Faculty and the Administrative Team (2013)

Faculty

Jane McMahan, artistic director, voice, theatre (Barnard College, Columbia University)

Kamini Dandapani, South Indian song and Bharatanatyam
Jean-Paul Björlin, voice, accompanying, coaching (Barnard College, Columbia University)
Olinda Brasil, Brazilian dance, art, carnival, and capoeira

Rok & Leonida Zelenko, Artists in Residence
Tina Hofman & Marcus Fernando, Actors in Residence

Visiting Artists

Kasia Tercz, acting, stilt walking
Yuliya Potulova, accompanying, coaching

Administration

Mojca Makovac, Director, International Cultural Centre of Jeunesses Musicales Croatia in Grožnjan
Kimmy Szeto, U.S. Administrator
 
   

Jane McMahan

 

Jane McMahan (USA)
Barnard College, Columbia University
Director

Jane McMahan has performed widely throughout New York and New England, focusing on early music, Baroque music, lieder and extensive French repertoire. Jane completed her B.Mus. in voice at Manhattan School of Music. She also hold an M.A. in Liberal Studies and an M.Phil. in Theater from the City University of New York.

Jane was director of Mandragora, a group that performed British Isles and Sephardic music. Her folk music and her "Seriously Satie" program were recorded and aired on WBAI, where she later worked as a producer. She was president of artSynergy, a nonprofit interdisciplinary arts organization.

Jane has been teaching voice at Barnard College, Columbia University, for 20 years, where she has directed major performances including a Liederabend, a "Luteiade," cabarets, and the Worldmuse Festival. Her recent CD, Mediterranean Crosscurrents, focuses on vocal and piano music of Manuel de Falla and Maurice Ravel and on Sephardic songs.

Jane is excited to return to Grožnjan to lead the International Vocal Arts Workshop for its seventh season. She first went to Grožnjan many years ago to study at Jeunesses Musicales with Andrea von Ramm. Jane designed the International Vocal Arts Workshop to emulate the spirit of Andrea's vibrant and unconventional approach — one that made creative ideas flow and encouraged artistic interchange.

 

 

Kamini Dandapani (India)
Carnatic song / Bharatanatyam (classical South Indian music / dance)

Kamini Dandapani has had extensive training in Carnatic (South Indian classical) vocal music, Western Classical music (piano) as well as in Bharatanatyam (South Indian classical dance). She studied Carnatic music for over 20 years with some of the leading teachers and performers in the field, including Vidwan Madurai N. Krishnan (who was a discipline of the eminent singer Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar), Dr. M. Balamurali Krishna, and Smt. T. Muktha (who was, until her death recently, one of the leading experts teachers of Carnatic padams, and javalis). At the same time, she studied classical piano, and holds a Licentiate from Trinity College of Music, London. Simultaneously learning and being immersed in these two different classical traditions has given her a not-often-encountered perspective on the similarities and differences between them across many dimensions including the theory, history, performance, performers and trends.

Closely related to and inseparable from Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam, the classical dance form of South India, is also an art form in which Dandapani has trained and performed for many years. Her teacher was Adyar Sri. K. Lakshman, who trained her in the Kalakshetra style developed by Rukmini Devi Arundale. She has given several dozen Bharatanatyam performances in India and Europe, and has taught Bharatanatyam, Carnatic music and piano in India and the United States. She has performed Carnatic music for All India Radio's Yuva Vani program, and has been the lead singer for several Bharatanatyam recitals, in New York as well as in London.

 

 

Jean-Paul Björlin (Sweden)
voice / accompanying / coaching

Jean-Paul Björlin, a native of Sweden, grew up performing in a musical household. Working as a pianist, singer, and French hornist, he strives eagerly to synergize his passions and talents in an open approach to teaching and creating his art. Jean-Paul received his BM and MM from The Juilliard School, studying singing. He lives and freelances in New York City and is also a certified yoga instructor.

 

Olinda Brasil

 

Olinda Brasil (Brazil)
percussion / dance / capoeira / carnival

Olinda Brasil comes from Pernambuco, a region in the northeast of Brazil with a vibrant popular culture of music, dance, and street carnival festivals. After studying traditional Brazilian music and dance formally, Olinda toured as a percussionist with many Brazilian music groups before settling in Sao Paulo to teach Brazilian dance (forro, samba, capoeira) and percussion.

Olinda first came to Grožnjan in the summer of 2006 with five bags of instruments and an incredible generosity of spirit. Every year ever since, he helps create the carnival formation for our street theatre procession as well as playing percussion and designing costumes and banners. Olinda will be teaching dance, playing percussion, and helping to create our parade and street theatre performance. Olinda's performing and teaching experience is exceptional. His infectious enthusiasm draws in spectators and fellow performers and workshop participants to generate a memorable group experience.

