dawn matsui liu
co-production Manager & operations team
Birthplace: San Francisco, CA
When/how did you begin working for EBT? I became EBT official earlier this year when I made the switch from ubiquitous backstage volunteer to co-production manager for Coppelia.
What are your main responsibilities/areas you are involved with? As co-production managers, Xandy and I do a lot planning and organizing behind the scenes to try to help rehearsals and performances run as smoothly as possible. Two of our favorite stress-relief strategies are overthinking and color-coding, so if you see lots of colorful signs around the studio, now you know why. I’ve also been helping build EBT’s school, which entails a lot of different responsibilities and has been exciting and inspiring!
What do you enjoy about your job and/or EBT? That’s an easy one—I love the people I work with. We have the best team of amazing people who are fun, kind, hilarious, and down-to-earth as well as incredibly dedicated and hard-working. We’re all working actively to make EBT an inclusive, warm, welcoming space for all dancers and their families. Every body can dance, after all (including maybe even mine someday, after enough adult classes with Ms. Erin).
What are you looking forward to this year? I’m looking forward to demonstrating EBT’s commitment to caring for all of our dancers; we may not all be potential award-winners or future professionals, but every dancer deserves a quality education and thoughtful individualized guidance. We are here to build a safe space for our dancers and staff to learn, make mistakes, and continue growing in dance as well as in life. I look forward to seeing our dancers graduate as well-rounded humans with self-efficacy—belief in their ability to act in the ways needed to complete tasks and achieve success.
Favorite hobbies/activities: My big hobby is aerial arts—I used to do flying trapeze as a teenager/young adult, and after a long break began learning lyra and hammock in my 40s. I think it’s particularly important as parents to find time for ourselves and to show our kids that we’re not afraid to make mistakes (I’m still working on this…) and continue learning new things in life.
Please feel free to add anything else here: I’m also a preschool paraeducator, so special education is near and dear to my heart.
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