Germán Jaramillo

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Born in Colombia, he co-founded the Teatro Libre and its School of Acting, where he worked as resident actor, director and producer for almost 30 years. In August 2001 he moved to New York and founded ID Studio Theater Performance and Research Center, where as Artistic Director he has directed and produced 15 plays over the course of 17 years.

He has worked in over a dozen of films, notable among them Our Lady of the Assassins by Barbet Schroeder (2000), for which he received the Gold Medal of the Senate in the Venice Film Festival. He works at Repertorio Español in New York City and he has been awarded the three most prestigious prizes in for Best Actor in Hispanic Theater in the USA: ACE (Asociación de Cronistas del Espectáculo), ATI, and HOLA.G

Sandie Luna

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Sandie Luna brings her personal experiences as an immigrant and professional experiences as an educator and entrepreneur to her role as Executive Director at ID Studio Theater where she is focused on the execution of the organization's mission to empower immigrant communities through the performing arts.

A self-described "non-solo artist" Sandie Luna was born in Dominican Republic and moved to the U.S. as a teenager. She attended Florida State University where she studied sociology and theater. Her experiences straddling cultures as an Afro-Latinx immigrant have deeply impacted her artistic and professional projects. In 2006, Sandie co-founded Nettles Artists Collective, an award winning, Latina-run, NYC-based artists collective. In response to the lack of affordable, modern spaces to create work in NYC, in 2014 Sandie co-founded Punto Space in midtown Manhattan. During its five year existence, Punto Space provided unwavering support and community to emerging artists, particularly those from underserved communities. Sandie has taught at Stella Adler Studio and is a Lecturer at SUNY, New Paltz’ Theater Arts department, with a focus on Latin America through the arts. She currently lives, works and dreams in the Bronx.

Nelson Celis

VISITING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Nelson holds a B.A. in Dramatic Arts from the Universidad Central in Bogota, Colombia. In 1998 he joined el Teatro Libre as an actor and director where he participated in more than 25 productions for more than 14 years. He taught at the drama school of the Teatro Libre and at the Universidad Central program of drama and performance. Nelson is also the founder and Artistic director of Compañía Nacional de las Artes. In 2015 he was invited by ID Studio to direct Maxima Seguridad (Maximum Security) by Piedad Bonnett, performed at the Theater for the New City in New York, and In 2016 directed Arturo el Niño (Arthur the Kid), a children’s play inaugurating ID Studio Theater’s new home in Mott Haven, Bronx. He starred in the summer production El cielo y el dolor, under the direction of Germán Jaramillo in 2018, for which he received an HOLA award.

Linn Cary Mehta

CHAIRPERSON

Linn Cary Mehta has taught at Columbia, Yale, Vassar, and Barnard College and NYU, and worked in Education and Culture at the Ford Foundation. She has studied and taught twentieth-century poetry in English, Spanish, and French; her work concerns the interaction of literature and development, especially in the Americas, during the 20th century. In 2015 she published Poetry and Politics of Decolonization: Tagore, Yeats, Senghor, Césaire, and Neruda. Her involvement with immigrant cultures in New York has led her to serve on the boards of Goddard-Riverside Community Center, the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, and ID Studio Theater Performance and Research Center, for which she has adapted and translated several plays.

Lucía della Paolera

DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

Lucia della Paolera was born in Brooklyn and currently lives and works in the South Bronx. In January 2015 she joined ID Studio Theater with her translation from Spanish to English of Máxima Seguridad (Maximum Security) by Piedad Bonnett, which premiered in New York and later toured in Colombia. 

She is the Project Director of Mott Haven Home Movies: South Bronx Cribs video workshop project, in collaboration with BronxArtSpace. At ID Studio she also assists with community outreach, publicity, project development and grant-writing. She has a bachelors degree in English and Music from the University of Pennsylvania (2010).

Daniel Fetecua

RESIDENT CHOREOGRAPHER

Daniel Fetecua is founder of Daniel Fetecua Productions, an organization based in NYC under the roof of iD Studio Theater. It promotes and supports dance through its two companies: Pajarillo Pinta’o, a dance company that preserves and promotes the Colombian traditional dances, through performances, workshops & classes, and D-Moves, a contemporary dance project that combines Colombian traditions, modern dance, and German TanzTheater.

Mr. Fetecua is a master teacher of the Limon technique, reconstructor of Limon's repertory, faculty member of the Limon Institute and founder member of Limon4Kids program. Collaborations and educational projects include Cumbia for Kids/Cumbia for All, DanSure/DanSouth, and Amalgama Project Dance and Music.

Daniel Fetecua Productions is the producer of Latitudes Dance Festival, a new NYC-based platform to promote and present Latin American companies and choreographers, as well as Native companies around the world.