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ZZ Packer

Literary Arts: Writer

Zuwena “ZZ” Packer grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and Louisville, Kentucky. Recognized as a talented writer at an early age, her first significant publication was in Seventeen magazine at the age of 19. Packer attended Yale University, where she received a B.A in 1994. Her graduate work included an M.A. at Johns Hopkins University in 1995 and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1999. She was named a Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University. Shortly thereafter, she entered the national literary scene with a high-profile appearance in the Debut Fiction issue of The New Yorker (2000). Her short story in the issue became the title story in her collection Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (2003), which was published to considerable acclaim. The book was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, a New York Times Notable Book, and personally selected by John Updike for theToday Show Book Club. Her stories have also appeared in Best American Short Stories 2000 and 2003. In 2005, she was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction. She is on the faculty of California College of the Arts, where she serves as Senior Visiting Professor of Creative Writing. She is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, a workspace co-operative. She lives in Pacifica, California, a coastal town near San Francisco and is currently at work on a novel set in the aftermath of the Civil War. In June 2010 she was named one of the New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” list of fiction writers worth watching.

Gary Davis Palmer

Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer

Gary Palmer began his career in the 1970s as a San Francisco–based dancer with the Lucas Hoving Performance Group, the San Francisco Opera Ballet, and Christopher Beck & Company Dance Theater. In the late 1970s, he performed in numerous works by Beck, from “Night Vision” (1976) to “Unspoken” (1979). In 1977 Palmer set up the nonprofit Centerspace Dance Foundation to support Centerspace, an alternative dance venue that he founded at Project Artaud. He also organized his own troupe, Gary Palmer Dance Company, for which Centerspace served as home base until the early 1990s.[2][3] Palmer’s choreography for Gary Palmer Dance Company is highly kinetic, featuring open balletic movement in tension with tighter gestures. He developed his dance sequences in response to his dancers’ individual strengths rather than setting predetermined movement on them. The result is choreography with strong theatrical values and frequent speed changes reminiscent of the work of Lucinda Childs. By the late 1990s, he was being called a “key performer and innovator in the San Francisco contemporary dance scene”. Over the years, Palmer has worked with many musicians, including Jay Cloidt, Pamela Z, Paul Dresher, and Christopher Fulkerson. Dancers in his company have included Betsy Ceva, Jonny McPhee, Robert Allen, Charles Chism, and Melissa Moss. In 1982, Palmer inaugurated a series called “Men Dancing” that featured only male dancers and choreographers in order to “give male dance artists a creative space outside of traditional roles (as partners to ballerinas) or archetypes (heroes or villains)”. With works by such luminaries as Remy Charlip and Jose Limon alongside lesser-known choreographers, it became a popular annual event in the Bay Area, offering a forum for meditations on gay culture ranging from the oblique to the confrontational to the formal. In 1993, Palmer received an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for founding this long-running series, which lasted through 1998. In 1991, Gary Palmer moved his company from San Francisco to San Jose, where he performed at various South Bay venues such as the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. He toured his company to Lima, Peru, in 1996 and subsequently collaborated with the Ballet Nacional de Peru on the ‘Americas Series’, which premiered at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose in 1997. In 1997, Palmer was hired to be the executive director of the nonprofit San Jose Dance Theatre, which he subsequently merged with his own company to form a combined entity that included both a professional company and a classical ballet school intended to serve around 150 students.

Oscar Pangilinan

Performing Artist: Musician

Saxophonist Oscar Pangilinan is a performer, educator, and community organizer in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a performing member with the ensemble The SJZ Collective, an international touring ensemble comprising teaching artists from the San Jose Jazz Summer Camp. Their 2019 tour included performances at Motion Blue in Yokohoma, the Hong Kong International Jazz Festival, and the Blue Note in Taipei, Taiwan. Oscar is also an in-demand educator and woodwind coach with over 15 years’ experience. He works with the Alum Rock Jazz Band and has been a faculty member at San Jose Jazz’s summer camps since 2009. As a community organizer, Oscar leads a team of volunteers that organize a weekly session held at the Five Points Bar in San Jose. This session has featured over 50 unique artists as bandleaders, with over 250 hours of music performances since June of 2018. Oscar holds a B.M. in Jazz Studies from San Jose State University, where he studied under Dr. Aaron Lington as well as Jason Lewis, Wayne Wallace, and the late Frank Sumares.

Judy Pearson Kobsar

Performing Artist: Stage Director

Judy Pearson Kobsar is a spirited speaker and wellness expert specializing in Nutrition, Longevity and Optimized living. Using her unique backgrounds in Fitness, Theater and Dance, Life Coaching and Health Coaching, she brings a fresh and innovative approach to her classes, workshops and seminars.

