Staffs

Smitha Radhakrishnan is Professor of Sociology and LuElla LaMer Slaner Professor of Women’s Studies at Wellesley College. She is a feminist ethnographer of gender and globalization currently researching India’s microfinance industry.  When she is not teaching or writing, she performs and teaches classical and contemporary Indian dance forms, especially Bharatanatyam. She is a longtime dancer with Aparna Sindhoor’s Navarasa Dance Theater, now based in Los Angeles, and serves on its board. In 2015, she established NATyA Dance Studio in Natick. Smitha earned her academic degrees — A.B., M.A., Ph.D – from the University of California at Berkeley.

Laura Levitan is Business Development Manager at Mintz who recently relocated to the Boston area from Chicago. With 15 years of experience in legal marketing and business development, Laura leads client acquisition, engagement and retention initiatives and develops brand awareness and market penetration strategies. Laura received her degree in political science from The George Washington University.  As a childhood dancer Laura wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton lobbying for increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Her passion continues to this day and she thrilled to support dancers across the Boston metropolitan area.

David Parker spent his childhood in Lynnfield, Massachusetts and started his career studying tap and ballet in Boston.  He moved to New York City in 1979 and performed tap, modern, post-modern, folk, ballet and experimental tap before forming his own company, The Bang Group in 1995,which tours widely throughout the United States and Europe. TBG has enjoyed a second home in Boston since being resident company at Summer Stages Dance for 13 seasons, in addition to appearing at the ICA, Out on the Edge Festival (Theater Offensive,) First Night Boston, and elsewhere.  TBG Group is currently company-in-residence at The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard where Parker serves as co-curator for the percussive dance festival Tap the Yard.

Recipient of a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography, Parker has created over 40 commissioned works for ballet and modern companies, universities, soloists and theater artists.  He launched Dance Now Boston, a branch of Dance Now NYC, which commissions innovative dance for cabaret spaces such as Oberon at the American Repertory Theater.  David has taught at Princeton, SUNY Purchase and Hunter College and at the Ailey School, Juilliard and Barnard College. He writes regularly for Dance Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail and several blogs, serves in the board of Danspace Project, has been a member of The New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Awards committee as well as several community and granting panels.

Qiong (Tiffany) Wu is BDA’s summer 2019 intern. A graduate of the Beijing Dance Academy and a former professional ballroom dancer whose career was cut short by an injury, she is currently an M.A. candidate in Fine and Studio Arts Administration at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

Yue, who goes by the name “Joy” in the United States, is BDA’s Development Intern. She is a dance lover who was born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, China and is studying arts administration at Boston University. She has worked in broadcasting, galleries, and in marketing.