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Amplify your creativity in a supportive community of artists, diving into theater, music, dance, visual art, digital media, and more!
“ GIA rearranged my wiring... it was my first time experiencing life on my own and helped me decide THIS was where I wanted to go with my life. I’ve become a more caring, kind, and empathetic person, and I also learned to be more accepting, not just for other people but for MYSELF. I learned to love myself the way I am. GIA felt like a home... my life has been altered by being accepted and appreciated by this lovely family.”
Are you looking to ignite your creativity?
At the Arts Institute you are given the platform to amplify your artistic voice and join a community of young artists from all over Vermont for an exciting two weeks of collaboration, creation, and inspiration. The experience helps develop skills in whatever artistic disciplines you choose alongside fellow creators who share a passion for art and creative thinking! With immersions into theater, music, writing, visual arts, film, dance, and more, the community at the Arts Institute fosters a diverse, meaningful, and life-changing shared experience.
The biggest and best known of the Governor’s Institutes, the Arts Institute (sometimes known as GIA!) has helped shape the trajectories and artistic visions of thousands of students, including world-famous musicians, actors, and artists. Together, we will build a vibrant artistic community, bringing together outstanding professional teaching artists and curious, motivated students to explore the processes of creativity. We can’t promise you’ll end up famous – but we promise you’ll have an amazing two weeks of fun, learning, and inspiration and leave with a whole new perspective and commitment to your art.
For information regarding this Institute’s sliding-scale tuition support, please click here.
Check out this media from recent years of the Institute.
Link to Other GIV Institute Videos
Link to the 2024 Arts Institute Photo Album
Link to the 2023 Arts Institute Photo Album
And more awesomeness from GIA!
Choose from a menu of dozens of expert-led courses in film, visual arts, music, dance, writing, theater, and other media, then immerse yourself in two of your preferred class selections.
**Classes are different each year and announced when you arrive!
Outside of class, your time is filled with engaging workshops led by community members–teachers, staff, and you! Always wanted to learn… beatboxing? Salsa dance? Ukulele? Or teach… Pastel techniques? Adobe Premiere Pro? Haiku?
GIA’s open workshop format is endlessly enriching, empowering, and engaging.
7:30 AM – 8:30 AM: Breakfast
8:45 AM – 9:15 AM: Community Meeting
9:15 AM – 10:00 AM: Community Chorus
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Morning Class
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Workshops
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Afternoon Class
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Workshops / Specials
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM: Dinner
7:30 PM: Artist Series
9:30 PM: Suite Check-in
10:15 PM: Bedtime
Watch the Video
Whether or not you take a music class, you’ll be surrounded by music at GIA. Chorus in the morning will have you singing and dancing all day long. Classes often include songwriting, choir, group or individual composition. Musicians will grow personally and artistically as they learn to write their own music, collaborate with others, and have ample opportunity to perform on stage! Jam sessions abound, and many a GIA band has formed and performed in a mere 2 weeks.
Check out these VIDEOS or listen to GIA on Bandcamp
Over two weeks, our visual artists overflow the gallery with original works. We offer classes in a range of mediums–both 2D and 3D. Our drawing or painting classes include AND move beyond the boundaries of traditional practices. We work with nude models, we use weird tools, we work with our eyes closed, we work BIG and small. We work representationally AND abstractly. Our goal is to break you out of your comfort zone and provide you with some non-traditional approaches to visual arts!
Watch: Visual Arts at GIA
Theater performance classes will develop characters, scenes, and emotions that translate to the stage. Past classes included Improv ensembles, clowning, individual character and scene work. You’ll learn new theater exercises and games that hone your skills and help you work with others. Non-performance theater classes have included mask-making, stage prosthetics/makeup, and our infamous lighting classes which–beyond creating amazing projects–offer the opportunity to light professional performances in the evening!
Meet one of our GIA theater faculty alums – Isaac Eddy
All ability levels are welcome in our dance classes (and all of our classes for that matter). Unlike conservatory classes, or Ballet 1, 2, or 3, our classes are centered around movement and self-awareness. We learn how to express ourselves, ask questions, and have fun through movement. We often have one class involving choreography (both developing your own and learning others’) and one that delves into experiential and authentic movement.
