Kesha McKey - Board President

Kesha McKey is an African American female performing artist, choreographer and educator born and raised in New Orleans. After graduating from NOCCA she received her BS in Biology pre-med from Xavier University of LA and an MFA in Dance Performance from UW-Milwaukee. She is the founding Artistic Director of KM Dance Project, an essential artistic platform for emerging Black choreographers in NOLA. Kesha’s most recent choreographic work, Raw Fruit, has received 2021-22 NPN Creation and Development Fund Awards and a 2019 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant – being the first dance company in Louisiana to receive this award. Her other awards include a 2022 Dance/USA DFA Fellowship, 2022 Urban Bush Women (UBW) CCI 2.0/CCI 2019 Alum, 2020 CAC N.O. SweetArts Award, 2018/19 CAC Southern Crossings Residency, and a 2016 Dancing While Black Fellowship.

Her performance credits include: KM Dance Project’s Raw Fruit 2022-23 tour, Urban Bush Women’s Hair and Other Stories 2018-19 tour, Junebug Productions Gomela:to return 2018-19 tour, Junebug Productions Homecoming Project 2018-2020 and the Lula Elzy N.O. Dance Theatre. Her choreographic credits include: 2023 BadAss Women's Festival, 2019 NPN Conference, 2018 UBW SLI, 2018 Women in Dance Conference, Junebug Production’s Power of the Black Feminine, 2016 Alternate Roots Week, Peridance 2016 APAP Showcase. Kesha currently serves as the Director of Arts at NOCCA and as a Dancing Grounds Teaching Artist and Dance for Social Change collaborator. She has served as a dance educator for over 25 years and is committed to sustaining the artistic voice of Black dancers and choreographers in New Orleans.

Cammie Hill-Prewitt - Vice President

Cammie Hill-Prewitt is an Alabama native who originally moved to New Orleans to pursue a Master’s degree in Art History at Tulane. Passionate about the arts, she has worked in non-profits for more than twenty years. She began her tenure at A Studio in the Woods in 2007 and has worked hand-in-glove with the organization to establish and grow the program over the last 15 years.

Tatiana Clay Jurzak - Treasurer

Tatiana Clay Jurzak is a Certified Public Accountant and the Assistant Director at Zemurray Foundation, in New Orleans. Prior to years of service in the assurance practice of Ernst & Young LLP, Tatiana was a consultant with the Louisiana Small Business Development Center where she was recognized nationally for her achievements in assisting entrepreneurs access capital to start and grow their companies.  A lover of the arts and passionate about helping creative people manage their business and finances, Tatiana has served as Treasurer of the Board of Directors of Goat in the Road Productions since 2012 and as Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Ana & Adeline Foundation since 2015. She is a 2018 graduate of the Bryan Bell Metropolitan Leadership Forum, earned her Master of Business Administration from the University of New Orleans, Bachelor of Arts from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She lives in the French Quarter with her husband, Jason.

Shannon Flaherty - Sec.

Shannon Flaherty is a performer, arts administrator, and educator originally from New Hampshire. She is co-Artistic Director of Goat in the Road, and is a teaching artist for GRP's young playwrights' program, Play/Write. Shannon has performed in and helped create many GRP productions including The Uninvited, The Stranger Disease, Foreign to Myself, Numb, and Major Swelling's Salvation Salve Medicine Show. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 2006 and has been living in New Orleans since 2008.

Catherine Caldwell

Catherine Caldwell is a performing artist, choreographer, dance educator and anti-racist organizer born and raised in New Orleans. Holding a Master of Arts in Arts Administration from the University of New Orleans, Catherine currently fills the role of Director of Member Services at Dance/USA. Catherine is the Associate Director of KM Dance Project, where she also acts as choreographer, rehearsal director and performer. Catherine has spent well over a decade in Dance Education. As a member of the Dance Faculty at New Orleans Center for Creative arts Catherine served as the arts faculty representative on The NOCCA Board. She has held administrative roles with Junebug Productions, Urban Bush Women and Dancing Grounds.

Rachel Carrico

Rachel Carrico is a founding member of GRP and now an Assistant Professor of Dance Studies at the University of Florida’s School of Theatre + Dance. Her scholarship on second lining, an improvisational dance form rooted in New Orleans's African diaspora parading traditions, has been published in several journals and edited volumes and received several awards. Rachel holds a Ph.D. in Critical Dance Studies from the University of California–Riverside and an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU. She parades in New Orleans annually with the Ice Divas Social & Pleasure Club.

Jess Eugene

Jess Eugene (pronouns: she/her, they/them), a New Orleans native, is a dance artist, educator, and community organizer. She obtained her BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Southern Mississippi. Before receiving this degree, Jess studied at both Lusher Charter School (now known as The Willow School) and the New Orleans Ballet Association where they studied under major dance companies. Currently, they are the Dance for Social Change Program Coordinator at Dancing Grounds (DG), where they blend their passions of dance education and anti-racist community organizing work.  Jess is also a Core Trainer with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB)- a nonprofit organization committed to Undoing Racism through community organizing strategies. 

