David Blasher (he/him)
Executive Director
David is a collaborative leader and interdisciplinary thinker with experience across law, technology, and the arts. David has worked at NBCUniversal as the Director of Global Legal Operations and Innovation, and as a litigation associate at Davis Wright Tremaine, including pro bono work for the ACLU and OutsideIn shelter serving LGBTQ+ Youth who are unhoused. David is also the former Board Chair of Drama Club, a nonprofit that transforms the lives of young people in NYC who are incarcerated or court-involved through the power of theater and improv. As an artist, David plays the cello with a rock band and experimental ensembles, and he writes and acts in short-form film projects. B.A., Yale University (Theatre Studies); J.D., University of Oregon School of Law.
Kamyar Atabai (he/him)
Director of Development
Born in Iran, Kamyar is a graduate of Columbia University (BA), and the Yale School of Drama (MFA). As a theater director, he has worked on both sides of the Atlantic, from the West End and Broadway to the London Fringe and Off-Off Broadway. As a Development professional, he has worked at Baryshnikov Arts Center, National Council of Jewish Women, and The Paley Center for Media.
Sarah Raven (she/her)
Operations Manager
Sarah is an opera singer, producer, and arts administrator dedicated to reshaping the operatic landscape through innovative and immersive experiences. She is the creator of Operotica, a groundbreaking production that reimagines operatic tradition with a bold, modern twist. Beyond her work as a performer and producer, Sarah has built an extensive career in arts management, leading programs and operations at esteemed organizations such as Opera on Tap, Asylum Arts, Columbia Artists Management, and The Metropolitan Opera. Her expertise spans artist development, event production, grant administration, and financial operations. She has spearheaded artist retreats, managed multimillion-dollar funding distributions, and designed streamlined operational systems to enhance efficiency in arts organizations. Sarah resides in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter, and a delightful menagerie of pets, including two cats and Prince Duncan, the ever-charming bulldog.
Ron Ragin (he/him)
Director of Programs
Ron is a researcher, strategist, organizer, and interdisciplinary artist. He partners with artists, organizations, and grantmaking institutions to help them move in deeper alignment with their values, goals, and principles — toward that ever-shifting space of liberation. Ron worked in the field of (arts and cultural) philanthropy for nearly a decade, with program officer posts at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He also worked as a Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Effective Philanthropy. Alongside his research and strategy work, Ron sustains a vibrant performance and creative writing practice, rooted in music of the African Diaspora, improvisation, liberation aesthetics, and the development and maintenance of spiritual technologies. His artistic work centers around the role of sound, and the unamplified human voice in particular, in transforming our environment, our selves, and each other. Ron lives in New Orleans, makes a mean red velvet cake, and can throw down on some biscuits.
Hannah Rubenstein (she/her)
Communications Associate
Hannah is a writer and theatermaker based in New York City. She has worked with performing arts organizations including the Juilliard Drama Division, Theatre for a New Audience, New York Neo-Futurists, and the Public Theater. As a poet, essayist, journalist, and playwright, her work has been featured in Broadway News, Barnard’s Movement Lab, Michigan Radio, the Juilliard Journal, Meliora, and Laurel Moon, among others. Hannah studied at Barnard College, where she earned the Helene Searcy Puls Prize in Poetry, and completed an intensive creative writing program at the University of Oxford. She grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Kim Savarino (she/her)
Senior Development Manager
Kim supports MAP’s development and growth, contributing research to build a program that centers equity and transparency. She has worked with organizations including Arts Action Research, Dance/NYC, and DDCF, formerly served as co-chair of Dance/NYC’s Junior Committee, and was a member of the WOW Project’s inaugural Bridging Futures Cohort. Kim is a performer, choreographer, and proud company member with Third Rail Projects and La MaMa’s Great Jones Rep. Recent artistic projects include a Broadway lab choreographed by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, an Italian “spectacle” directed by Romeo Castellucci, and playing the prophetess Cassandra in Andrei Serban’s revival of The Trojan Women. She has choreographed performance works in spaces ranging from traditional stages to concrete backlots, and her work has received support from MANCC’s Forward Dialogues Lab, the EstroGenius Festival, and the WV Dance Festival. Kim studied dance at Florida State University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and grew up in West Virginia.