Watch: Dance at GIA
We offer classes where writers can engage deeply with their craft. Creative writing classes in the past have included fiction, narrative, poetry, lyric writing, playwriting, and some with a mix of everything. Our writers are given the opportunity to write for the page, and are also encouraged to share their work through readings and performances, both in classroom settings and amongst the larger community.
Our writing students often find themselves Filled with Inspiration
Film, photography, and digital media arts are so ubiquitous in our world that they have also become an integral part of our curriculum. Students make anything from narrative or informational films to abstract and multimedia projects. In Vermont State University Castleton’s fully equipped video studio with green screen and editing suite, there’s no shortage of possibilities! With access to the Adobe suite, our digital artists have created photoshop stills and animations, utilizing photography and traditional art mediums.
Every night we enjoy unique evening performances by musicians, illustrators, sculptors, comedians, theater troops, dancers, filmmakers, poets, songwriters, creators, and collaborators. You will see local artists, alums, faculty & staff performing on the BIG STAGE at the Vermont State University Castleton Fine Arts Center. The Artist Series is the highlight of our evenings, where we come together to be inspired, to ask thoughtful questions, and to expose ourselves to many different artists and artistic genres.
Watch: Artist Series at GIA
Check out this video from GIV Alum Isabel Pless as she shares some of her experiences at the Arts Institute and her developing career as a singer, songwriter, and performer.
Corey grew up in a log cabin in the woods of Middlesex, Vermont. After graduating from Wesleyan University he became a professional contemporary dancer, while also mixing in some carpentry, teaching, cooking, arts administration, emergency medicine, conflict resolution, and educational advocacy. He is now the Co-founder and Chief People Officer at Luminary (www.roli.com and www.playlumi.com), a music technology company, headquartered in London, UK, where he lives with his wife, Kate, and their daughters, Hazel (7) and Willa (4). He is inspired by the work of, among others, Toni Morrison, Noella Coursaris Musunka, James Baldwin, and Cary Wolfe. He attended GIA in 2000.
Corey and the Arts Institute team can be reached at [email protected]
Malina Leslie (she/her) is a red-headed giggler who graduated from the University of Vermont with a BA in English and Art. She is a quilter who likes to paint with fabric and draw with thread to portray people in various emotions. She also likes to make comics and worked for cartoonist Alison Bechdel on her comic book “Are You My Mother.” Malina is often found birding because birds are awesome. She has lived for significant chunks of time on four of the seven continents and has gotten really good at decorating envelopes because of it. Originally from Hardwick, Vermont, she attended GIA as a student in 2005 and is always thrilled to return!
Malina and the Arts Institute team can be reached at [email protected]
Janice Amaya (they/them/elle) is an actor, theatermaker, and educator. Recent theater credits: Orlando (Signature Theatre Company), Shhhh (Atlantic Theater Company), Lunch Bunch (Play Co), Mushroom (People’s Light Theater Co), Cartography (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), Sally Forth (Lincoln Center), As You Like It (Apocalyptic Artists Ensemble). Film: Patriot’s Day (Lionsgate, Dir. Peter Berg). Janice is a Co-Director at Pipeline Theatre Company and a founding member of The Hummm. MFA, Harvard University and the Moscow Art Theater. www.janiceamaya.com.
Sarah Lowry is a theater maker and Registered Drama Therapist. Lowry works both as an individual and family counselor in South Burlington, as well as in the Winooski Middle and High Schools where she collaborates with educators and students to incorporate trauma-informed, youth driven, creative arts work into curriculum. In the clinic, Lowry uses somatic and creative practices to work with predominantly LGBTQIA+ youth as well as with teens, young adults, and families who have experienced trauma. Both in the counseling room and on the stage – Lowry centers her work on listening to young people and uses storytelling and theater as tools to center the voices and perspectives of teens in Vermont. As a white, Jewish, queer 40-year-old counselor and artist, Lowry brings her own life and experiences into her relationships with young people, and strives to make work that prioritizes the leadership of young people to tell their own stories. She is thrilled to be a part of the GIA community.
