John Oluwole ADEkoje
Summer Film at BAA, Artistic Director
John Oluwole ADEkoje is a graduate of Humboldt State University with a MFA in dramatic writing and an MA in film production. He is national award winner of the Kennedy Center: ACTF-Lorraine Hansberry playwriting award for the play Streethawker as well as the 2006 Roxbury Film Festival’s Award for Emerging local Filmmaker for the documentary Street Soldiers, which shown at Le Festival du Film Panafricain (Cannes) and Festival des Films du Monde (Montréal).
Most recently John was the winner of the National Tri Annual New Play Competition for Professional Writers and has received the Brother Thomas Fellowship Award for Streethawker. His short play Love Jones was produced at the Boston Fringe Festival- Company One, Boston Theatre Marathon, and was the winner of the Strawberry One Act Festival in Hollywood. Company One has also produced a full-length mounting of his play, 6 Rounds/6 Lessons at the Boston Center For The Arts; he most recently made his acting debut in Company One’s production of The Overwhelming by, J.T. Rogers. John is a Playwright-In-Residence at Company One, an Artist in Residence at UMASS Boston, and an Affiliate Artist at the Providence Black Repertory Company. He is ecstatic to be teaching at BAA.
Adriane Brayton
Summer at BAA, Program Manager
An Alum of Boston Arts Academy, Adriane Brayton, began dancing at a young age. After graduating in 2011 with BAs in Biological Sciences and Dance from Connecticut College, Adriane moved to Boston to follow her passion for dance and choreography. Adriane joined the Boston Arts Academy team in 2012 as The Program Coordinator for the Center for Arts in Education. She recently became a Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT) and is currently a second year guest artist for the Expansive Meanings and Makings in Art Science Project for the TERC Organization. Adriane has choreographed several works for the Boston Arts Academy including RENT, and Collective Melodies in Fragments for the theater and dance departments. Her arts management experience includes program and dance management, event planning, and fundraising/development. In addition to joining the Center, she works part time as the Managing Director for Anna Myer and Dancers, a Cambridge based dance company. Adriane is passionate about arts education and extremely excited to work at Summer at BAA!
Dr. Nettrice Gaskins
Summer STEAM at BAA, Artistic Director
Dr. Gaskins received a BFA in Computer Graphics with Honors from Pratt Institute in 1992 and a MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1994. She worked for several years in K-12 and post-secondary education, community media and technology before enrolling at Georgia Institute of Technology where she received a doctorate in Digital Media in 2014.
Dr. Gaskin’s model for ‘techno-vernacular creativity’ is an area of practice that investigates the characteristics of cultural art and technology made by under-represented ethnic groups for their own entertainment and creative expression and its application in STEAM learning. She has worked as a teaching artist for the Boston 100K Artscience Innovation Prize; and was a youth media/technology trainer for Adobe Youth Voices. She served as Board President of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture and is on the board of the Community Technology Centers Network (CTCNet).
Dr. Gaskins was a Digital STEAM research intern at the Smithsonian Institution (2013) and received funding from the National Science Foundation for Advancing STEM Through Culturally Situated Arts-Based Learning (2014). Dr. Gaskins recently presented a talk at the Fenway Alliance’s Third Annual TEDxFenway event (May 2015), titled The Future is STEAM-y, But What About Inclusion? She encouraged the audience to think deeply about STEAM, how the arts and STEM are interconnected, and why it is imperative that the STEM/STEAM world includes people from underrepresented communities.
In October 2014, BAA opened the STEAM Lab, the first of its kind in an urban public arts high school. Dr.Gaskins has engaged faculty and students across academic and arts departments that in project-based learning that includes physical computing, communication technology, and digital and media arts, among many others. The STEAM Lab is motivating students to reevaluate academic subjects that they may have otherwise dismissed, or explore new areas that they never even considered. The STEAM Lab is also preparing BAA students for the types of careers that are available in the 21st century.
William McLaughlin
Summer Dance at BAA, Artistic Director
As a professional dancer, William has performed with Ace Entertainment, Impulse Dance Company, Concert Dance Company of Boston, Prometheus Dance Theater, Marcus Schulkind and Friends, Granite State Ballet, and Boston Dance Collective. During his time with these companies, he performed works choreographed by Fred Benjamin, Donald Byrd, Allen Collier, Adrienne Hawkins, Bebe Miller, Diane Noye, Christien Polos, Dwight Rhoden, Desmond Richardson and Randy Warshaw, to name a few. William has also appeared in, and or choreographed, live/video industrials for Trak Ski’s, Puma, Party Lite, EMC, and Dae Woo.
William is currently Dance Department Co-Chair at Boston Arts Academy, Boston’s only high school for the performing and visual arts. In addition to Boston Arts Academy, William has served on faculty at many of Boston’s most prestigious arts institutions including; Boston Ballet, The Boston Conservatory, Concord Academy’s Summer Stages, The Jeannette Neill Dance Studio, Needham Dance Theater, and The Walnut Hill School. As a guest artist, William has both taught and choreographed throughout the greater Boston Area. He has also served as both Co-Director and Artistic Director of Boston Dance Collective’s Summer Outreach Program, now known as the Boston University REACH Program. While on faculty at Boston Arts Academy, his choreography has been chosen for performance at the National High School Dance Festival’s Gala and has been presented at The Calhoun School New York, NY, Harvard School of Education and for the Harvard Strategic Data Project. In 2011, he was invited by Boston Superintendent Carol Johnson to present his work at The Great City Schools National Convention. As a choreographer, he has produced several works including a solo performance entitled Boogie Man. In 2008, he was awarded a SURDNA Artist Fellowship, during which he returned to Jacob’s Pillow for the fourth time, participating in the Choreographer’s Lab, directed by Celeste Miller and J.R. Glover. In 2012, William was a Mass Cultural Councils 2012 Artist Fellowship finalist. In 2014, William was the recipient of the Outstanding Educator Advocate Award in Dance, as part of the Arts/Learning Artful Stem Symposium. William received his BA from Cambridge College.
Duncan Remage-Healey
Center for Arts in Education, Executive Director
Boston Arts Academy Foundation, Interim Executive Director
Duncan joined BAA in 2010 as the Associate Director of the Foundation, helping the school to raise essential funds to support the arts, advance strategic partnerships, and develop innovative programs and opportunities, like the STEAM Lab, Alumni Creative Corps, Peers Educating Peers, and the Keys of Inspiration. He was named the Executive Director of the Center for Arts in Education in August 2013. Before focusing his energy on arts education and public education, he worked for over ten years in development and program management in affordable housing, homelessness, biological research, higher education, and public interest research. Prior to his work in the non-profit world, Duncan was the Director of Administration for a small environmental consulting firm while living in Berkeley, California. He earned both an MPA in Non-Profit Management and a BA in American Government and International Relations at Clark University. He is thrilled to be surrounded by the talent of Boston Arts Academy students and faculty on a daily basis, having toggled between music and theater most of his childhood and through high school.
Summer at BAA 