Dejha Carrington consults widely on strategy, programming and storytelling with nonprofits and organizations across the U.S. and in Canada. She is a recognized speaker, and presents at organizations such as U.S. Presidential Scholars Foundation, Netflix, Americans For The Arts and University of Miami. In 2018, Dejha co-founded Commissioner, an art membership program that helps people collect the work of contemporary artists in their cities and build stronger arts ecosystems. From 2015 to 2022, she served as Vice President of Strategic Communications for YoungArts. A Montreal native and McGill University graduate, Dejha calls Miami her home base. Joined 2022
Kim Chan is Associate Artistic Director at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She has worked extensively in New York City and Washington, D.C. as a producer, curator, presenter, marketer, and fundraiser of poetry, music, theater, dance, arts education, and literature. She is a board member for the MAP Fund, Mid-Atlantic Arts, Ping Chong + Company and Pick-Up Performance Co(s). She has also served on the New York Dance and Performance “Bessies” Award Committee, on the boards for Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s La Pocha Nostra, and Dance Place, on the advisory board at GALA Hispanic Theatre, and as a National Dance Project Hub Site. Chan is also one of the volunteers with Make Us Visible NJ who helped organize advocacy efforts that made New Jersey the second state in the country to pass legislation requiring Asian American Pacific Island Studies be taught in K-12 school curriculums as a long-term approach to counter anti-Asian racism. Secretary, Joined 2022
Adriana Gallego is the Executive Director of the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona (AFTSA). Prior to joining AFTSA, Gallego was the first Chief Operating Officer of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, and Director of Strategic Initiatives with the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Joined 2020
Craig T. Peterson, currently the Program Director for Arts, Culture and Historic Preservation at the New York Community Trust, has held numerous leadership positions at arts and cultural institutions over the past thirty years. Most recently he served as President of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the borough’s arts council. For six years he was Vice President of Visual and Performing Arts at Henry Street Settlement and the Executive Artistic Director of the Abrons Arts Center. In prior positions he was the Director of Programs at Gibney Dance and the Director of the annual Philly Fringe Festival. For ten years he served on the staff of Dance Theater Workshop and for four years he was the organization’s Co-Artistic Director. He is a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program of Columbia University’s School of Business and he received a BA in Theater and Dance from Bard College. Treasurer, Joined 2021
Sixto Wagan is the Project Director for the Greater Houston BIPOC Arts Network and Fund (BANF). BANF is structured as a community-led collaborative fund and a resource network guided by arts leaders, arts practitioners, and funders. Previously, he founded and developed the Center for Art and Social Engagement (CASE) at the University of Houston. He also led DiverseWorks, serving as Artistic Director, Co-Executive Director and Performing Arts Curator. Wagan completed a Master’s Degree in Teaching, and co-founded QuAC: The Queer Artist Collective in 1996, a performance collaborative of multi-gendered, multi-ethnic queers. Wagan continues to expand his work as a strategic visioning and cultural equity facilitator. Joined 2016
Meital Waibsnaider is General Counsel at Blue State, a digital strategy and technology firm. Previously, she was Senior Counsel at Kennedy Berg LLP, a commercial litigation firm based in Manhattan, worked in the General Counsel’s office at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and was a dancer with the Israel Ballet. President, Joined 2020
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar earned her B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University. In 1984 Jawole founded Urban Bush Women (UBW) as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. She is the founder of the UBW Summer Leadership Institute, founding Artistic Director and Chief Visioning Partner of UBW and currently holds the position of the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University. Jawole has received numerous honors including the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the 2017 Bessie Lifetime Achievement in Dance. In 2020, The Ford Foundation awarded Urban Bush Women as one of America’s Cultural Treasures, and Jawole has recently been named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. Joined 2022
Banner: 2021 grantee Jimmy López Bellido. Photo by Franciel Braga.