Born on Council of the Three Fires and Miami lands (Illinois) to Haitian parents, Tania Balan-Gaubert was raised between Chicago’s southside and the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn on Lenapehoking land (New York). Guided by Haitian, African, and Indigenous-based cultural traditions, Balan-Gaubert creates works that are caught between several realms. She combines personal stories, folklore, images, found and ready-made objects, and spirituality with craft materials to construct hybrid works. Balan-Gaubert earned her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2018 and her MA in African American Studies from Columbia University in 2012. She has exhibited in Chicago at the Haitian American Museum of Chicago (HAMOC), in New York at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI), Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), CaribBEING House in residence at the Brooklyn Museum, Lefferts Historic House in Prospect Park, and in San Francisco at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), and SOMArts Cultural Center.
Victoria is an award winning creative swiss army knife, boasting extensive experience shooting, directing and editing content for brands like Coca Cola, RocNation, Smartwater, BOSE and Nissan among others. As a filmmaker, music video Director and Musician herself, she flexes between creative disciplines to bring a rhythmic and culture driven perspective to her craft as a filmmaker and artist. Her experience as a Latinx woman and her obsession with authenticity colors all of the work she does, and she is always seeking to create work with greater meaning while honoring, giving back and uplifting minority communities any way she can.
Sean Devare is a New York-based multidisciplinary theatre artist and designer exploring intercultural relationships to narratives both modern and ancient. Using the immediacies of live music and physical theatre in dialogue with images of subconscious archetypes, Sean’s work aims to transcend and subvert both cultural and national boundaries as live events.
For twelve years Isaac has performed with Blue Man Group in New York City, Chicago, London, and Las Vegas. With the production he has helped cast and train Blue Men, captain casts, write material, and perform nightly in the show. Isaac is an Associate Professor of Theater and Drama at Northern Vermont University Johnson. There he built the Performance, Arts, and Technology undergrad which focuses on the student-led creation of new multi-disciplinary performance works. This program is in its third year of operation and has been highly influenced by the work that is created at GIA every summer! Concentrations include: Theatre/Musical Theatre, Dance, Music, Immersive Design, and Social Justice and Activism. Isaac is also a writer and a cartoonist and has been published in the New Yorker and in the weekly newspaper, The Herald of Randolph, Vermont. He makes animated documentary shorts for Time Magazine and has a non-fiction multi-panel series about the people that live and work in his neighborhood published in the New York Times’ Brooklyn blog, “The Local.” Isaac also created and animated the online series, “Cat, Dog, Stoop.”
Andrew Fish is a painter and printmaker based in Somerville, MA. He studied at School of Visual Arts in NYC and received his MFA from Goddard College in VT. He has attended several artist residencies including the VT Studio Center, Manship Artists Residency + Studio in Gloucester, MA, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China, and Mass MoCA’s Assets for Artists Residency in North Adams, MA. He is the recipient of a Mass Cultural Council Finalist award in Painting, a Somerville Arts Council grant, a NY Studio School Award, and a St. Botolph Club Fellowship. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows nationally and internationally including The Painting Center, NYC, Childs Gallery, Boston, MA, Artzu Gallery in Manchester, UK, and Addison Ripley Fine Art in Washington, DC. Fish teaches at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. He is originally from VT and attended GIA as a high school student. He has also served as an RA and faculty member. Fish’s work explores the intersection of abstraction and representation, using the figure to investigate contemporary society and personal experience.
A native of Hardwick, Vermont, Andy Gagnon has dedicated his life to music. Gagnon has worked with the Vermont Jazz Camp, U-32’s summer jazz camp, the Get Thee to the Funnery camp in Barre, and the Green Mountain Youth Symphony Summer C.A.M.P., as well as being a private percussion instructor for many years. Gagnon has also served as a mentor for Music-COMP (formerly the Vermont MIDI Project) and as a guest conductor for numerous Vermont district music festivals. Gagnon holds a B.S. in Music Education with a concentration in music composition from the University of Vermont, and an M.F.A. in Music Composition from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He regularly performs with The Renegade Groove, LOVECRAFT, The Vermont Jazz Ensemble, and PURPLE feat. Craig Mitchell, among many other artists and groups. Andy currently lives in Morrisville, Vermont with his wife Leah, their dogs Spock and Kiwi, Minerva the cat, and Poppy Seed the chinchilla. He is the instrumental music teacher at Stowe Elementary, Middle, and High schools.
