Charleston Music Hall – OFFICIAL WEBSITE

COVID-19 POLICY

Please note The Charleston Music Hall will be requiring all fans to provide PRINTED proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours OR full COVID-19 vaccination for entry to all events at the venue starting September 5, 2021. More details available HERE. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.

PechaKucha

PechaKucha, Japanese for “chit chat,” is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (6 minutes and 40 seconds in total) keeping presentation concise, fast-paced, and powerful. Charleston Music Hall is proud to be the official venue and producer of PechaKucha Charleston. The Music Hall, with help from our collaborators and artist liaison Terry Fox, hopes to focus on developing a strong, interesting, and diverse presenter line up from an array of different artistic, creative, and entrepreneurial disciplines and encourage collaboration, communication, and support in Charleston’s creative community.

Jenny Broe and Mike Quinn – co-emcees

Professor Ping – DJ

Marie Stitt and Edward Crouse – Babas on Cannon

Andrea Serrano – Fashion Stylist, Producer, and Brand Architect

Zandrina Dunning – Powerhouse vocalist

Alexandra Seaman – Ecstatic Dance Charleston

Brian Porter – ED of Queen Street Playhouse, actor-performer

Andrew Wunderley – ED of Charleston Waterkeeper

Thetyka Robinson – ED of Enough Pie

Julia Deckman – Visual Artist and Creative Collaborator

Zandrina Dunning

Zandrina Dunning is a multi-genre vocalist and concert producer originally from Boston, Massachusetts. The Charleston area has been home for the creative since her early grade school beginnings. Although she began singing at a young age in church and in elementary school, Zandrina began her professional musical journey studying Classical music and Theatre Arts at South Carolina State University in 2000. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Industry with a concentration in Vocal Music in 2004. Zandrina has performed with local and national recording artists to include Multi-Grammy Award winner George Benson, Nashville singer/songwriter Patrick Davis, Darius Rucker & Mark Bryan of Hootie & The Blowfish, American Idol Season 11 finalist, Elise Testone, and more. She has performed at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville TN, the Lincoln Theater in New York City, and other noted venues throughout the US and internationally. Ms. Dunning gained the attention of International Afro-Cuban Percussionist, Gino Castillo when he featured the vocalist on his 2015 release appropriately titled “Soul FunKubanized” live in Havana, Cuba in 2016. In 2017, Zandrina had the opportunity of a lifetime as she traveled to Liberia, West Africa with the Save More Kids Organization to teach music and perform in Monrovia with the young adults from Christ Children’s Home in Gbarnga City. Since 2013, Zandrina has been managing her own career, providing professional opportunities for her colleagues, & producing concerts to include tribute shows to Janet Jackson, girl groups from the 1970’s to today, Queen of Soul: A Tribute to Aretha Franklin, and more. She also performed duties as the Associate Producer at South of Broadway Theatre Company in North Charleston from 2018-2020. Currently, she is proud to be affiliated with Holy City Arts & Lyric Opera (Operations & Marketing), OHM Radio (Programming & Talent Management), Charleston Jazz Academy (Vocal Coach), Forte Jazz Lounge (Show Production) & The Charleston Music Hall (Show Production). Zandrina can be seen performing in and around Charleston with the Andy Masker Band, Charleston Jazz Orchestra, Patrick Davis & His Midnight Choir, and with her own project, The Zandrina Dunning Experience. 

Andrea Serrano

Andrew Wunderley

Andrew is Charleston’s Waterkeeper and serves as the eyes, ears, and voice of local waterways. 

Andrew earned his J.D. cum laude from the Charleston School of Law in 2008.  During law school he was a member of the Charleston Law Review and the Moot Court Board.  After graduation Andrew served as law clerk to the Honorable James E. Lockemy at the South Carolina Court of Appeals and also as a Staff Attorney at the Court of Appeals.

Prior to law school, Andrew earned a Master of Science in Environmental Policy from the Graduate School at the College of Charleston.  His masters research explored the role of the public trust doctrine in South Carolina’s Coastal Zone Management Plan and advocated for a more complete use of the doctrine’s authority in the regulation and management of the state’s coastal zone natural resources.

Before graduate and law school Andrew served as head coach of the Palmetto Masters Swim Team from 1997 to 2005.  He coached Kathleen Wilson to a successful crossing of the English Channel in 2001 and four other marathon swims.

Andrew is a life long swimmer and surfer and has swum, surfed and paddled almost all Charleston’s local waterways. He lives on James Island with his wife and two children.

Marie Stitt & Edward Crouse

Marie Stitt was born and raised in the south and grew up in the restaurant business. She has spent the past ten years working in the food and wine industry. Her experience includes time at Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham, A16 in San Francisco, Jones Valley Urban Farm in Alabama, Neyers Vineyards in Napa, Weingut Wieninger in Austria. Marie has spent the last 8 years as Sales Director for Grassroots Wine based in Charleston SC. 

