(BALTIMORE, MD) -- At its May Annual Board Meeting, Mid Atlantic Arts announced the election of and welcomed three new board members - Kim Chan,Anita Gonzalez, Ph.D., and Asa Jackson.

Kim Chan (NJ) is the Deputy Director at the Brooklyn music incubator National Sawdust. She has worked extensively in New York City and Washington, D.C. in multiple art forms including poetry, music, theater, dance, arts education, and literature at PEN America, Harlem School of the Arts, and Paul Taylor Dance Foundation. She served on the New York Dance and Performance Awards Bessies Committee for six years and was a dance and performance curator and producer for 18 years at Washington Performing Arts in D.C. She is a board member for Ping Chong + Company and Pick-Up Performance Co(s).

Anita Gonzalez, Ph.D. (DC) is a professor of performing arts and African American studies at Georgetown University and a co-Founder of their Racial Justice Institute. She was recently Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and a Professor of Theatre at the University of Michigan where she promoted interdisciplinary and intercultural performance initiatives. Her edited and authored books are Performance, Dance and Political Economy (Bloomsbury), Black Performance Theory (Duke), Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality (U-Texas Press), and Jarocho’s Soul (Rowan Littlefield). Her essays about multicultural and international performance appear in Black Acting Methods, The Community Performance Reader and the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre among others. Gonzalez has completed three Senior Scholar Fulbright grants and been a resident artist at Rockefeller’s Bellagio Center in Italy. Gonzalez extends the reach of her scholarship through public engagement. She created a massive open online course “Storytelling for Social Change” that has reached over 40,000 learners to date. A new open access course, “Black Performance as Social Protest” is available on the FutureLearn digital platform. Gonzalez also directs, devises and writes theatrical works. Her innovative stagings of historical and cross-cultural experiences have appeared on PBS national television and at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, The Working Theatre, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, New York Live Arts, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and other national and international venues. Gonzalez is a member of the National Theatre Conference, Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, League of Professional Women in Theatre, the Players Club NYC, and the Dramatists Guild.

Asa Jackson (VA) is a visual artist, curator, and director from Hampton Roads, Va. As a youth, he attended Hampton Roads Academy where he developed his love for painting and art making. After graduating from HRA in 2007, Jackson went on to study sociology at Boston University. In 2010, Jackson moved to New York to pursue a career in the arts. He got his start in New York City being featured in several group exhibits, eventually landing a contract and solo show at Samuel Owen Gallery in Greenwich, CT. Jackson relocated back to Virginia in 2012. In 2014, he opened 670 Gallery, in Hampton, VA, where he worked as Director/Curator until spring of 2017. In 2015, he and colleagues founded the Contemporary Arts Network, an art advisory and special projects unit that heads municipal and private projects throughout the region. The Contemporary Arts Network opened its headquarters in Newport News, VA in August of 2020. In 2019 Jackson was recognized as one of Hampton Roads’ “Top 40 Under 40" by Inside Business. In 2018 Jackson was appointed to be a state commissioner with the Virginia Commission for the Arts. He was named Secretary of the VCA in 2019, Vice Chair in 2020, and Chair in 2021. Jackson currently serves on the board of The Newport News Public Arts Foundation.

Additionally, Mid Atlantic Arts elected the following officers for fiscal year 2022: Romona Riscoe Benson (PA), Chair; Susie Farr (MD), Vice Chair; Margaret G. Vanderhye (VA), Secretary; and J. Mack Wathen (DE), Treasurer.

“This is an exciting time at Mid Atlantic Arts and I am looking forward to working with the board during this period of growth and renewal,” said Romona Riscoe Benson, newly elected board Chair. "I welcome our new members who along with my returning colleagues share a deep commitment to advancing equity, diversity, inclusion and access. I also wish to express my sincere gratitude to our retiring members for their many contributions over the years.”

The board also acknowledged the service of two departing board members from DC - Susan Butler and Kay Kendall each gave five years of their time and energy to Mid Atlantic Arts. We are grateful for their support and wish them well in future endeavors.

Mid Atlantic Arts nurtures and funds the creation and presentation of diverse artistic expression and connects people to meaningful arts experiences within our region and beyond. Created in 1979, Mid Atlantic Arts is a private non-profit organization that is closely allied with the region’s state arts councils and the National Endowment for the Arts. It combines funding from state and federal resources with private support from corporations, foundations, and individuals to address needs in the arts from a regional, national, and international perspective.  

PHOTO - From Left to Right, Kim Chan,Anita Gonzalez, Ph.D., and Asa Jackson