People

Founder + Vision Director
Emily Running

Dance Wire was the brain-child of Emily Running. Over the course of the 11 years, she played every role at the organization including membership manager, event producer, bookkeeper, marketing director, executive director, website manager, development director, grant writer. Emily’s two most significant roles were Vision Director and Strategic Partnerships Lead.

As Vision Director she established and implemented the organizational business model, connected the dots of Dance Wire’s programs, and worked directly with staff, board, and constituents on strategic planning and impact assessment. As the Strategic Partnerships Lead she worked on building relationships within and outside of the dance field to bring further involvement and investment both to the organization and to the field as a whole.

Continue to follow Emily and her work at Dance at the Intersection

Staff

Jessie Nowak

Jessie was the ultimate shape-shifter. She started as a volunteer then was hired officially right before the pandemic. She started off in development and fundraising before determining her skills and interests lined up best doing operations. She completely overhauled our internal operations structure building a customized CRM through Airtable. Not only was that a game changer for the org, it also became a template we shared with dance artists through our PROPEL and Arts Incubator Programs. Jessie also served as an artist mentor and coach, supporting many artists with her stable presence and insightful support.
Sarita Persaud

Sarita joined the Dance Wire team a few months before the pandemic hit. Initially she was supposed to run membership but within months all focus shifted. As with most small nonprofits, Sarita ended up wearing many hats. She regularly acted as the voice of reason when the scope of various projects started to balloon or we would try to take on too many things at once. After two years Sarita transitioned to a role on the board.
Kate Rafter

Kate was a long-time volunteer turned first employee besides Emily. She was the Queen of Lists and graciously shared her impressively detailed research on dance spaces and press contacts with Dance Wire which we published. She played a huge role in building membership, maintaining our directories, hosting events, and showing up to anything and everything in the community.
Lucy Heartwood

Lucy’s time at Dance Wire was brief but she brought enthusiasm, craftiness, and a high energy personality to the job. She spent many hours on the phone with members getting to know their struggles and needs.