2026 Summer PlaySpace Faculty
Lead Teaching Artists
Baye & Asa | Movement PlaySpace
What made you want to become an artist?
When we were in 5th grade, we took our first dance class together. It was a West African class. The rhythm of the drums, the energy of the room, and the power it gave our bodies was immediately exciting. Growing up in New York City brought us close to so many incredible performers and artists. Those transformative experiences shaped the way we see the world, and our ability to imagine how it can change.
What is your favorite memory you have of your experience as a professional artist?
We had the privilege to create a work for the Martha Graham Dance Company, and the piece was part of their 100-year anniversary celebration season at New York City Center. We were honored to be included in such a historic moment for the field. As children who grew up watching companies dance on the City Center stage, it was thrilling to see our work there.
What do you love about teaching the arts to children?
Our classes reconnect us to our primal physical explorations and expand our physical and poetic capacity. We offer a unique movement experience, aspiring to create better dancers and creatives, but ultimately helping all children understand their physical potential. We all have one body, and we want to make sure we feel resilient, comfortable, and proud within it. Dance creates athletes, architects, and empathetic human beings capable of sharing space and creating powerful communal experiences. We hope you’ll join us.
Bob Goldberg | Music PlaySpace And Musician for Movement PlaySpace
What made you want to become an artist?
I was fortunate to grow up in a family where music was valued, and to have the opportunity to hear all different sorts of music on the radio, on recordings, in school, at summer camp, and in concerts and theaters. Making music makes me happy. Making music with my friends, I feel a closeness and a satisfaction greater than any other experience.
What is your favorite memory you have of your experience as a professional artist?
Performing in a band with my friends—writing songs together, practicing, performing, and then laughing together when it’s done.
What do you love about teaching the arts to children?
Teaching music is the most fun you can have. I love the songs we sing together, the fun of inventing songs and dances, and the thrill of discovering new things together.
Megan Paradis | Drama PlaySpace
What made you want to become an artist?
I wanted to be an artist since I was 10 years old, a very shy young person cast as the lead in a school play, and I discovered the joy and power of being seen and heard onstage.
What is your favorite memory you have of your experience as a professional artist?
I recently had the pleasure of directing the Trojan Women Project’s Sur, which featured a puppet the size of the theater. Given its size and the complexity of rigging it, we couldn’t rehearse with the actual puppet until load-in. We spent weeks approximating the movement, imagining the puppet, pretending to pull imaginary ropes and collectively hallucinating what the puppet might look like. During tech, when we finally rigged up the full-sized puppet and discovered that it worked the way we had hoped it would, we were delighted and relieved!
What do you love about teaching the arts to children?
Adult artists are often very preoccupied with whether or not the art is “good.” Young people tend to ask me more interesting questions about art: is this going to be fun? Will it be scary? Was that hilarious, or not? What could we do to make it MORE hilarious? Could we add an anglerfish to this scene? Do I really have to follow the rules? What do we have to agree upon in order to work together, and what can we disagree about while still finding ways to play? These are all terrific questions that spark creativity in me as well as my students.
Maia Taber Ayerza | Visual Arts PlaySpace
What made you want to become an artist?
I’ve been an artist since I was a child. Art is a place for the people who don’t seem to fit in anywhere else. Since I was little, I noticed a non-verbal energy inside me. Slowly, I began to see that instead of being afraid of it, I could use it as an instigator for artworks. It takes courage to make something you haven’t seen before. It’s the opposite of trying to fit in. But it’s also the chance to never stop playing even as an adult.
What is your favorite memory you have of your experience as a professional artist?
Being an artist never stops being challenging. To stay in this profession is to choose it over and over again regardless of its demands. But the satisfaction you feel when an artwork separates from you and becomes its own entity is an experience like nothing else. It’s a way to prove that you exist, that you have an opinion, and that you are part of the world that surrounds you.
What do you love about teaching the arts to children?
I’ve never seen better drawings than the ones made by children. Their uninhibited expressions seem to be a direct channel between their hearts, their minds, and their hands. Their artworks are products of a person who is trying to communicate what they think or feel using tools they are not interested in mastering. Their strong opinions and imagination come through their work without hesitation. I often think that paintings make the artist transparent, that you can see everything about them in their work. Our youngest artists have no fear of this transparency and therefore can produce the clearest and least pretentious artworks. It is always a joy to participate and facilitate this process.
Assistant Teaching Artists
Kimberly Lucas | All Classes
What made you want to become an artist?
I’ve always been a creative person and have tried many art forms. Dance quickly became my favorite as a child and I’ve continued to love the freedom, community, and passion that is cultivated from it.
What is your favorite memory you have of your experience as a professional artist?
My favorite memory is when I finished performing my last piece at university. Dancing on stage surrounded by my friends as the curtains came down was a surreal and memorable experience.
What do you love about teaching the arts to children?
I love seeing children light up with excitement when learning something they love. Seeing their joy and creativity sparks the same in me and it’s a wonderful experience and feeling.
Kevin Luck | All Classes
What made you want to become an artist?
As a kid I was watching movies with my parents and said I wanted to do that too. So they had me start going on auditions, and being in musicals, within which my love for theatre and dancing began to cultivate to where I am today.
What is your favorite memory you have of your experience as a professional artist?
Last summer I had the opportunity to perform at Surflight Theater in Beach Haven, NJ and it was an amazing experience staying away from home and bonding and living with my fellow cast members.
What do you love about teaching the arts to children?
I love seeing children light up with excitement when learning something they love. Seeing their joy and creativity sparks the same in me and it’s a wonderful experience and feeling.
Jillian Rubino | All Classes
What made you want to become an artist?
I find the feeling of telling a story through dance so captivating and self gratifying. There is something so beautiful in having a way to tell a story universally breaking all language and cultural barriers. Finding ways to demonstrate a certain event or exemplify a conversation through only movement can be so beautiful to interpret. I find myself drawn to both organizing this idea through choreography and also presenting it as a dancer.
What is your favorite memory you have of your experience as a professional artist?
A favorite memory of mine as a professional artist is being a part of a new dance work in my college and helping with the development of the dance I was a part of. It was the first time I have experienced a non linear way of creating a dance piece. The piece was called Meaning In The Mundane and the choreographer, Elliot Keller, had us create a short phrase that went through our daily routine but exaggerated in dance form. We then took those phrases and implemented them in the final product. It opened my eyes to not only the idea of letting the dancers be a part of the creation of a dance piece but also the content of the dance reflected the philosophy that dance will reflect life.
What do you love about teaching the arts to children?
I love to teach the arts to children as I feel it is so important to their development. They learn creativity, curiosity, work ethic, focus, social skills and many more lessons through organized arts experiences. I have been teaching dance to children since 2018 and throughout that time I watched my current and former students grow into such amazing, well rounded, smart and disciplined young adults because of their work in the dance studio.