Archives: Team Members

Vincent Brewer, a native of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, trained at Berkshire Pulse and Albany Berkshire Ballet and continued his dance studies at Indiana University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Ballet with an Outside Field in Religious Studies. Vincent danced professionally with Festival Ballet Providence, The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, Island Moving Company, and Albany Berkshire Ballet. He has performed choreography by George Balanchine, Gerald Arpino, and August Bournonville and originated roles by Tony Williams, Mark Harootian, and Janelle Gilchrist. Vincent is a certified ABT National Training Curriculum Teacher, Levels Pre-Primary-3, and a 200-Hour Kripalu Yoga certified teacher. He has taught ballet, yoga, and outreach dance at various locations, including Berkshire Pulse, Festival Ballet Providence, and Berkshire South. Vincent earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from Mount Holyoke College in 2021 and teaches French at Taconic High School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in addition to performing and teaching dance.

Genève Brossard has been running a grassroots boxing program here in the Berkshires for the past 7 years, coaching kids and teens, adult newcomers, and competing athletes.

She is delighted to be partnering with Berkshire Pulse for Youth Boxing. This rhythmic sport can be a deeply positive presence in a young person’s life-providing mastery, confidence, community, and health.

Genève is a 2 x New York Golden Gloves and an NY State Empire Games Champion. She was an athlete on the USA Elite Women’s Boxing team in 2006, and represented the USA at the Pan-American Games, among other tournaments. She was also the first woman to represent the London Lynn Boxing Club, the oldest club in England- established in 1892, and was a London ABA tournament finalist.

Genève has devoted much of her life to boxing, and she loves coaching as a way share the embodied joy, power, freedom, and fun to be found in this ancient sport!

Laura Coe (Chickasaw) is a dancer and choreographer based in Chatham, New York repping Harvard Breakers Crew and Double Yolk Collective. She has performed work by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Bill T. Jones, Jill Johnson, Sidra Bell, LROD, Isadora Wolfe, and Corpi di donne, and received commissions from New England Conservatory, Analog By Choice, and the Massachusetts Council for the Arts. She was recently an Art OMI 2024 Resident, and began collaboration for a project with Alli Ross and John Bechtold at Mass MoCA. She currently teaches dance for the Opheum Dance Program, the Funk Box Studio, and Berkshire Pulse. 

Tai Chi

Berkshire Tai Chi is a traditional, lineage school. Sifu David Crowe and Sifu Kathy Crowe, with 18 years experience, are certified lineage tai chi and qi gong instructors under the Kuoshu Federation of the Republic of China. They trained under Master Eric Sbarge, a member of the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame, at The Hall of the Peaceful Dragon In Charlotte, NC. Outside of teaching tai chi, Sifus David and Kathy lead busy and creative lives. Sifu David is a composer and teaching artist, whose works have been performed across the country. Read more and hear samples of his music at www.DavidCroweMusic.com. Sifu Kathy is a web and graphic designer, including the design of websites, logos, brochures, etc. You can see samples of her work at www.KathyCrowe.com.

Matthew Cumbie (he/him/his) is a collaborative dancemaker, writer, and artist educator. His artistic research cultivates processes and experiences that are participatory and intergenerational, moving through known and unknown, and bring a poetic lens to a specifically queer experience. His choreography and dancemaking- considered “a blend of risk-taking with reliability, [and] a combination of uncertainty and wisdom,”- weaves together a physical vocabulary of momentum and clarity, revelatory moments, and a belief in a body’s capacity to meet each moment.

He has danced in the companies of Christian von Howard, Keith Thompson, Jill Sigman, Paloma McGregor, and Dance Exchange- an intergenerational dance organization founded by Liz Lerman- where he became an Associate Artistic Director and the Director of Programs and Communications. With Dance Exchange, he collaborated on and performed in works ranging in topic from the human genome to prayer and protest, on the highest point of the Great Smoky Mountains during a total solar eclipse, and with community organizers and activists after years of research and work in response to structures of racism and erasure in Dallas, Texas. In partnership with Dance Exchange, Matthew advanced his body of work Growing Our Own Gardens- an iterative intergenerational performance project rooted in queer world-making that partners with local LGBTQ+ and arts organizations, like the Rainbow History Project, the DC Center, and Dance Place, to catalyze intergenerational LGBTQ+ convenings and reflection. 

As an artist educator, Matthew helped develop and brand Cassie Meador’s Moving Field Guide: a program created in partnership with the US Forest Service that connects artists with scientists, naturalists, and environmental educators to help people learn about environmental issues. He has been an artist-educator with Jacob’s Pillow, including their Curriculum in Motion program, and continues integrating artistic approaches and facilitation strategies in classrooms and with teachers in PG County (Maryland) and Waterville, ME. He has been on faculty at Texas Woman’s University, Queensborough Community College, American University, and the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, and has been an invited speaker at the New York City Roundtable Arts in Education conference, the Advancing the Human Condition Symposium at Virginia Tech, and the LGBT Health and Art Making conference, in partnership with the Human Rights Commission and the GWU Health and Well-being graduate program. He was also selected to be a part of the inaugural APAP Artist Leadership Fellowship cohort.

Currently, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Colby College. He continues creating work independently and in collaboration with Betsy Miller, Tom Truss, and Annie Kloppenberg, and as a company member with Christopher K. Morgan & Artists. He supports the development of artists’ work as a professional fundraiser, specializing in online fundraising campaigns and grant writing, and is a certified practitioner of Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. His work has been commissioned and supported by places like Dance Place, the Kennedy Center, Herman Melville’s Arrowhead, and Harvard University, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities, HumanitiesDC, the Arcus Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Somerville Arts Council. Originally from Houston, Matthew holds undergraduate degrees from Texas Lutheran University and Texas State University and an MFA in dance from Texas Woman’s University.