beccs is a recording artist, vocalist, songwriter, and educator based in the Hudson Valley. Hailed as one of NYLON Magazine’s “favorite cool girls”, A John Lennon Songwriting Finalist, and an “indie-pop vocalist of astonishing candor” by the HuffPost, beccs’ music has been critically acclaimed by KCRW, Refinery29, NYLON, Huffington Post, Popdust, LADYGUNN and NPR Tiny Desk. Holding up a mirror to herself and society at large, beccs confronts and heals audiences with a soul-stirring voice that is as dynamic as it is vulnerable. beccs – Becca Gastfriend at the time – trained at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she honed her craft for acting, composition and voice work. Today, she fuses her broad performance experience and vocal training with an innate gift for stirring hearts to reach her students and audiences. Whether teaching voice, singing to seniors with Alzheimers through her business Bridge To The Soul, or touring her songs across the country, beccs is passionate about using singing as a tool to build connection.
Annella Kaine is another one of those multi-hyphenate artists you keep hearing about. She runs a small craft stained glass business in her New York City home, with a focus on queering an artform that people most often associate with religious imagery. They are also an actor, writer, and audiobook narrator. In addition to producing their own work, Annella works in the live interpretation space, using the arts as an educational medium to teach everything from conservation principals to deposition skills for early-career lawyers. You can often catch Annella performing with and about animals at the New York Aquarium and The Bronx Zoo, under the umbrella of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Kailie Larkin is a teacher and artist dedicated to cultivating process-based creative environments for individual and collective growth. She holds a Masters in Theater Education from The City College of New York, trained with Double Edge Theatre, and is a member of The Royal Frog Ballet. For 14 years she directed The Chelsea Funnery Shakespeare Program, an experience that galvanized her commitment to teaching theater as a vital tool for self-development and community building. With student-led devising and technical ownership at the core of her work she has directed over 30 productions with students ages 12-18. Her teaching expertise includes improvisation, devising, Shakespeare, clowning, mask, shadow cinema, puppetry, and playwriting. Her current creative projects include writing a collection of poems, baking sourdough, and parenting her incredible kiddo Juno. She is beyond thrilled to return to GIA after being a student and RA in years past.
Nehemiah has been performing, composing and conducting for over 30 years. He connects his deep love of music to the transformative power of building community through breathing and singing with family and friends which he practiced from an early age in Jackson, Mississippi where he was born and raised. He has been a featured soloist at the National Cathedral, Carnegie Hall and has performed on six continents. Recent projects include: AMANI at Rattlestick Theater with National Black Theatre (Music Director), SCENE PARTNERS at Vineyard Theatre (Music Director) and RUBY with Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in Sarasota, Florida (Co-Composer, Co-Orchestrator, and Music Supervisor). Nehemiah is a member of The Dramatists Guild, American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers (ASMAC) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). He lives in the Bronx with his husband.
Cavan Meese got his start in theater at an early age with the Bread and Puppet Theater and in performances at schools, libraries, clubs, festivals and small theaters around the country with his family. Cavan is an alumni of the Governor’s Institute on the Arts and first studied lighting design and television production at Vermont State College Castleton. He went on to The University of the Arts in Philadelphia where he studied theater arts and apprenticed with lighting designers and directors at the Pennsylvania Ballet, The Arden Theater, Pig Iron Theater, and others. Cavan has designed for Anais Mitchell (Hadestown), Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Circus Smirkus Big Top Tour, Phish, Vermont Stage Company, Lost Nation Theater, The Barre Opera House, Kingdom County Productions (The Voices Project Tour), Ryno Fest, The Northeast Kingdom Music Festival, and toured extensively as both a performer and lighting technician. Cavan is founder of The Parker Pie Company and the Village Hall barn stage in West Glover.
Daryl Seitchik is a cartoonist and teacher. She is the author of the Eisner-nominated graphic novel Exits (Koyama Press, 2016) and the ongoing semi-autobiographical comics series Missy, which was recently published in The New Yorker. Her most recent book, Now and Other Dreams (Fieldmouse Press, 2022) collects surreal short story comics made over the last ten years. Daryl teaches comics workshops at schools, libraries, and museums throughout New England. She has two adorable cats and co-runs the micropress Parsifal Press with her partner in Vermont.
Ruth is a fiber artist based in Brattleboro, Vermont. Ruth sculpts at the intersection of craft, domesticity, and feminism, using secondhand fabrics and repurposed fluff. Her work has been shown all over Vermont and as far away as California. She is primarily self-taught and laughs really loud.
