was as Founding Managing Director of Arizona Ballet in Phoenix, Arizona. He then worked at Pennsylvania Ballet as Development Director before joining Pilobolus as Managing Director. After Pilobolus, he joined Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 1987 as Managing Director, becoming Executive Director and President in 1990. In 1995, Sam became Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), where he launched regional and national projects including the National Dance Project, the Center for Creative Research, the Contemporary Art Centers Network, and the Favorite Poem Project with Robert Pinsky. After ten years at NEFA, Sam became President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a tenyear initiative to improve conditions for independent artists in the US. In 2010, he became President of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). In 1991, Sam founded the Cambodian Artists Project, a continuing effort to restore and advance Cambodian performing arts. He currently serves on the Board of Amrita in Phnom Penh. Sam also founded and is the Director of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University. Sam serves as President of the LINC Board and on the advisory board of ODC/SF. Sam has produced the Jamison Project, Men Dancers, The Ted Shawn Legacy, Dance the Spirit of Cambodia, and the Eiko and Koma Retrospective Project and served as artistic advisor on White Oak Dance Project’s “Past/Forward.” Consulting clients have included the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Pew Center for Arts and Culture, Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Danspace Project, IMG, and ArtsEmerson. Class of 1972 Eden Buck Cross talks about the importance of Solebury. She says, “While Solebury fostered a great sense of being okay about myself, for many years I still tried to fit in, seeking to quell my uncommon gifts. Finally, no longer able to deny my true self, I’ve begun to go public about my abilities as an intuitive communicator a.k.a. psychic medium, most notably as an Animal Communicator. Like jumping into the water after only having stuck your big toe in it’s a bit of a scary shock at first, but the water’s fine! With synchronicity on my side, last August I initially and officially got “outed” in Jacksonville magazine. They were interviewing our interior design client, author Steve Berry, about the home we just finished designing for him, when the journalist met me and my dog Saki when I mentioned I am an Animal Communicator. That very month was Jacksonville magazine’s Animal issue and I was written up. On November 16th I was interviewed on WJXT-TV in Jacksonville and have been a guest on several blog radio shows. What’s important to me is that now I am able to get the word out there that there are people gifted like me who are not “woo-woo” but have a great deal to give and teach others. All of us have intuition – a 6th sense – like gifted artists, writers, and musicians. If anyone would like my brochure, contact me with your mailing address at edenx1@gmail.com. Class of 1974 Mark Cosgrove is busy living the sometimes not so glamorous life of the touring musician. The new CD is called Unencumbered and is available on iTunes or directly through www.mcosgrove.com. Greetings to everybody!
THE ALMA Class of 1977 Rachel Simon shares some memories of her friends and classmates at Solebury School: Remember Brett Harrison in The Importance of Being Ernest or Jeff Honig’s graduation speech? Do you recall John McGann and John Zeidler playing guitar and banjo whenever possible? Maybe you remember Phoebe Chorley helping me carve a cat out of wood or Mrs. Sundstrom getting very excited whenever we asked for additional information, and then going into a side room to get one of her blue binders where she had copious notes on everything in the world.
PAGE 3 Painter Daniel Anthonisen was a featured artist in the 13th Annual Artist Studio Tour last April. Also included was his father George Anthonisen, a famed sculptor. Class of 1991 Todd Lower is the operations manager for Alere, a durable medical company in Livermore, CA (San Francisco Bay area). Class of 1993 Allegra Sleep is busy painting in gorgeous Taos, New Mexico. Recently she finished a large 30''x40'' painting titled Joven y Yaguara, which now lives in Dallas, Texas. She’s planning an entire show with the same theme.
Remember David Leshan talking about his college friend Thomas Pynchon or Mike Brady talking about elk in anthropology class? How many recall Will Scarlett riding a unicycle around campus? Do you remember the school nurse Joann in her office with the ferns? How about coming to Upper in the morning and seeing the teachers for the Outdoor Class already out for their run. How many of us hitchhiked into town to get pizza? Recall all the many great conversations with students in the art rooms long after the end of the school days and feeling relived and proud that we had no prom. Great memories, Rachel! Rachel took some time off from her book tour to visit with fellow alum Jeff Vespa while in California.
Stephanie Jones Godbolt remembers all the snowball fights during winter. Her four years at Solebury were enjoyable and unforgettable. Class of 1978 Sarah McPhee published a new book this April titled Bernini’s Beloved. A Portrait of Costanza Piccolomini. Class of 1979 Fred Royal says that he’s still in love with a beautiful Bucks County farm girl. Class of 1980 Jona Hansen and his brother and Chef Max Hansen ’77, in concert with Hamilton’s Grill, had a book signing and celebration for Jona’s new book, Guantánamo: An American History.
Class of 1988 Navarrow Wright was featured last November in a CNN documentary called Black in America: The New Promised Land - Silicon Valley. It’s partly about why social media and technology companies are booming during these economic hard times and also about the challenges faced by African Americans in getting funding to start up technology-based companies.
Class of 1994 Janette Ratner Ritter sends us a photo from last fall. She and Todd are with their sons Jonah and Joshua. Janette tells us that life is wonderful and she is busy and involved in the Art scene in Poughkeepsie, NY. Class of 2001 John Howell and Solebury classmate Chris Alferman were featured in April 2012 Bucks Life Magazine. Here’s an excerpt: Howell is a 28-year-old metalworker who’s built like a long piece of unraveled soldering wire. The silo doubles as a workshop and studio for Howell and Chris. “I’ve got a business that does doors and stuff, but then I come in on the weekends and stay late and do art stuff,” Howell says. “Not stuff. You’re not supposed to call it that.”