Archives: Team Members

Laura Coe is a dancer and choreographer from Los Angeles, California and Chatham, New York, and a proud member of the Chickasaw Nation. She has performed work by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Bill T. Jones, Jill Johnson, Sidra Bell, LROD, Isadora Wolfe, and Corpi di donne, and collaborated on music videos and performance art installations, and received commissions from Choreography on the Edge, Theater Festival of Hudson, WordxWord, New England Conservatory, Analog By Choice, the Chesterwood Estate, and the Massachusetts Council for the Arts. She earned a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in Theater Dance and Media and Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University (2023), and currently teaches dance for the Catskill Mountain Foundation, Funkbox Studio, and Berkshire Pulse. 

Saroya Corbett is a certified Dunham Technique teacher and Arthur Levitt Jr. ’52 Artist-in-Residence Fellow at Williams College. Additionally, Saroya has a Masters in Fine Arts degree in Dance from Temple University, and is a Ph.D. candidate in Culture and Performance at the University of California, Los Angeles. The recipient of numerous grants and awards, she participated in conferences and symposiums throughout the country, and her work is published in the Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America (2015) and Jazz Dance: A History of The Roots and Branches (2014). She performed with several dance companies, including Flyground Dance Company, Kariamu & Company and CityDance Ensemble, as well as her own Saroya Corbett Dance Projects. Currently, she serves as the history and theory chair for the Institute for Dunham Technique Certification and on the steering committee for the Coalition Diasporan Scholars Moving (CDSM).

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.

Joanne is a graduate of the University of Colorado – Boulder, College of Music. She holds a Bachelor’s of Music with high honors, with concentration in Voice Performance and Theater Arts.  She has participated in numerous camps, workshops, and classes with master teachers from Zimbabwe, Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Cuba, and Haiti studying song, drumming, and dance. In addition, Joanne attended the Blue Tribe School of Music and Dance in Albuquerque, NM from 2001-04. There she studied West African and Zimbabwean dance, drumming, and song. Ultimately she became the lead singer for the Blue Tribe, and a drummer for the dance classes and performances, while also working as a percussion accompanist for African and Modern dance classes at the University of New Mexico. Her performance experience is extensive. Joanne has crisscrossed the United States as a percussionist and a singer/songwriter playing venues ranging from 20 seat coffee shops to folk festivals attended by thousands. She was the lead accompanist for Kim Waterman as well as a drum teacher at The Berkshire Pulse from 2006 – 2015,  and she’s thrilled to be back for this series of classes.