Introducing our Teaching Artist Advisory Board!

In more ways than one, ArtsConnection relies on the expertise of our roster of teaching artists, who work most directly with students across the city. To best ensure that they are an official part of decision-making in the organization, we’ve formed the Teaching Artist Advisory Board (TAAB). 

The following six Board members will serve two-year terms, playing a key role in supporting all the artists on our roster and ensuring our organization continually improves its pedagogical approach with young people. These individuals are not only remarkable educators but artists with rich practices of their own. They are representative of the wide range of experiences our teaching artist roster brings to the classroom and will provide valuable input, strategizing, and decision-making towards our mission, vision and EDIA values.

CARLOS JESUS MARTINEZ DOMINGUEZ is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who draws inspiration from the cultures and related histories of Hip Hop, NYC, and the Caribbean.  He has exhibited locally, nationally and internationally and has been an educator at institutions like El Museo del Barrio and the Museum of Art and Design. Carlos’ work and teaching reflects on history, how that history manifests in the present, and the present’s implications for the future. He attended New York  City public schools, has lived in Washington Heights since 1983. He began working with ArtsConnection in 2016.

DANI CRISS, also affectionately known as Dani  Criss, The Artist, is a multidisciplinary artist, artistic educator, and community organizer hailing from Durham, North  Carolina. She is now based in Brooklyn, NY. Leading with a perspective driven by her roots and studies of the African Diaspora, as well as the advancement of her people everywhere, she educates in the hope to inspire an appreciation, acceptance, and historical experience in each interaction. Using movement and knowledge as the sources to obtain liberation while discovering ancestral connections,  Criss  has trained and performed with numerous artists and companies, including: The Honorable Baba Chuck  Davis and the African American Dance Ensemble, Urban Bush Women and The Summer Leadership Institute, The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, The American Dance Festival,  Otesha Cultural Arts Ensemble, the National Black Festival, Snow Camp Outdoor Company,  Asè  Dance  Collective, and others.

She has also choreographed and directed works which have been shared in various ensembles, theaters, schools, universities, and  festivals around the country. She has been an artistic educator in NYC public schools, Nassau  Community College, and several cultural arts organizations around the city.

ERIN ORR creates puppet shows as an experiment in visual storytelling, frequently in collaboration with living composers including Rima Fand, Sxip Shirey and Baby Dee. Her puppet pieces range from a wordless dark fairytale for adults, to a circus for all ages about the drama of honeybees and have been supported by The Jim Henson Foundation, HERE Artist Residency Program, LMCC and the Abrons Art Center.

Erin has performed internationally as a professional puppeteer and specializes in three-person manipulation of puppets performing choreography, often to accompany live orchestras. She has also been a teaching artist in NYC public schools for over 20 years, designing and teaching early childhood puppetry and storytelling curriculum. She has worked as a Teaching Artist for ArtsConnection since 2001, and is currently a full-time Artist Mentor, Curriculum Specialist and Teaching Artist for the organization, focusing on collaboratively creating curriculum that allows classroom teachers to support and build on the artistic literacies of young children.