Joffrey Ballet Welcomes Brendan Fernandes and Farissa Knox to its Board of Directors

Anne Kaplan, Joffrey Board Chair, and Greg Cameron, President and CEO of The Joffrey Ballet, have announced the appointment of Brendan Fernandes and Farissa Knox to the Joffrey Board of Directors, effective immediately, for the 2021-2024 term. Fernandes and Knox have served the Joffrey in various capacities and hold extensive backgrounds in marketing, documentary filmmaking, dance education, and visual arts. Fernandes, currently artist-in-residence in the Department of Art, Theory and Practice at Northwestern University, has been an active member of the Joffrey's Academy Committee since 2017, creating numerous live performance opportunities for young dancers. In July 2020, Knox, author, producer and founder of the Chicago-based advertising agency RLM Media, was named the Second Vice President and Membership Co-Chair of the Joffrey Women's Board. Knox also serves on the Joffrey's Community Engagement Committee and has played a crucial role spearheading the Joffrey's ongoing Crisis Stabilization Fund during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We are overjoyed to welcome Brendan and Farissa to their new roles and look forward to working more closely together," said Kaplan. "Their skills and passion for dance, dance education, and the cultural arts will be invaluable to the Board and the Joffrey's ongoing effort to bring dance to local, national, and international audiences."

"With their immense talents, Brendan and Farissa have taken on numerous roles over the last several years to help the Joffrey reach its full potential in all areas of the organization-education, visibility, access," added Cameron. "They have a deep appreciation and love for the Joffrey, dance, and Chicago, which makes them ideal partners. We are thrilled to have them join the Board."

"As the chair of the Joffrey Board Governance and Nominating Committee, it is my privilege to lead the Joffrey's efforts in developing a board that cultivates mission, identifies member skill sets, represents the diversity of our hometown of Chicago, and ultimately recruits the best talent," added Joffrey Director James McDonough. "I join Anne and Greg in welcoming Farissa and Brendan's leadership commitment to the Joffrey at a time of extraordinary growth and transformation."

About The Joffrey Ballet's New Board Members

Brendan Fernandes

Brendan Fernandes is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based out of Chicago, Fernandes's projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest and other forms of collective movement. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency, Fernandes's projects take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance hall, part political protest...always rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity.

Fernandes is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007) and a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship (2014). In 2010, he was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, and is the recipient of a prestigious 2017 Canada Council New Chapters grant. Fernandes is also the recipient of the Artadia Award (2019), a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020) and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant (2019).

His projects have shown at the 2019 Whitney Biennial (New York); The MCA Chicago (Chicago); The Graham Foundation (Chicago); The DePaul Art Museum (Chicago); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); the Museum of Modern Art (New York); The Getty Museum (Los Angeles); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (Montreal); among a great many others. He is currently artist-in-residence in the Department of Art, Theory and Practice at Northwestern University and will take on the role of Assistant Professor this coming Fall. He is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago. Recent and upcoming projects include performances and solo presentations at the Noguchi Museum (New York); the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto); and the Museo De Arte São Paulo (São Paulo).

Farissa Knox

Farissa Knox joined the Joffrey Women's Board in spring 2019 and has since become the current 2nd Vice President and Membership Co-Chair on the Joffrey Women's Board and Co-Chair of the Crisis Stabilization Fund Committee. She has also served on the Joffrey Board of Directors Community Engagement Committee since 2018.

A native New Yorker, Knox relocated to Chicago in 2007 and founded RLM Media in 2008. RLM is a full-service advertising agency that specializes in integrated marketing communications and additionally uniquely services and works closely with other communication firms that do not have full-service capabilities in house. The key, niche client categories RLM specializes in are Politics, Health Care, Recruitment, Higher Education, Finance and Government contracts.

Additionally, Farissa founded WhatRUWearing Productions in 2012. The production house focuses on one off, series and cinematic video within the fashion, beauty, lifestyle and reality space, having created the original series, PRGirl, focusing on young women in major markets living and working in the world of fashion, beauty and lifestyle public relations. Farissa is the creator and Executive Producer of PRGirl available for streaming on Amazon.

Knox received her B.A. in Communications from Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia in 2003. She lives in Uptown/Buena Park with her husband, Lerry, and two daughters, Chloé and Isabelle.

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