New Faculty - Fine Arts

Julie Anand
Assistant Professor, School of Art
Julie Anand received her master of fine arts degree from the University of New Mexico, a graduate program ranked number two by U.S. News & World Report. An interdisciplinary thinker, Ms. Anand received a Bachelor of Science degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Arizona, where she received a National Science Foundation grant for undergraduate research. Having replaced the burden of proof with the celebration of subjectivity, Ms. Anand’s mixed-media and photographic art works draw on the ecological principle of interdependency. She questions conventional boundaries, including the one between bodies and their environments. Her work often uses history-rich materials like wood, soil, and water to speak to the unity of all things through the cycles of matter. Lately she has been wondering if an adobe brick might act epistemologically like a photograph.

Becky Dyer
Assistant Professor, Department of Dance
Becky Dyer is a doctoral candidate (A.B.D.) in dance philosophy at Texas Woman’s University with a research emphasis in dance pedagogy. She holds an M.F.A. in dance from Texas Woman’s University with an emphasis in performance and choreography, a M.S. in dance from the University of Oregon with an emphasis in choreography and dance science, and a B.A. in dance performance and choreography from Brigham Young University. She previously taught at the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Northern Colorado, Texas Woman’s University, Utah Valley State College, Brigham Young University, and Lane Community College. Ms. Dyer is a certified Laban-Bartenieff Movement Analyst and holds a secondary dance education certification from the state of Utah where she taught in the public high schools for four years and helped to develop and teach in after school community arts programs. She has served as a resident artist and guest choreographer for elementary and secondary schools throughout Utah, Oregon, Texas and Colorado. She remains active as a choreographer for local professional and educational venues and is involved in the development and mentorship of K-12 and community dance programs, performance and teaching events in the schools, and teacher mentorship.

Angela Ellsworth
Assistant Professor, Department of Intermedia
Angela Ellsworth received her M.F.A. from Rutgers University with a specialization in painting and performance art. She has served on the faculties of California State University at Dominquez Hills and Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, Italy. Grants and fellowships she has received include Visual and Media Arts Fellowship from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Surdna Art Teachers Fellowship from the Surdna Foundation, Contemporary Forum Materials Grant, Art Matters, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, New Forms Regional Grant from The Painted Bride Art Center, New Forms Regional Initiative Grant from DiverseWorks and Mexi-Arte through The Andy Warhol Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation. Ms. Ellsworth’s community-based project, Hemaderby, is included in a forthcoming book by Petra Kuppers entitled Bodily Fantasies: Medical Visions/Medical Performances scheduled for publication by the University of Minnesota Press in 2006.

Carole FitzPatrick
Assistant Professor, Department of Music
Carole FitzPatrick received her B.A. from the University of Texas and two M.A. degrees from Yale, then moved to Europe in 1988. After engagements in Dortmund and Osnabrück, Germany, she joined the ensemble of the State Theater in Nuremberg. Her extensive opera repertoire during her 17 years there includes Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Strauss, and Wagner, having sung over 50 major roles in German opera houses, including Hannover, Mannheim , Duesseldorf, and Berlin. Her concert work has been extensive as well, including concert tours in France and Spain, and performances in Finland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Luxemburg, and Russia. Since its inception, Ms. FitzPatrick has been a vocal advisor for the Nuremberg State Theater’s Opera Studio for Young Singers, giving both master classes and private voice lessons to the participants. She was selected by the City of Osnabrück as Citizen of the Year and was named by the professional magazine OpernWelt as one of its Singer of the Year candidates.

Shouze Ma
Associate Professor, Department of Dance
Shouze Ma joins the faculty from Elon University in North Carolina, where he was an assistant professor and director of the dance program. Mr. Ma earned his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. He was a founding member of Guangdong Modern Dance Company, the first modern dance company in China. He taught and performed internationally in France, the United Kingdom, Korea, Hong Kong, India, the United States, and China. His choreography received enthusiastic critical praise at numerous international festivals such as the American Dance Festival, international dance competitions in Paris and Japan, the India International Dance Festival, and the Beijing International Dance Festival. Mr. Ma is also the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from the Walker Arts Center, State Arts Minnesota, and the Jerome Foundation. His performance and choreography has been praised as “an intensity so strong that it seemed at a breaking point.” by The New York Times. Currently, Mr. Ma is an associate professor in the Department of Dance at ASU.