Buzz Slutzky (they/them) is a non-binary/transgender and Jewish multidisciplinary artist, educator, writer, filmmaker, and performer based in Brooklyn, New York. They have taught visual art and filmmaking at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), The New School, School of Visual Arts (SVA), SUNY Purchase, and worked as an educator at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art. Buzz is currently working on drawings, paintings, and short films about gender, clothing, objects, as well as writing a TV show pilot about artists.
Former Poet Laureate of Belfast, Maine, and 2024 nominee for the Poet Laureateship of Vermont, poet, bass clarinetist, and composer Toussaint St. Negritude conjures whole liberations in full tempo. US Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks described his work as “full of sweet sounds and surprises.” Originally from San Francisco, Toussaint has lived and broadly thrived across the African Diaspora, from the sacred mountains of Haiti, to the Coltrane District of North Philadelphia. He, along with bassist Gahlord Dewald, is the leader of the band Jaguar Stereo!, a free-form ensemble of his own poetry and improvisational jazz, and his works have been widely published and recorded for over 40 years. On an alpine sanctuary facing east, Toussaint St. Negritude continues to thrive in the farthest elevations of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.
Shani Stoddard is a performing artist, choreographer, and educator from Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. He studied Dance and Musical Theater at The American Musical & Dramatic Academy in New York City, and he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Studies from Vermont State University (formerly, Johnson State College) in Johnson, Vermont. Shani’s artistic vision is rooted in the celebration of movement and bold narrative storytelling. Shani lives in Stannard, Vermont with his husband and their 3 dogs.
Storm is an intensely creative and rigorous thinker. A multi-hyphenate drummer, writer, composer, and educator; Storm has been combining music, theater, and social justice theory single-mindedly and is sought out not just as a skilled maker but as a teacher, dramaturg, and consultant on intersectional thought in the musical theater form. Storm writes musicals: Notes on the Past (Trans Theater Fest), Ancient Future (Polyphone Festival), and Be Like Bone (in progress). Storm is a co-founder of Theater, But Dance. Storm is currently an adjunct faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College teaching. Past teaching experience includes: University of the Arts (Black Musical Theatre, New Musical Theater Lab), NYU Tisch Theater Studies (Queer Musical Theater, History of Musical Theater), Playwrights Downtown (Music for Performance), Theater of the Oppressed NYC, Completely Ridiculous Productions (Anti-Racist Musical Theater). Awards and accolades: New Visions Fellowship Finalist, Baltimore Center Stage finishing commission, NYSCA Grant Recipient FY2022. Storm is black and trans. Education: MFA in Theatre, Sarah Lawrence College.
Emily C. Billado’s entire personality is based on her love of three things: art, warm beverages, and Vermont. Born and raised in Castleton, she left for the big city (Washington D.C.) for 5 years, but she eventually had to follow the call of New England’s mountains and relocated closer to home in Western Massachusetts. With a background in musical theatre, costume design, and art history, she loves to take an interdisciplinary approach to art and loves the challenge of a new medium. By day, she works as the project manager and marketing coordinator for a Vermont-based skincare company. But when she isn’t working, she can be found exploring museums, taking deep breaths of fresh air, making music, making herself laugh, sewing, researching niche historical topics, and generally frolicking. She was first introduced to the magic of GIA as a student in 2011 and always considers it the highlight of her year to spend time learning from and being inspired by our amazing young artists.
Manda recently graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, where she specialized in environmental and animal law. Before that, she received a degree in environmental anthropology from Binghamton University. Currently, she works as a staff attorney for a non-profit that represents low and moderate-income Brooklyn residents in housing court and works to preserve affordable housing. Outside of work, she loves to read, do yoga, go on long walks, play board games, craft, bake, and crochet. She has recently ventured into crocheting clothing…with varying results. GIA is one of her favorite places in the world, and she cannot wait to return.
Bio coming soon!
Bio coming soon!
Sam returns to GIA as a seventh year RA! A GIA participant herself in 2010, Sam was a student at The Sharon Academy where she participated regularly in the performing arts, especially theatre. She was a member of the Get Thee to the Funnery summer Shakespeare ensemble in Chelsea for many a moon! She went on to attend Beloit College in Wisconsin, where she expanded upon her experience with sketch comedy, writing for performance, dance, a capella, poetry, and more! In addition to being a fan of the arts and community building, Sam is also a globetrotter, having lived in five states and three countries. She has lived in Chicago, IL for a little over two years now, and spent her time back in the states attending a TON of concerts and music shows! Sam loves building relationships, coaching others and leading with empathy, which she does every day (in Spanish!) as a Customer Support Team Lead for a multinational tech company. She cannot wait to meet and grow with this year’s fabulous artists!
