Martha Graham Dance Company Announces Women's Leadership Night, April 13

On Saturday, April 13, the Martha Graham Dance Company will present a Women's Leadership Program as part of The EVE Project and its Joyce Theater season. The EVE Project celebrates the power of women and the upcoming 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. It honors not only the progress of women in the last 100 years, but also provides entr e into some of today's most pressing conversations about gender and power.

The Women's Leadership Program will feature Martha Graham's Chronicle and Errand into the Maze, as well as Pam Tanowitz's Untitled (Souvenir). The evening will include a post-show chat celebrating women leaders and learnings from Women CEOs Speak a landmark study by Korn Ferry and The Rockefeller Foundation on focused strategies for the next generation of female executives and how companies can pave the road. For more information about the study, go to: https://engage.kornferry.com/womenceosspeak

Joining Graham Company Artistic Director Janet Eilber for the post-show chat are two Korn Ferry executives: Melanie Kusin, Vice Chair, Board, and CEO Services and Mary Elizabeth Sadd, Senior Client Partner.

Tickets range from $10 to $150 and can be purchased by calling JOYCECHARGE at 212-242-0800. For additional information about the Women's Leadership Night, call 212-229-9200 x 25.

The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street), in Manhattan. www.joyce.org

About the Guest Speakers

Based in Korn Ferry's New York Office, Melanie Kusin is Vice Chair, Board & CEO Services Practice. She leads CEO and advisory projects for retailers, restaurants, and other global consumer product and service businesses for Fortune 500 companies, privately held corporations and private equity firms. She also places board directors for major public corporations along with advising on CEO succession management.

Kusin is working on multiple fronts to champion global women's initiatives and has built a strong track record of placing women and diversity candidates in CEO and board roles. In addition to her search experience, Kusin has authored articles and research around CEO succession and CEO's relationships with their boards. She has been a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, and the Harvard Business Review.

Prior to joining Korn Ferry in 2010, Kusin was a Vice Chair at Heidrick & Struggles, where she also led the Global Consumer Practice. She began her career in account management at Ogilvy & Mather, managing assignments for global consumer companies. Kusin matriculated at Tulane University where she earned her BA in British Literature and a MBA.

A key member of Korn Ferry's global CEO Succession Practice, Mary Elizabeth Sadd has a long track record of work with CEOs, creating senior teams that successfully deliver on business strategy. During her 20 years in executive search, Sadd has successfully led many searches at the top level of organizations, including those for CEO, COO, CCO, president and GM roles. Clients have spanned the Fortune 500, as well as private, private equity, and venture-capital-backed companies, where she has advised on broad talent management strategies.

Sadd is particularly well known for her leadership and development work in the industrial and packaging sectors as well as leading the firm's Chief Commercial Officer's practice for the Industrial market. She also participated in Korn Ferry's landmark study of women's journeys to Fortune 1000 company leadership and on the Women CEOs Speak report, in partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation, and she presents on the insights and actionable applications to more effectively progress women in leadership.

Prior to joining Korn Ferry, Sadd was the President and CEO of Pinnacle Search Partners LLC, an executive search firm with a global scope, focused on CEO and other leadership positions in the industrial and packaging markets. In addition to her executive search and management succession and development work, Sadd has held leadership positions with GE Plastics and Mobil Chemical, Plastic Packaging Group, earlier in her career. Sadd has a bachelor's of business administration in international business from The University of Georgia, and is fluent in Spanish.

About Janet Eilber

Janet Eilber has been the Martha Graham Center's Artistic Director since 2005. Her direction has focused on creating new forms of audience access to the Martha Graham masterworks. These initiatives include designing contextual programming, educational and community partnerships, use of new media, and commissions and creative events such as the Lamentation Variations and Prelude and Revolt. In recent projects, she has created new arrangements of classic Graham choreography for such wide-ranging projects as the Martha Graham Google Doodle and the Italian theater production of Cercando Picasso starring Giorgio Albertazzi. Earlier in her career, as a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Eilber worked closely with Martha Graham. She danced many of Graham's greatest roles, had roles created for her by Graham, and was directed by Graham in most of the major roles of the repertory. She soloed at the White House, was partnered by Rudolf Nureyev, starred in three segments of Dance in America, and has since taught, lectured, and directed Graham ballets internationally. Apart from her work with Graham, Eilber has performed in films, on television, and on Broadway, directed by such greats as Agnes De Mille and Bob Fosse, and has received four Lester Horton Awards for her reconstruction and performance of seminal American modern dance. She has served as Director of Arts Education for the Dana Foundation, guiding the foundation's support for teaching artist training and contributing regularly to its arts education publications. Eilber is a Trustee Emerita of the Interlochen Center for the Arts. She is married to screenwriter/director John Warren, with whom she has two daughters, Madeline and Eva.

About Martha Graham Dance Company

The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the development of contemporary dance since its founding in 1926. Today, the Company is embracing a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists. With programs that unite the work of choreographers across time within a rich historical and thematic narrative, the Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences.

Since its inception, the Martha Graham Dance Company has received international acclaim from audiences in more than 50 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The Company has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House, Covent Garden, and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt and in the ancient Herod Atticus Theatre on the Acropolis in Athens. In addition, the Company has also produced several award-winning films broadcast on PBS and around the world.