Jessica Robinson Love
Executive & Artistic Director

Jessica Robinson Love has served CounterPULSE for twelve years. During that time, she has ushered CounterPULSE through a merger and relocation, expanding the organization’s budget ten-fold during her tenure as director. She designed and implemented CounterPULSE’s successful Artist in Residence program, and has curated dozens of performances and workshops. She has also served as guest curator for organizations such as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the San Francisco International Arts Festival.

Jessica is a writer, performer and political activist and her dance writing has been published in In Dance and on CriticalDance.com. She has worked in administration, production, and publicity for artists and arts organizations including Jess Curtis, Keith Hennessy / Circo Zero, Dance Through Time, and the Erika Shuch Performance (ESP) Project.

Jessica served as adjunct faculty member at the New College of California where she has designed and implemented courses including “Activist Arts Synthesis”, “Arts Administration and Cultural Organizing” and “20th Century US History through the Arts.” During her tenure on the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee she was responsible for curating and co-producing the annual Bay Area Dance Awards. She has served on the steering committee for San Francisco Arts Forum, the Theatre Bay Area Theatre Services Committee, the Dance/USA Emerging Leader Task Force, and the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Alternate ROOTS, a service and granting organization for community-based artists in the Southeastern United States. She has been the recipient of awards and scholarships from Dance/USA and the Bill T. Shannon Leadership Institute, and was the inaugural recipient of the Bay Area Dancers’ Choice Award for her service to the dance community, and she recently served as part of the US delegation to the International Tanzmesse in Germany.

---

Jaclyn Anku

Front of House Manager & Operations Associate

Jaclyn is thrilled to bring her love of hospitality, art and community to the position of Front of House Manager. She    graduated with her B.A. in Art History from San Francisco State University and followed her passion for contemporary and African art to Ghana, London and now back to San Francisco. Jaclyn loves losing herself in a good book, finding new coffee shops, experimenting with recipes and enjoying the company of friends.

---

Kat Cole
Development Associate

Originally from Honolulu, Kat discovered dance while attending the University of San Francisco, receiving her BA in Creative Writing and minors in Dance and Performing Arts.  While attending USF she had the pleasure of working with Amie Dowling, Eli Nelson, Katie Faulkner, Kelly Kemp, Natalie Greene, and the Dance Generators.  She serves as the Co-Artistic Director for detour dance, dances with number 9 dance and collaborates with The Collage Theater.  Through her creative endeavors, she explores the written word, the body in motion, and the narratives that weave these forms together.

 

---

Mariana Olvera Pelayo
Production Manager

Mariana is ecstatic to be joining the CounterPULSE team as the Production Manager. It has been her dream to have a space to call her own, and she could not imagine finding a better home than CounterPULSE. She recently completed her B.A. in Theater Arts and Mass Communication Design from CSU, Chico, where she found theater for the first time. She remains a child at heart and in practice, experiencing everything for the first time, rising ‘early’ for Saturday morning cartoons, and in a constant search for the best squishy ball. Returning to the bay area after a brief stint in Northern California nature, she is in constant awe at the beauty of the city, its residents, and the community which grows within.

---

Julie E. Phelps
Program Director

Julie joined the CounterPULSE staff in July of 2008. She was born in a small town with the Mississippi River running through. She studies/contemplates/practices performance, holds a BA in psychology from Macalester (MN), and now lives on a ranch in Sonoma.  She has studied with Sara Shelton Mann and Keith Hennessy – serving as provocateur for Hennessy’s new work Turbulence. She works as a performer, curator, and producer: director of Too Much! a queer marathon; co-founder/member of THEOFFCENTER; member of Jesse Hewit’s Strong Behavior; and has performed in Meg Stewart’s Auf Den Tisch. Julie has a strange tendency to be fiercely in-between, refusing singular personal functions/roles by preserving an intentional imprecision and multi-missioned agenda.

---

Shamsher Virk
Communications and Community Relations Manager

Shamsher Virk comes to CounterPULSE with a dedication to performance as a language and tool for collaborative community-based arts. As Communications & Community Relations Manager, he connects CounterPULSE to our neighbors, our city, our media, and our wider community in cyberspace. Prior to CounterPULSE, Shamsher worked as Operations Manager with Joanna Haigood’s site-specific performance company, Zaccho Dance Theatre. Shamsher graduated from College of the Atlantic in 2007 with a B.A. in Human Ecology, a course of study that immersed him in interdisciplinary communication arts and social research methodology. Shamsher’s experience in the non-profit world includes documentary video production work with Interlock Media in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and administrative work with the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth, Wales.