 



 

 

Rok & Leonida Zelenko (Croatia-Slovenia)
Artists in Residence

Rok Zelenko, painter, was born in 1951 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Upon finishing grammar school, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, where he studied painting with Janez Bernik. He has lived in Grožnjan, Croatia since 1977. He works as a painter as well as a ceramicist and illustrator. He has had over ninety solo shows as well as numerous group shows in Croatia and abroad. He curated the 1986 exhibit “A Historical Heritage of Grožnjan” at the Fonticus gallery. In 1999 he published his book Chronicles of Grožnjan – Slovenians in the Town of Artists. Recently, he also has been working on a variety of projects with architect Boris Zuliajan’s studio.

Leonida Bernetic was born in 1955 in Koper, and spent her youth in Izola. She attended the School of Applied Arts in Ljubliana, and then graduated from the Teachers College in Ljubliana with the thesis Ornaments in Ceramics. She first encountered ceramics in high school, and perfected the skills in the studio of Sonja and Karel Zelenko. She has been living in Grožnjan since 1980, where she is the manager of Studio Porton. She is also an art teacher, first at a primary school in Piran, and currently at an Italian school in Buje. Leonida has made about 700 ceramic works (including sculptures, plates, boards and cones), over 1,000 pieces of decorative ceramics, as well as architectural ceramics (building facades and interior decorations). The common themes in her artworks revolve around country life, sights (veduta), nature, nature, stylization of animals, and meditations in color.

Rok and Leonida have welcomed the Workshop participants since its first year in Grožnjan. They have shown us local landmarks, introduced us to other wonderful artists, and guided our work in mask making and scenery. They will once again welcome us and integrate us into the life of Grožnjan.

 

Tina Hofman

Marcus Fernando

 

Tina Hofman & Marcus Fernando (Croatia / UK)
Actors in Residence
acting / directing

Tina Hofman, director and performer, was born in Croatia and now divides her time between Croatia and the UK. She trained at The Desmond Jones School of Mime and Physical Theatre in London, the Scuola Internazionale Attore Comico in Italy, and Rose Bruford College in London. Her directing experience ranges from Shakespeare, adapted classics and new writing, to devised multimedia pieces, and she just finished directing Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw at the new Blue Orange Theatre in Birmingham. As a performer, she has appeared in both classical and contemporary works, in both English and Croatian. As an actor, director, and movement coach, Tina has taught at Birbeck College, School of the Science of Acting, and the Acting and Voice Centre in London, and at the Tirena Drama Studio in Pazin, Croatia. She is also an Ashtanga yoga teacher and practitioner.

Marcus Fernando, director and performer, was born in Dorchester, UK. He lived in the US and Guernsey as a young boy, before returning to the UK to study Drama and Archeology at the University of Birmingham. As an actor he worked with the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Theatre Royal and Hammersmith Lyric, and was a regular with Illyria Theatre, performing some of the best known Shakespearean roles throughout Britain. His directorial credits include Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Stoppard's Dogg’s Hamlet and Cahoots Macbeth, and numerous new writing projects. He is also an accomplished puppeteer who studied with John Blundall at The Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre and performed with London’s Little Angel as well as other UK puppet companies. He is an avid trumpeter, semi-professional photographer, and his Stage Fighting workshop is a regular feature at the Tirena Drama Studio in Pazin, Croatia.

Together, Tina and Marcus founded the Dreamscape Theatre, with which they have toured Canada, New Zealand, and Croatia. They often work together as an artistic team, combining their skills in movement, mask, text, music and puppetry.

 

Kasia Tercz & Robert Wojciechowski

 

Kasia Tercz (Poland)
Actor, Arlekin Teatr, Łódź
acting / puppetry / stilt walking

Kasia Tercz was born in 1979 in Poland. She is a stilts walker, musician, choreographer and educator. She holds a master’s degree in music (2003) from the G. and K. Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź (with a specialization in Dalcroze eurhythmics). Since 2001 she has been an actress performing with Theatre W. (Wroclaw), Theatre KTO (Krakow), Robert Wojciechowski and the Kinder Circus Tasifan (Germany). For years she has performed and taught workshops throughout Europe in stilts, acting and dance. At present she teaches at the Staromiejskie Centrum Kultury Młodzieży (House of Culture) in Krakow, works with children and young people, and makes street performances using stilts, dance, jugglery, monocycle, and diabolo.

Kasia joined the Grožnjan ensemble in 2006, on the recommendation of Waldemar Wolanski, director of Arlekin Teatr in Łódź, Poland. She arrived in Grožnjan bearing costume materials and several sets of stilts, and worked tirelessly teaching the more adventurous members of the workshop participants how to walk on stilts.

 

 

 

 
Administrative Team
 
Mojca Makovac Kate Smith Anne Donlon Kimmy Szeto Selena McMahan Ian McMahan
Director of ICCJMC Grožnjan

Mojca Makovac
U.S. Administrator

Kimmy Szeto
Symposium Coordinator

Anne Donlon
Web Design

Kimmy Szeto
Art Design

Selena McMahan
Media Archives

Ian McMahan
Kate Smith

 

   
   
   
 
(c) 2008-2013, Kimmy Szeto
International Vocal Arts Workshop, 835 Riverside Drive #4J, NY 10032 (212) 795-3513