Jennie Livingston
According to New York Magazine's September 2008 issue, Jennie Livingston's film "Paris is Burning" is one of the most important cultural works to come out of New York City in the last 40 years. "Paris" won a Sundance Grand Jury Prize and is one of the top-performing documentaries in the history of the medium. Currently, Livingston is at work on "Earth Camp One," a feature documentary and meditation on grief and loss that's been partially funded by Netflix and by a Guggenheim fellowship, and, on a feature film set in the art worlds of East Berlin and New York in 1989, which she researched in Berlin on a six-month grant from the German Academic Exchange (DAAD). Livingston is a graduate of Yale, where she received the Sudler Prize for work in painting and photography.
Dr. Robert O'Meally
Professor O'Meally is Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and founder and former director of the Center for Jazz Studies.His major interests are American literature, music, and painting. He has written extensively on Ralph Ellison, including The Craft of Ralph Ellison (Harvard, 1980). Professor O'Meally has written a biography of Billie Holiday entitled Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday (Little, Brown, 1989). He also is the author of The Jazz Singers (Smithsonian, 1997). His production of the recording The Jazz Singers was nominated for a Grammy Award. He also has won a Guggenheim Fellowship (1988) and a Cullman Center New York Public Library Fellowship (2008-2009).
Marcia Siegel
Marcia B. Siegel is a dance critic, author and teacher. She has published six books and is known for her informative commentary on choreographic works within their historical context. Marcia Siegel has reviewed dance regularly for major American newspapers and magazines including New York Magazine, the Soho Weekly News, and the Christian Science Monitor. A founding member of the Dance Critics Association, Siegel has given movement and observation workshops for dance writers at the American Dance Festival, the West Coast Institute for Dance Criticism, and the Texas Instiute for Dance Criticism. She was the DCA's 2004 Senior Critic Honoree. In 2005 she received the Congress on Research In Dance Award for Contributions to Dance Research.