Chris Kaminstein

Christopher Kaminstein is a writer, director, improviser, teaching artist, and co-Artistic Director of Goat in the Road Productions (GRP). He is known for his innovative theater directing, a commitment to an ensemble-based creative process, and using historical moments to analyze current social realities.  Chris' most recent writing and co-directing credits for GRP include The Family Line (2022), The Uninvited (2020), Roleplay (2019), KindHumanKind in Concert (2019), The Stranger Disease (2018), Foreign to Myself (2017), and Numb (2014). He was named ‘Best Director’ with co-Director Richon May Wallace for the 2023 Big Easy Awards. The Stranger Disease won a Leadership in History Award from the American Alliance for State and Local Histories and Kaminstein was featured in an American Theatre article about GRP’s immersive history-based projects (March 2020).  In addition, Chris is an experienced teaching artist and co-founder of the company's flagship educational program, Play/Write, which brings student plays to life with professional actors.  Chris lives in New Orleans, LA. 

Kendric Perkins

Kendric Perkins is an Education Specialist at The Historic New Orleans Collection, where he designs curriculums, tours, and programs to engage and educate the community about the important and unique stories of our city. Kendric served in the United States Marine Corps. While at sea, he spent countless hours combing through the books of the ship’s library. The books he read contained information on New Orleans, Caribbean, and Latin American history, and this period of self-education sparked an intense desire to study history. After being honorably discharged, Kendric studied history at the University of New Orleans. He earned a B.A. in History, with a focus on New Orleans and a minor in Sociology. Kendric is a 4th-generation New Orleanian, and a descendant of enslaved and free people of African descent in Louisiana. He traces his family lineage to at least the colonial era. This personal history informs his work at The Historic New Orleans Collection, where he uses a decolonized framework. His research interests include the construction of race, the history of Black chess players in the Americas, Creole identity in Louisiana, and Black resistance movements and revolutions throughout the Americas.

Anneliese Singh

Anneliese Singh, PhD, LPC (she/they) serves as Chief Diversity Officer at Tulane University and is a Professor of Social Work with a joint appointment in Psychology. Their scholarship/community organizing explores the resilience, trauma, and identity development experiences of queer and trans people, with a focus on BIPOC people. She is the author of The Racial Healing Handbook: Practical Activities to Help You Challenge Privilege, Confront Systemic Racism, and Engage in Collective Healing and The Queer and Trans Resilience Workbook. Anneliese passionately believes in and strives to live by the ideals of Dr. King’s beloved community, as well as Audre Lorde’s reminder that “without community, there is no liberation.” 

Nick Slie

Nick Slie is a New Orleans-born performer, producer and cultural organizer. He is the Co-Artistic Director of Mondo Bizarro. Since 2002, Nick has toured a wide array of imaginative projects to art centers, universities and outdoor locations in 38 states across the country and abroad.  However, he is most proud of the work he does at home, where the land kisses the water.  For two decades, he has been passionately engaged in his hometown of New Orleans, collaborating across sectors on a vast array of local performance and arts-based civic engagement projects. From 2004- 2008, he served on the Executive Committee of Alternate ROOTS, is the former board chair for the Network of Ensemble Theaters and currently serves on the boards of Goat in the Road and the North American Cultural Laboratory.  Nick recently directed Clear Creek Creative’s Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man and is deep in the dream space for Mondo’s forthcoming work, Invisible Rivers.

Paul Werner

Paul Werner is a retired theatre/film teacher having worked at Mt. Carmel Academy and Ben Franklin. He also started the Media Arts department at NOCCA. He has been an actor/director/writer in over 100 productions locally and around the South. He was General Manager of La Mise en Scene Theatre where he starred as Marat in Marat/Sade before getting his Masters at UNO. In his limber youth he created The Mime Squad after studying with Tony Montanaro. Paul’s writing credits include Hold Fishy Tight, Jibber Jabber, One Star Rising, and a number of musicals with composer Bobby Moore. Their company, Write Your Own Musical, did residencies at various schools around the south creating original shows with students in one week. He was a staff writer for the Morgus Presents TV series. He has written plays with Southern Rep’s 3x3 and 6x6 series. He was President of the Board of Dog & Pony Theatre, head of the Playwrights Unit at the CAC and state director of the International Thespian Society. Currently he is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a board member of Goat in the Road Productions.

Leslie Boles Kraus

Ensemble Liaison

Leslie Boles Kraus is a theater artist from Lancaster, PA. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she trained in the Experimental Theatre Wing, Stella Adler Studio, and International Theatre Workshop in Amsterdam. In 2020, she earned a Master of Arts Administration degree from Southern Utah University. She is a proud mama to Olive and Amos and loves everything about being a Goat.