CATI JEAN
Originally from Versailles, Cati Jean grew up in Grasse, South of France and studied extensively with renowned teachers from the nice conservatory, Cannes, the Cuban Ballet and Paris Opera. She performed a wide range of the classical repertory before studying the Jose Limon and Martha Graham techniques in Paris. As a performer, Cati worked in television and performed in renowned cabarets in Paris, lived in Japan and then moved to Los Angeles. Cati is involved into creating visual numbers for aerialists, coaching numerous actors in dance. directing live shows and short films. She was an adjunct professor at Santa Monica college, teaches master classes around the world and is recognized as an inventive choreographer, conceptual artist and visual poet. She is the producer, creator and director of the successful French-style cabaret L’effleur des Sens” and Nuit Blanche. She has choreographed onstage for Kylie Minogue, Janes Addiction, Carrie Underwood, and for music videos by Rancid, and Silk to name a few. Cati has performed with Prince, Bryan Setzer Orchestra, Toni Braxton, Ricky Martin, The Gipsy Kings, East 17, Jay-Z and Tina Turner. Her film credits include, Ms Claus, Cinderella, Three to Tango, Rock Star, Ocean’s Eleven, Jag, The Shield and Kiss Kiss, Bang, Bang.She judged and choreographed for Bravo’s reality show Step it Up and Dance, created aerial choreography and trained Jessica Biel in Powder Blue.
BERNARD BROWN
Bernard Brown is a performing artist, choreographer, filmmaker, educator and arts activist working at the crossroads of Blackness, Queerness and belonging. A first-generation college graduate, Brown earned an MFA in choreography from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. Most recently he taught dance at Loyola Marymount University and is currently a California Arts Council Established Artist Fellow. As artistic director of Bernard Brown/bbmoves, a social justice dance theater company, he choreographs for stage, specific sites, film and opera. Brown also conducts workshops, lectures, presentations and master classes in the U.S. and internationally, from Israel and Panama to Africa and Brazil. He is a core member of Street Dance Activism and an ongoing collaborator with Dancing Through Prison Walls, an abolitionist project. Brown’s work has been presented across the globe, including the Centre de Développement Choregraphique La Termitière, The Saint Louis Black Repertory Company, Dance Camera Istanbul, the Japanese American National Museum, among others. He was also recently invited to be part of a U.S. State Department sponsored two-city tour to Burkina Faso, West Africa in 2023. For nearly three decades, Brown has toured with and performed in the choreography of leaders of the dance field, including Lula Washington Dance Theatre, David Rousseve/REALITY, Donald McKayle, Rennie Harris, Rudy Perez, Pat Taylor, Doug Elkins, Dwight Rhoden, Janessa Clark, Shapiro and Smith Dance, TU Dance and Lucinda Childs, to name a few. More career highlights include restaging Donald McKayle’s canonical “Games” for the Kennedy Center’s “Masters of African American Choreography,” performing on the Daytime Emmy’s, Penumbra Theater’s “Black Nativity” and Donald Byrd’s “Harlem Nutcracker,” and being the titular principal dancer in Nike’s “12 Miles North: The Nick Gabaldon Story,” the first documented Afro-Mexican American surfer. Brown is also a proud member of the American Guild of Musical Artists. Brown’s wide-ranging commissions have included the City of Los Angeles, Santa Monica Symphony, South Chicago Dance Theater, the Fowler Museum and a host of universities and community organizations. Brown has also developed work in residencies with The Music Center, Johns Hopkins University, Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, B Street Theater, Loyola Marymount University, Theatre Soleil (Burkina Faso) and Dance Italia. Additionally, Brown is published in the peer-reviewed dance journal, Dancer-Citizen, and in The Activist History Review. He conceived of and curates Rooted Rhythmic Futures, a dance series and festival that brings Blackness, Indigeneity and Queerness squarely to the center of our consciousness. His activism has been featured in Dance Magazine, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.
KAREN PEARLMAN
Karen Pearlman writes, directs, and edits dance-driven films, documentaries and wildly creative hybrids of actuality, archive, fiction and wishful thinking about feminist film histories. Karen’s short films about historical women editors (2016, 2018 & 2020) have won 34 competitive national and international awards from peak industry bodies and film festivals. Her film ‘Breaking Plates’ was awarded ‘Best Short Documentary’ at the 2025 Antenna International Film Festival for “... a playful invitation to consider very serious questions of feminism and voice, as well as dynamics of structure and agency” (Jury Citation). A former President of the Australian Screen Editors (ASE) Guild, Karen received the Guild’s highest honour in 2024: accreditation. A 5-time ASE Best Editing Award nominee, and 2 time winner, Karen is the author of Cutting Rhythms, Creative Film Editing, which is now in its third edition and has translations into Chinese, Korean, Turkish, and Arabic. She is also the author of the monograph Shirley Clarke Thinking through Movement (EUP 2025) – the first book on this maverick dancer turned editor turned director, and the first to advance Karen’s novel feminist ideas about distributed authorship. Karen is the director, with Richard James Allen, of The Physical TV Company, whose documentary, drama, and dance films have been broadcast on ABC and SBS-TV, screened at more than 500 film festivals on six continents, garnering well over 100 awards or nominations, and added to the collections of 10 major film archives around the world. Before turning to filmmaking Karen had a distinguished career as a dancer in the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and with Timothy Buckley and the Troublemakers. Her duet company with Richard James Allen, THAT WAS FAST, broke ground in the live mix of text, dance, and computer animation and their collaborative creations toured to over 100 venues on three continents.
NAdav heyman
Nadav is an award-winning writer and filmmaker specializing in movement based films. He is the founder and artistic director of DanceFilmmaking.com, an international platform for dance films and home of the Dance Film of the Year award. His most recent dance film, "Old Man at the Corner Store" won the Audience Award in Prague, Portland, Spain, Utah, and Los Angeles. He has been a guest artist at UT Austin, Cal Arts, USC, amongst others, and is also the co-founder of the LA-based creative studio, ET AL. Follow him on IG @nadavheyman @dancefilmmaking