Gabe is a music producer, composer, and drummer currently based in Burlington, VT. He grew up in Woodstock, Vermont where he was introduced to music production and recording by his high school band instructor. After graduating high school he went on to study Music Business and Technology as well as Spanish at the University of Vermont. At UVM he continued producing and recording music, collaborating with other students, and playing drums in his band, Armanodillo. Having just graduated college, he is eager to make his way into the professional world of music, community building, and education. In his free time Gabe loves to play chess, soccer, tennis, and snowboard!
Bio coming soon!
Maya is an artist and arts educator in Boston, Massachusetts. She graduated from Oberlin college with a studio art & psychology double major, and a computer science minor. As an artist, Maya has run the gambit of mediums, and particularly loves printmaking, drawings, and painting. She currently assists with a teen program at the Eliot School in Jamaica Plain. Outside of work she loves to play with friends, her dog, reading, & being outside.
Sam is so excited to become a part of the wonderful GIV community. She feels blessed for the opportunity to be surrounded by such passionate, creative individuals.
Robyn is an artist, teacher, and community organizer based in Troy, NY. After attending GIA in 2015, they found a true love to pursue a career in the arts. They graduated with a BFA in oil painting from the University of New York in New Paltz, and explore the surrealist and darkly humorous with themes of selfhood and consumption in their work. Now, they work in a collective of artists to bring a love of art and community to the Hudson Valley. In their free time, Robyn can be found rock climbing, roller skating, knitting, making jewelry, and spending time with their friends and family. They cannot wait to return to Vermont to meet the emerging young artists and cultivate the passion they found at GIA.
Evan hails from Alexandria, VA, and now lives in the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C. Coming from a background of photography including advertising, portraiture, and photojournalism, he loves blending creative images with informational context or to raise audience awareness. When not with a camera he can be found on the ultimate frisbee field, marking new restaurants off his list, or following esports tournaments (NA Team Liquid & EU Fnatic are his favorite teams right now.) He enjoys embracing new technologies like AI, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality and dabbles in coding as needed for creative endeavors. Evan is currently working at Visit Alexandria doing Digital Content with a focus on running and maintaining their website.
Bio coming soon!
Hannah attended the Governor’s Institute on the Arts in 2014 and is thrilled to be back as an RA. She is a writer and basket weaver originally from Winooski, VT. She now lives in Rhode Island with her fiancé and two cats.
Brittney comes to you from Burlington, VT. As a performing artist, she found her love of creation and exploration as a GIA student in 2014. She studied Theater at Northern Vermont University – Johnson, where she focused on Acting and Directing. During that time, she found a love for fusing artistic expression with activism and self-awareness. She currently works with a non-profit production company called Grimm’s Domain, where they create spaces for QTBIPOC and disabled performers and artists to explore their crafts in safe community spaces. As of late, when not auditioning, performing or producing shows, she can be found making music in her duo group B.O.K., streaming online, and playing in a field with her dog Nova. She truly enjoys the conversations and connections to be made when sharing and creating art with her peers and she is excited to get the chance to do that with you all at GIA this summer!
Ellett a choreographer and dancer passionate about exploring emotions through movement. She holds a BS in Psychological Science and a BA in Dance from the University of Vermont on a Pre-Dental track. Ellett has been dancing since 2004, starting with tap, jazz, and ballet before transitioning to contemporary and modern dance in 2014. In college, she focused on Bollywood fusion and hip-hop as well at deepening an understanding of contemporary dance.
Since 2020, Ellett has choreographed pieces in modern/contemporary and Bollywood fusion styles, believing that “There is always another story, and another, and another.” Ellett aims to inspire audiences to discover new perspectives through my work, which has been showcased at events including class or club showcases, Lunar New Year, Holi, Diwali, the Fleming Museum, dance composition showcases, senior capstone presentations, and online publications. I’m also passionate about integrating multimedia elements like film, projections, photography, musical composition and poetry into my performances.