David Perez

Literary Arts: Poet

Poet Laureate, Santa Clara County / Author of the Write Bloody poetry collection, “Love in a Time of Robot Apocalypse” / Recipient of the Arts Council Silicon Valley Fellowship for Literary Art / Regular guest on NPR’s Snap Judgment / Voted 2012’s “Best Author in the Bay” by SF Bay Guardian.

Robert Pesich

Literary Arts: Poet

Robert S. Pesich is the editor for Swan Scythe Press and is the author of Burned Kilim. He also works as a Lab Manager / Research Associate for Stanford University School of Medicine and Palo Alto Veterans Institute for Research. He is the President of Poetry Center San Jose and Coordinator for the Well-RED Reading Series, hosted by the gallery Works/San Jose. His literary work has appeared in many journals and reviews such as Apercus Quarterly, The Bitter Oleander, Circulo de Poesia (Mexico City), CutBank, Oyez Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Slipstream and others. He was awarded the Littoral Press Poetry Prize and fellowships from Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation as well as an artist fellowship from Arts Council Silicon Valley. He lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Nils Peterson

Literary Arts: Poet, Writer

Nils Peterson is Professor Emeritus in English at San José State University. In 2009, he was chosen as the first Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County. He has published poetry, science fiction, and articles on subjects as varied as golf and Shakespeare. His chapbooks include Here Is No Ordinary Rejoicing, Driving a Herd of Moose to Durango, For This Day, The Revenge of the Socks, and For This Day II. A collection of poems, The Comedy of Desire, edited and introduced by Robert Bly, was published by The Blue Sofa Press. Other books include Water, Fire, Earth, & Air, Meditations and Poems on the Four Elements (San José, 2003), A Walk to the Center of Things (Caesura Editions, 2011), and a memoir Talk in the Reading Room (Wordrunner Press, 2014). In 2016, he published earth, water, fire, air a collection of poems each illustrated by a watercolor by Lorraine Chapparall. A new collection of poetry, All the Marvelous Stuff, was just published by the Poetry Center of San José (PCSJ). Coleman Barks called it, “intelligent, lonely, funny, and real.”

Natti Pierce-Thomson

Performing Artist: Lighting Designer

I love solving a problem. Doesn’t matter what it is. I enjoy thinking outside the box. For me, it’s about helping people. It’s about leaving the world a better place. It’s never about the fame or fortune. It’s about the Art.

David Popalisky

Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer

David Popalisky teaches dance history, modern dance and choreography. He has a MFA in Choreography from Mills College and an MA in Theatre Arts/Dance Emphasis from San Jose State University. Former artistic director of DaaPo, based in New York City, David has choreographed, performed and taught throughout the United States. He choreographed and performed for the Belize International Dance Festival in 1998 and in 1999 returned to set a work on the Belize Junior National Dance Company. In the past year he presented Enter Softly, CrossQuickly in San Francisco and San Jose and was commissioned to create Flames of Prayer for the Western Ballet Company. He has performed with Tandy Beal throughout California in Outside Blake’s Window and other productions including a concert with Bobby McFerrin. With the Throne Dance Theatre he toured Korea and Japan and performed in concert with the Dave Brubeck quartet. David has taught dance in Italy and Korea and has worked as a Master Dance teacher for the Bay Area California Arts Project and other summer arts workshops. David is married and has two sons. His relationship with his boys inspired “Dads Don’t Dance,” three summers of workshop for dads exploring issues of fatherhood through dance.

Harry Powers

Visual Artist: Sculptor

Potent childhood memories, those treasured experiences, often become the matrix of an artist’s work. So it is with Harry Powers who as a very small child saw a native American ceremonial dance around a bonfire at night. The intensity of watching the drama of flickering light and shadow, coupled with the presence of the proud focused dancers gave Harry a first glimpse into the passionate world of the imagination. He spent his boyhood years camping and fishing in the wilderness of Idaho with his father. He grew up watching the starry night sky slowly orbit its ancient path. Existential questions of the beginnings of time, the fluid development of the earth’s surface, and man’s place on this planet must have spun in his dreams. The intense and private childhood impressions grew over time to a deeper connection with some understanding of history, cosmology, and geology. These interests, aligned with the compelling fascination of light and shadow, have energized his work in various ways and materials in drawings, paintings, photography, and sculpture. During his early adult years Powers learned photolithography, traveled via the US Navy to South America and Italy. Meanwhile he gained a deep and lasting love of literature, classical music, and opera. He earned an undergraduate degree from San Jose State College, now University, where he taught for thirty years. He earned a graduate degree in painting and art history with a strong focus on the relationship of art and architecture from Stanford University. He began working with mosaic, concrete, and stained glass in architectural settings, concerned with the expression of the play of light on relief surfaces. When introduced to acrylic plastic he discovered vibrant qualities of refraction, color transmission, and light reflection as he began an intense productive period of using it to fabricate sculpture. These works were weightless structures of floating colored light, seemingly as much painting as they were sculpture. Eventually Powers stopped working with plastic due to the toxic effects of the fumes and solvents. Teaching in England was a vital experience which enlivened his interest in primal cultures as he visited Neolithic, Iron Age, and Roman sites. A trip to Venice and Florence reawakened his love of Renaissance art and architecture. Later, while conducting sculpture workshops in Australia, Harry explored the ancient rock paintings in the Kakadu area which became the inspiration for a large body of bronze and aluminum sculpture, paintings, and wash drawings. While an artist in residence in Provence, France, Powers’ interest in antiquities, both objects and the land, was reinforced. In content, Powers’ current work ranges from expressing the dignity of primal cultures, to references of Renaissance structure, and allusions to contemporary astronomy. He feels a resonance among these ideas/images. His aesthetic choices still echo those long ago childhood experiences of dramatic lighting and the mysteries of the timeless night sky.

