ZOOM LINK – https://zoom.us/j/98854981708

Join us for a FREE panel discussion with a wonderful array of artists as they share how they find artistic & creative inspiration during these unprecedented times. This is the second in the Burbank Cultural Arts monthly “Virtually Burbank” series, focused on connecting artists and community even though we may be physically apart.

Friday, September 4:   5pm – 6:30pm PST         

Zoom ID – 988 5498 1708

For Info or to RSVP:  burbankarts@burbankca.gov

Panelists to include (bios below)

Dawn Robinson-Patrick is a passionate arts advocate with over 20 years of experience in arts administration and event management. Her work is specifically focused on program development for cultural arts organizations that align with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Dawn is currently Senior Manager of Cultural and Community Programs at The Ford in Hollywood.

Dawn’s career in arts management led her to work for various national arts organizations including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 651Arts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), San Francisco Jazz Festival, Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet, and Brava Theater Center. Notably she has also worked for the Tony award-winning Broadway musical FELA!, and music artists Michelle Williams and Ke$ha, among others. In 2015 she became the Events Coordinator for Broward County Cultural Affairs (Broward Arts) of South Florida. Her responsibilities included developing, producing and managing arts programming for the County’s 100th year celebration.

Originally from Dallas, Texas, Dawn is also an established choreographer, teacher and performer. She began her performance career with her studies at the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. She holds a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah. While in San Francisco she performed with Della Davidson Dance, Dance Repertory San Francisco, Liss Fain Dance, Company Chaddick, and the hip hop dance company SoulForce, among others. In New York City she performed with Nia Love/Blacksmith’s Daughter, Nicholas Leichter Dance (NLD) and Organic Magnetics. She has toured internationally to the American Arts Exchange Festival in Adelaide, Australia, Freedance Festival in the Ukraine and Dialogue de Corps Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Africa. As a choreographer her work has brought her to the Bahamas, Italy, Croatia and Greece.

Erik Patterson – Erik Patterson recently won the Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Circle Award for One of the Nice Ones. His plays have been nominated for the Ovation Award, the Stage Raw Award, the LA Weekly Award, and the GLADD Media Award. His writing for TV has been recognized with the Humanitas Prize and Writer’s Guild Award, as well as two Emmy nominations.

Arielle Silver  www.ariellesilver.com   Arielle Silver crafts songs that are luminous, literate, and alive. A Thousand Tiny Torches, the singer-songwriter’s new AAA indie-folk collection, is a testament to her renewal of inspiration, the rekindling of dreams, and the redemptive power and connective compassion that defines her artistry.

A consummate storyteller, Arielle’s narratives crosscut exacting details with universal themes. On the lead single “What Really Matters,” she recalls a harrowing season in Southern California as gunshots ricocheted through a country bar and the surrounding hills ignited with apocalyptic wildfires. The follow-up single, “Headlights,” is an uplifting mandolin-filled reminder that even when the road is dark and twisting, you can follow the beam of light all the way home Ten years ago, with three well-received releases accompanied by national tours, she lost sight of her future as an artist. “Though my heart still ached to write songs and sing, I found that I couldn’t do it anymore,” she recalls.

Arielle moved to the City of the Angels. She divorced and remarried, taught yoga philosophy, and worked behind the scenes in the music industry. She penned and published essays and poems, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets. She baked innumerable pies. In spring of 2018, she constructed a blue “she shed” in her backyard. And it was in this rustic space – surrounded by 47 volumes of her journals – that she rekindled her love for music and dedicated herself to writing one song per week.

Damara Titmus – Damara is a Los Angeles native who began her studies at Rozann-Zimmerman Ballet Center under the direction of Patrick Franz, former Premier Danseur of the Paris Opera Ballet, and later graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy under the direction of Jean-Marie Martz.  She started her professional career with Media City Ballet in Burbank, California as a soloist dancer, and then took her career to Denver, Colorado to dance with the Colorado Ballet and Ballet Ariel.  After returning to Los Angeles, she has worked with Pacific Ballet Dance Theatre, Contempo Arts Productions, and Pasadena Dance Theatre. Some of her notable roles to date include the title role in Cinderella, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Micaëla in Natasha Middleton’s Carmen, Mercedes in Don Quixote, and Juliet in Contempo Arts Productions’ Romeo and Juliet.