Cas is a community-oriented creative, writer, and photographer drawn to the absurd, the human, and the magic in-between. Since graduating from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in Film & TV Production and Screenwriting, she has worked on film and tv sets in costume and art, and as a grassroots canvasser on campaigns to decentralize car infrastructure and create more sustainable housing in Los Angeles, her current home. She is passionate about body justice, context, random objects on the street, and her community and strives to create spaces and art that encourage us to pay heed to the details and lean into wonder. Having grown up in the Green Mountain State, she’s got nature in her bones and takes care to be a steward of the land even in the concrete jungle. When not on a film set she can be found reading poetry, head banging at a local show, attempting to make her friends (read: herself) laugh, spending all her money on point-and-shoot film, or at her local park with her feet in the stream. She is a 2016 GIA alum and returning to the institute as an RA fulfills a long time dream of hers – she can’t wait to reconnect with the community and cultivate hope in Vermont’s young artists.
Aja is a filmmaker currently living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. After growing up in the woods of Southern VT and attending GIA as a student many moons ago; Aja followed his passion for filmmaking to Syracuse University where he received a BFA in Film, and to FAMU international in Prague in the Czech Republic where he studied 35mm. Between smaller and more personal artistic endeavors, Aja works full time as a set lighting technician on feature films; from tasteless comedies for streamers, to indie award show darlings, to big marvel blockbusters. After finishing principal photography on Black Panther 2 in 2022, Aja moved on to his first ever self-produced feature film that was shot right here in Vermont in the fall, alongside many artistic collaborators from GIA and beyond. Aside from trying to avoid burnout on Captain America 4 and a yet to be released SNL Biopic all last year; he also loves to watch movies of any kind (ideally on the big screen), binge-read fantasy and sci-fi, listen to music that sounds like breaking machinery, ride his onewheel and have a nice cup of PG tips English tea. He truly cannot wait to spend the summer returning to his roots and helping to try and pass on the artistic passion to young artists in his home state of VT.
Kaelan Selbach is a filmmaker currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. After Growing up in the woods of Southern VT and attending GIA as a student many moons ago; Kaelan followed his passion for filmmaking to Syracuse University where he received a BFA in Film, and to FAMU international in Prague in the Czech Republic where he studied 35mm. Between smaller and more personal artistic endeavors, Kaelan works full time as a set lighting technician on feature films and TV, currently on Law & Order. Aside from his work he also loves to watch movies of any kind, binge read fantasy and sci-fi, listen to music that sounds like breaking machinery, eat donuts and have a nice cup of PG tips English tea. He truly cannot wait to spend the summer returning to his roots and helping to try and pass on the artistic passion to young artists in his home state of VT.
Mo Singletary is a creator, collaborator, and artist from Boston, Massachusetts. After graduating high school, Mo ventured out of the city to attend Oberlin College in Ohio where they studied Environmental Studies and Africana Studies. They chose this combination of majors because they are particularly passionate about community organizing in relation to environmental & food justice. Mo strongly believes in the power of learning, growing, healing, and creating in community. Although they are interested in all types of artistic & creative endeavors, they are particularly drawn to the potential for healing and liberation that the act of storytelling through art can offer. Mo would describe themselves as a freedom dreamer, avid gardener, and lover of the moon, sun, stars, ocean, and all things green. They find peace and joy in nature, building connections, movement, cloud-watching, cooking, and dreaming up a future that centers community, creativity, healing, mutual-aid work, & Black agrarianism. Mo is so very excited to be a part of the GIA team this summer!
Isa West is a multimedia artist, designer, and educator passionate about sustainability and creative place-keeping. With a background in sculpture, community engagement, and repurposing found materials, Isa specializes in creating functional and inspiring spaces. She has years of experience teaching and organizing arts programming, encouraging students to explore their creativity through hands-on making. Isa is thrilled to join GIV this summer and looks forward to creating with young artists!
Martha was a school nurse in Central VT for 23 years until moving to the coast of Maine in 2019. During the Covid pandemic she worked for the Maine Dept. of Education helping schools manage their infections. Martha is also a psychiatric nurse and works remotely for the VT Department of Mental Health. She has been involved with the Governors Institute for over 15 years and loves working at GIA because it is two fantastic weeks of art, music, theater, dance – and really happy, creative students and staff!
Bio coming soon!
Bio coming soon!