Lynn Powers

Visual Artist: Painter

It has been said that art expresses the unarticulated needs of the world community. It’s sources are derived from all that is known and unknown, or as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu wrote …all of the ten thousand things. For most of my life I have been sustained by images, memories, and stories that contain a sense of mystery, those that pose a question, or those that require an investigation of some sort. It is my practice to bear witness to the inner life of intuition and dreams. It is a world of symbols both personal and universal. The written and spoken word of poetry, rich with undefined impressions leaves the mystery tended, but not fully explained. An elusive visual image engages our viewer’s eye and imagination in ways that a literal explanation does not. I resonate with Charles Simic’s phrase “the still moment of the eye grafted to the heart”, expressing a moment when the heart reads the meaning of a poem or painting. Studio practice requires one to have an open mind, to cultivate a pregnant moment, and to have a core trust in intuition as it meets uncertainty. It is a way of continually energizing those qualities in my life. Hopefully, the viewer will come away with a sense of having been somewhere new, and yet, familiar.

Eric Predoehl

Visual Artist: Filmmaker, Videographer

Eric Predoehl is a multimedia professional whose talents have been utilized as a producer, director, writer, camera operator, editor, photo-journalist, graphic designer, AV technician, and idea generator. Fascinated by new ideas, unique stories and the ever-evolving role of technology, Eric continues to be excited by the San Francisco Bay Area he calls his home base. Growing up as a military brat living in a variety of different locations in the USA and Europe, Eric had a taste of cultural diversity at an early age. When he attended college, receiving a B.A. degree in Radio-TV Broadcast from San Jose State, and an A.A. degree in Professional Photography from De Anza College, Eric was also managing an independent record label, administrating all aspects of the business including promotions, manufacturing, distribution, and tour management. During his time in college, he also participated in programming, promotions, journalism and photography at KFJC Radio, a nationally-acclaimed college radio station known for a lot of news-breaking activities. It was at KFJC where he collaborated on a “LOUIE LOUIE” marathon, where he met the author of this song, Richard Berry, a man who was struggling to survive with welfare benefit even as his compositions sold millions of records. Eric’s life was forever changed when he had the foresight to bring a video camera to document what turned out to be a rather historic event. Not long after this momentous event, Eric was approached by an independent video producer that wanted to videotape an event that Eric was producing in San Francisco. The independent producer was Jesse Block, who became a good friend and fellow collaborator in the world of video production. Since that initial meeting over twenty years ago, Eric and Jesse have continued to work together on a variety of different media productions, taking them to a lot of places in California and the United States, with an occasional visit to Europe for a working vacation. In 2003, Eric was involved with the Howard Dean presidential campaign. Starting off with the now-historic Sacramento speech before his official announcement, Eric became one of the earliest video producers actively documenting the campaign, using the powers of the internet and grass-roots activism to promote Dean’s candidacy. Ultimately, Dean’s efforts were crippled by a renegade audio recording, but the Dean campaign was truly a groundbreaking effort that changed the way political campaigns used the power of the internet. Music continues to a major driving force for much of Eric’s most exciting projects. When the Blues Express media company decided to develop a syndicated television program about blues music, Eric was hired as a producer, writer and senior researcher. He also wrote liner notes for three different Blues Express CD releases. In the course of his ongoing LOUIE LOUIE research and documentary production, he’s also collaborated with Ace Records of UK, helping them secure direct access to some previously unreleased master tape libraries. Under the OctaLouie umbrella, Eric Predoehl continues to collaborate his pal Jesse Block to produce a wide variety of video productions. They’ve produced broadcast television programming, music documentaries, concert videos, live event presentations, corporate motivational programming, commercials, public service announcements, and more….

Sarah Puckitt

Visual Artist: Photographer

Photographer Sarah Puckitt has more than twenty-five years of hands-on experience with traditional silver and non-silver photography as well as digital media.

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