LUMBERYARD is the realization of a dream shared by many female leaders.

Our organization is steered by a Board of Directors and an Executive Leadership Team who are all female, which we’re very proud of.

Across the non-profit industry, only 43% of board positions are held by women.

Despite the fact that 70% of the non-profit workforce is female, the gender gap still exists, with women paid less than men.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that female CEOs at non-profits with budgets between $2.5 and $5 million are paid 23% less than males in the same position.

So, in celebration of Women’s History Month and our commitment to female leadership, we’re highlighting notable women who have shaped the organization.

Solange MacArthur

MacArthur was a dancer who became LUMBERYARD’s founding benefactor.

The leadership MacArthur showed in helping launch a Maryland-based school for young performers in the 1970s laid the foundation from which LUMBERYARD has expanded to begin presenting world-class performances, including those that make up its upcoming, opening season.

Adrienne Willis

Adrienne Willis, who was a director and business executive before leading LUMBERYARD, says the organization is honored to support women in the arts.

“At a time when, across fields, women’s critical innovations are being given their due, we are honored to showcase artists whose contributions to contemporary performance are widespread and innumerable.

Reflecting on the 2018 Winter Festival, Willis, LUMBERYARD’s artistic and executive director, adds:

“We celebrate the careers of formidable women artists who have forged creative paths in melding transcultural dance practices; movement, light, and sound; and the personal and the political.

“We’re beyond thrilled to continue in that vein… by presenting the works of three dynamic women – Kei Takei, Robbie McCauley and Dana Reitz – who have been engaging and challenging audiences for decades with their cutting edge performances.

Melanie George

Most artists that LUMBERYARD works with receives the support of dramaturg Melanie George.

Drawing on her background as a performer, choreographer and academic, George partners with artists and their companies to help them finesse their works for maximum impact with audiences.

Reflecting on her recent collaboration with Raja Feather Kelly, the recipient of the 2017 Solange MacArthur Award, George characterized her role as one that helps artists “extend their reach”.

George is also the lead instructor of LUMBERYARD’s popular and free after school program, Young Performers, where young people in Greene County school district can develop their performance skills.

Elizabeth Streb

Elizabeth Streb will join us on July 6 for a STREB Extreme Action Company production that combines dance, athletics, stunt work and feats of pure daring.

The New York Times describes the performance, SEA (Singular Extreme Actions), as “nerve-racking to watch but impossible to look away”.

Streb has described her art as focused on the power of action: “I believe that action – on the stage and in the street – is the most powerful force on earth. I believe it can cure sad hearts and sated minds and I am trying to prove this point.”

Jodi Melnick

LUMBERYARD will present, Jodi Melnick’s One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures, beginning Aug. 3 at Hudson Hall.

The work, which was co-created with the late Trisha Brown, together with NEW BODIES, an original Works & Process at the Guggenheim commission, also features New York City Ballet dancers Sara Mearns, Jared Angle, and Gretchen Smith.

Melnick is a New York City-based choreographer, dancer, and teacher, and part of the first group of Doris Duke Impact Award recipients.

She is also a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow, and the recipient of the Jerome Robbins New Essential Works Grant as well as the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant. Melnick has been honored with two Bessie Awards for sustained achievement in dance.

Her work has been presented nationally and internationally. Her Moment Marigold (October 2014 – developed at LUMBERYARD) premiered at BAM‘s Fisher theater as part of the Next Wave Festival.

Urban Bush Women

Urban Bush Women returns to LUMBERYARD this summer with a captivating new work, SCAT!, a musical that tells a love story through song, dance and storytelling of two people making their way during the Great Migration.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, who performed at LUMBERYARD’s Shindig, described the personal significance of the piece.

“Scat! is my story. It is my family’s story. It is a personal and collective story of a family and a people, moving from the Jim Crow south during the Great Migration.”

It features an original jazz score performed live by a 5-piece band and two vocalists.