Monica Groves – Writing Your Way Through Two Pandemics: How Lockdown and the Fight Against White Supremacy has Influenced my Work

Natasha Milddleton was a ballerina with the original Pacific Ballet Theatre, under the direction of her father Andrei Tremaine (formerly of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo). She danced in Los Angeles, New York, Europe and Asia performing in such ballets as The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Spartacus, Don Quixote, Les Sylphides, Paquita and Carmen. She trained in classical ballet primarily the Vaganova method under the direction of her father as well as Prima Ballerina Assoluta, “Alexandra Baldina Koslov”. The Royal Ballet School (London), Rosella Hightower (France) and the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. Her mother, Natalie Garrotto is a former Soprano of the San Francisco Opera. Ms. Middleton is the niece of the late film star, Yvonne de Carlo (also known as Lily on “The Munsters”). After recovering from alife threatening automobile accident, she hung up her pointe shoesand began choreographing and teaching. She opened Media City Dance in Burbank in 2000, in September will be the schools 20^th Anniversary. She traveled much of the world studying many otherforms of dance, art design, contemporary and classical theatre. Following in her father’s footsteps, Natasha started Pacific Ballet Dance Theatre, a professional ballet company with several amazing dancers from Los Angeles, Armenia, Ukraine, Brazil and more. The edgy PBDT has performed some very exciting performances from Middleton’s passionate ballet Carmen, to her rock ballets for the Ford Amphitheatre’s summer events, to The Best of Khachaturian’s Armenian ballets. As an LA choreographer, Natasha set numerous ballets, musicals, operas, television sitcoms and music videos for such as artists as Bette Midler and Jazz artist, Chic Correa’s World Tour. Her film credits include “Love Hurts” with Richard E. Grant and Carrie-Anne Moss from the Matrix. Prior to COVID-19, Pacific Ballet Dance Theatre danced their last performances of Goes Broadway at the Alex Theatre, preventing them from opening their 2020 season.

Stefanie Girard is an artist with a re-purpose.  She has been cutting stuff up since she was old enough to hold a pair of scissors in her tiny hands. She earned her degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and move to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment industry first as a Set Decorator and Prop Master then onto TV Producer specializing in How-To TV shows for HGTV and the DIY Networks.

She wrote 5 craft books for the Quarto Publishing Group including Sweater Surgery: How to Making New Things from Old Sweaters. Along with being the Recycled Editor at CraftGossip.com she is currently creating art that is informed by the power of words and quotes and strive to elevate the words to art with font choices, the materials they are made of, techniques used to create them and the surfaces they are presented upon. She strives to combine the words, fonts, images and materials in the most ironic and unexpected ways possible to create something that is both aesthetically pleasing and meaningful.

The work includes large modular installations created with unusual things like recycled bricks and paper, embroidery and recycled wood along with traditional acrylic paint, watercolor and porcelain. The best compliment I can receive is for the viewer to have a laugh out loud or “ah-ha” moment of getting the joke or juxtaposition hidden within the art or in plain view but requires a bit of contemplation. She continues to produce art educational content online and as the Programs Chair for both the Glendale Art Association and the Burbank Art Association.

In the time of Covid-19 she has launched the #BurbankNeighborhoodGallery at #OakandFairview that invites artists of all ages to place a piece of art in a clear pocket on my fence. As of this writing there are over 80 pieces of art. Along with the Neighborhood Gallery I have acquired a vending machine which I am in the process of converting to an “Art Candy Machine” that will sell unique pieces of mini “fun-size” art by a collection of artists in a variety of mediums and on recycled materials.