Becky I. McDonah
Assistant Professor, School of Art
Ms. McDonah joins the faculty in the School of Art after serving four years as visiting professor in the Metals/Jewelry Department at Bowling Green State University . Ms. McDonah earned her M.F.A. degree from ASU in 2000. She transforms the idea of historical reliquaries from containers for sacred objects into forms that elevate the ordinary. Other aspects of her work comment on presentation and service. Her work has been shown throughout the United States in galleries and museums including the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Butler Institute of American Art in Ohio. Ms. McDonah’s research has also inspired guest lecturer invitations at a number of institutions including Northern Michigan University, University of Minnesot , Morris, and the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit.

Jeff McMahon
Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre
Mr. McMahon earned an M.F.A. from the Writing Program in the School of the Arts, Columbia University, in 1998. He received his B.A. from Empire State College/State University of New York in 1995 with a specialization in interdisciplinary theatre. Based in New York since 1979, Mr. McMahon wrote and performed more than 26 text/movement/media performance pieces throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, receiving eight fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and funding from the New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Monette/Horwitz Trust. He has taught theatre and performance art as an adjunct professor at Kutztown University, Art Center College, Cal Arts, Otis Art Institute, the Center for New Dance Development ( Netherlands ), and the Instituto Superior de Arte (Cuba ). His essays have been published in Culture Wars (New Press), Poor Dancer's Almanac (Duke University), Contact Quarterly, PAJ/Performing Arts Journal, City Limits, New York Blade News, Teaching Tolerance, The Threepenny Review, Movement Research, The New England Review, and The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide. He chaired and/or presented for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, College Art Association, Performance Studies International, Modern Language Association, Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.

Antonio Ocampo-Guzman
Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre
Mr. Ocampo-Guzman earned an M.F.A. in directing and a diploma in voice at York University, Toronto, having first trained as an actor with the Teatro Libre in his native Bogota, Colombia. He spent three years as an actor, director, teacher, and artist manager with Shakespeare & Company, in Lenox , Massachusetts. After training with master teacher Kristin Linklater, Mr. Ocampo-Guzman spent six years as artist-in-residence at Emerson College, Boston. Prior to joining ASU, he was on the faculty at the School of Theatre at Florida State University. He has also worked at the FSU/Asolo Theatre Conservatory, Boston College, Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern, Concord Players, Hampshire Shakespeare Company, New Theatre Conservatory, Exiles Theater (Ireland), the Canadian National Voice Intensive (Vancouver), FSU-Republic of Panama, and recently participated in the 1st International Festival of Makers of Theatre in Athens (Greece). His article on the bilingual teaching of Shakespeare appears this fall in the Voice and Speech Review. Both his research and his creative activities center around multilingual and international theatre. He recently directed his own bilingual adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, and is preparing to direct “Taking Leave” by M.F.A. candidate Greg Farber, as part of the New Works Festival at ASU.

Jacob Pinholster
Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre
Affiliate Faculty Member, Arts, Media and Engineering
Mr. Pinholster received his Master of Fine Arts in theatre from the University of Florida, with a specialization in scenic and lighting design. Prior to coming to ASU he was working professionally as a scenic and media designer in New York City Off-, Off-Off- and on Broadway with numerous acclaimed productions, with an emphasis on innovative and experimental work. His research and creative efforts at ASU include developing educational programs for entertainment design and media, new technologies and methodologies for incorporating media into performance, and experimentation with flexible staging environments. He is a member of the Obie and Garland Award-winning theatre group Les Freres Corbusier and was recently nominated for a Hewes Design Award by the American Theatre Wing for his design of their work Boozy: The Life, Death and Subsequent Vilification of Le Corbusier and, More Importantly, Robert Moses.

Catalin Rotaru
Associate Professor, School of Music
Mr. Rotaru joined the School of Music at ASU in 2005. He is a licentiate of the National University of Music in Bucharest, Romania, and holds a master’s degree in performance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Previously he was associate professor of double bass and jazz studies at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, and taught at Millikin University and the University of Illinois . He served as associate principal bass in the Romanian National Radio Orchestra, principal bass in the Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra of Bucharest, Danville Symphony Orchestra, Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, associate principal and principal bass in Sinfonia Da Camera, and principal bass of the Orchestra Sinfonica Europea. Mr. Rotaru performs extensively as soloist in recitals and with symphony orchestras throughout the United States and abroad, and offers numerous clinics and master classes. He received the second prize at the 1997 International Society of Bassists Competition and the Jury’s Special Award for the best performance of the required piece at that competition. He was the winner of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts Debut Recital Award in 1997, and received the Central Illinois Chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters Award in 1996.