Mersiha Mesihovic Profile Founder/Executive Artistic Director of mersiha messiha | CIRCUITDEBRIS – a platform for performance & interdisciplinary practice. 7 + years experience as a cultural organizer in New York with focus on questions of immigration, citizenship and equity in the arts and culture sector. Employment History Director at ZVRK, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina September 2019 — Present The 1st International Festival of Contemporary Dance and Interdisiciplinary Art; Mostar, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Bosnia & Herzegovina Production Manager at New Dance Alliance, New York, NY February 2015 — September 2017 Production Manager for the annual Performance Mix Festival, to coordinate artist events/performances, venue operations and fundraising Executive Artistic Director at CIRCUITDEBRIS, Brooklyn, NY December 2013 — Present Founder/ Executive Artistic Director of Performance Platform promoting Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Community Engagement Education MFA in Dance, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA July 2018 — August 2019 Low-Residency Program departing from the traditional semester format, serving full time working choreographers interested in developing new initiatives in production and presentation of dance and choreography by focusing instead on international residencies, workshops and symposia that foster critical conversations about the meanings, purposes, and potentialities of dance and performance in contemporary society MA in Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, New York, NY September 2017 — June 2018 Performance studies is an interdisciplinary field using performance as a lens to study the world. Consequently, performance studies is interdisciplinary, drawing from theories of the performing arts, anthropology and sociology, literary theory, and legal studies BFA in Dance, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA September 2008 — May 2012 mersiha.mesihovic@gmail.com mersiha messiha | CIRCUITDEBRIS Languages Swedish Native speaker English Native speaker Bosnian Native speaker Croatian Native speaker Serbian Native speaker German B1 Skills Diplomatic Excellent organizational skills Initiative and Problem-solving Abilities Leadership and Teamwork Analytical Skills Ability to Multitask Digital Marketing Able to manage and implement Social Media campaigns Event Organization Adobe Creative Suite Adobe Photoshop Excel and Word Pre-Professional Training Program, Balettakademien, Stockholm, SE August 2004 — June 2005 Publications Indigenous Bosnia and Herzegovina / Moving Beyond Nationalism , New York, NY June 2020 This research covers how the ethnography of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the cultural and sacred practices found in this land) can offer new approaches to thinking through questions of corporeality, belonging/citizenship and conceptualizations of time and space Advancing Immigrants Dance Arts, Dance NYC, New York, NY October 2019 Advancing Immigrants Dance Arts ESSAY (page 92): response to Dance NYC Research/Study focused on nexus of immigration and dance representing Dance/NYC’s commitment and call to action to advance justice, equity and inclusion in the arts and culture sector Other Professional Experience Master Class, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia October 2019 Master Artist, Juilliard School of Dance, New York, NY May 2019 Curated by Erwin Maas, Programming Director of Origin Theater Company, for the European Month of Culture NYC, in partnership with the EU Delegation to the UN Guest Lecturer, Princeton University, New Jersey, NY November 2018 Invited by Prof. Jaamil Olawale Kosoko; Lecture radical performance practices through which artists consider the gendered and racialized body that circulates in the public domain, both onstage and off, and the use of imagination in interdisciplinary art and social practice to spark systemic change in the world Guest Lecturer/Artist-in-Residence, Grinnell College, Iowa March 2018 — April 2018 Dept. of Theater & Dance Lecture workshop, Center for Social Justice, Georgetown University, Washington, DC March 2017 A lecture workshop to encourage diving into own identity as migrants Master Class, Denmark Arts Center, Portland ME March 2017 Hosted by the Moving Target in partnership with Denmark Arts Center Movement Workshop, Earthdance Creative Living, Massachusetts September 2016 Guest Lecturer, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa May 2016 — June 2016 Department of Dance Guest Lecturer/Graduate Student Advisor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa May 2016 Wits School of Art, Division of Theatre and Performance Contemporary Dance Technique, Class Series, Gina Gibney Dance, New York, NY January 2016 — December 2016 Contemporary Dance Technique Class Series, Peridance Capezio Dance Center , New York, NY January 2016 — December 2016 Williamsburg Movement & Arts Center, Contemporary Dance Technique Class Series, Brooklyn, NY January 2016 — December 2016 Dramaturge, #negrophobia, Brooklyn, NY November 2015 — August 2016 Assisted with the creative and technical research and direction of the critically acclaimed performance work, #negrophobia by Nigerian/American performance artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko Guest Lecturer at Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa October 2015 Department of Dance Guest Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa October 2015 Wits School of Art, Division of Theatre and Performance Master Class, Dance Complex , Boston, MA February 2015 Master Class, Philadelphia, PA February 2015 Hosted by Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers Community Outreach Speaker, St. John’s University, New York, NY April 2019 Speaker at the World History, Theory and Practice: Migrants and Refugees, Role of Arts Conference Speaker, Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, New York, NY March 2018 Origin Theatre Company Symposium | EU Launch Event on Immigration & Arts Speaker, Women in Dance, Tisch School of the Arts , NYU, New York, NY January 2018 Women in Dance Leadership Conference investigates, explores, and reflects on women’s leadership by representing innovative and multicultural dance work to celebrate, develop, and promote women’s leadership in dance making, dance related fields, and other male dominated professions Speaker, Dance/NYC, New York, NY January 2018 Speaker at Immigrants. Dance. Arts. Conference, hosted by Dance/NYC; In a political climate that threatens the well-being of the more than three million immigrants in the New York City area, the conference gathers leaders in dance and immigrant communities to consider the role of dance artistry in fostering the inclusion, integration, and human rights of local immigrants Selection Panel, BRIC Art Media House, Brooklyn, NY January 2017 — Present Member of BRIC Art | Media House’s selection panel to review submissions and choose artists for the BRIClab Residency Program Selection Panel, New Dance Alliance, New York, NY October 2017 — January 2019 Served as member of New Dance Alliance’s selection panel to review submissions and choose artists for the annual Performance Mix Festival Movement class, BRIC Arts | Media House, Brooklyn, NY September 2016 Class Series open to the wider community mersiha messiha | CIRCUITDEBR movement class series, New York, NY January 2013 — December 2015 A movement class series led by established, innovative internationally recognized dance artists, open to the wider NYC -performance community. Some of the dance artists engaged: Jenna Riegel -Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (New York), Giorgia Bovo -Deutsche Oper Berlin (Germany), Lorenzo Capodieci -Dadodans (Netherlands), HeJin Jang, CEPA Global Initiative (Korea) Fellowships Immigrant Artist Social Practice, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY July 2016 — July 2017 Immigrant Artist Program: Social Practice Fellowship is a year-long professional development program for immigrant and 1st-generation artists working in all forms of socially engaged art (including, but not limited to, public and community engagement and advocacy around issues of environment and climate change, immigration, race, gender, and social justice) Social Practice Incubator, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Bronx, NY June 2016 A week long educational incubator on emergent strategies in art and social practice Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, New York Foundation of the Arts, New York, NY June 2014 — June 2015 Immigrant Artists Mentoring Program Fellowship; connecting artists with services and resources to foster their creative careers, gain support and exposure for their work, and integrate into the cultural world of New York and beyond while upholding their distinct identities Residencies Cross Currents 2019 at The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC May 2019 Representing Sweden in CrossCurrents; EUNIC Washington, the network of European Union National Institutes for Culture, has developed together with The Lab (The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University) a European Theater Residency project, featuring theater makers from 7 European countries. In partnership with Embassies and cultural institutes in Washington DC, The Lab, under the artistic leadership of Derek Goldman, will host these artists on the Georgetown University campus for a cultural and artistic exchange Master Artist, Grinnell College, Iowa March 2018 — April 2018 Master Artist-in-Residence Program/ Commission to create a new work with students at the department of Theater & Dance Artist-in-Residence Program, Denmark Arts Center, Maine November 2017 Artist-in-Residence at Denmark Arts Center, Maine for development of She Is A Refugee Star performance BRIClab Residency, BRIC Arts , Brooklyn, NY September 2016 BRIClab Residency Program, BRIC Arts | Media House for development of She Is A Refugee Star performance Creative and Project Development Residency, New Dance Alliance, New York, NY February 2020 LiftOff Creative and Project Development Residency for development of VOID Master Artist in Residence, Earthdance, Plainfield, MA February 2020 — February 2020 Creative Living Residency Program at Earthdance Corpo a Corpo Residency, Venice Biennale, Italy June 2012 Corpo a Corpo Residency (Emerging Choreographer Resident, mentored by Ismael Ivo), Venice Biennale Scholarships Life Experience Scholarship, University for the Arts, Philadelphia, PE July 2018 Department of Dance, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA August 2008 — May 2012 Merit Scholarship Bates Dance Festival, Lewiston, MA February 2020 2010-2011 Professional Training Program Full Scholarship Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Beckett, MA August 2011 Choreography Lab Scholarship Concord Academy , Boston, MA August 2009 Summer Stages Program Scholarship.