Edward Crouse has spent his professional life working with top performing companies in the food & beverage industry. He’s spent years working in fine dining, in full service and fast casual concepts, wholesale, retail, distribution, sales, and marketing with companies like Whole Foods Market, Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, Mikuni Wild Foods Dist., Urbani Truffles USA. He’s spent the last three years building out and operating babas on cannon in downtown Charleston.

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Alexandra Seaman

Alexandra Seaman is on a mission to change how we think about and practice yoga. As a teacher, trainer, and organizer, she facilitates brave and emergent social spaces that evoke creative, actionable change. 

At the core of her work is a love for youth, a passion for yoga, and a commitment to living in place. Her endeavor is to apply the insights that she learned from yoga to catalyze change in the world.

Alex credits the children of Charleston’s downtown public schools as her first and greatest teachers. She began teaching yoga at Mitchell Elementary in 2010, and has since taught over 6,000 hours of yoga to adults and children alike. In 2015 she founded Ecstatic Dance Charleston, a co-creative space at the intersection of conscious dance and DJ culture. 

In 2019 she launched her own Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training, apart from the established training institute, KRI. She also writes for 3HO, the global nonprofit which governs the culture of Kundalini Yoga. 

Alex is working in partnership with the City of Charleston to lead Inclusive Yoga classes that center disability and neuro-divergence. She is also working in partnership with the Charleston County School District to launch an interdisciplinary teacher training that is place-based and justice informed. Alex does not see justice as anti-, but as love in action. Her goal is to diversify the teaching and practice community, increase access, and organize networks of community care. 

For Alex, the spiritual is political. Once we have the experience of yoga – by which we mean unity – therein lies an ethical call to action. Her work is in service to this. 

Thetyka Robinson

Brian Porter

Brian James Porter hails from the great midwestern state of Indiana.  Brian has participated in the performing arts for practically all his life starting at age 5 when he played a frog in his church play.  He also comes from a long line of musicians.  His grandfather was the long time choral director for the Westminster Choir and sang tenor for the NBC Opera Company and his mother, Brenda LeFevre, has a long history as an opera singer and actress still to this day.  Brian graduated from Purdue University with a BA in Theatre in Performance where upon graduation he spent a year and a half as member of Playhouse on the Square’s Resident Acting Company in Memphis, Tennessee.

 

He followed that experience by co-founding a theatre company in Michigan.  After a blistering couple of winters, Brian relocated to Atlanta where he pursued a career in media advertising while continuing to be active in local theatre including a stint as the interim Executive Director of OnStage Atlanta.  After several years in Atlanta, Brian relocated to beautiful Charleston where he was the Media Director of Davis Advertising leading to Brian’s eventual return to his theatrical roots by becoming the Technical Director at Charleston Stage. He quickly shifted over to the administrative side where he served as the Executive Assistant to Founder Julian Wiles and eventually became the Director of Administration overseeing the daily operations of the company.

 

Brian is also the co-founder of the local theatre company What If? Productions which is now in its eighth season in Charleston. A celebrated artist and vocalists in Charleston (and current Best Actor nominee for the Charleston City Paper awards), Brian has appeared on stage in many memorable roles in Charleston including Peter & the Starcatcher, Cabaret, Hedwig & the Angry Inch, The 39 Steps, Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story, Shear Madness and Hairspray. He recently headlined his own sold out cabaret show An Evening With Brian Porter as part of What If?’s popular Piano Bar Series.

 

Brian is now the Executive Director of Footlight Players, now in its 90^th season and in residence at the Queen Street Playhouse, in historic downtown Charleston. Brian has proudly spent the last four years engaging and promoting the local arts in Charleston.

Julia Deckman

Julia Deckman is a visual artist and creative collaborator based in Charleston, SC. She is a self-taught painter, exploring a range of composition styles while always remaining focused on color. She is inspired by the exchanges between light, structure and negative space. Her recent abstract compositions aim to study the subtle and dynamic relationships between color, form and texture.

“I have discovered that my color obsession is my through line, influencing all of my pieces regardless of style or composition. In color I have found myself.”

Julia was named the 2019 Lowcountry Artist of the Year, has served on the board of Redux Contemporary Art Center, and owns and operates a retail shop, exhibition space and bottle shop from her studio on James Island.

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Jenny Broe

Dancer, instructor and choreographer extraordinaire, Jenny Broe is the owner and Chief Mad Scientist of Dance Lab. When she’s not in the lab concocting the next show-stopping performance for Charleston, she is booking gigs for her dancers, spending time exploring her love of birding, hanging out with her cat kids and planning her next trip abroad with the love of her life, Mike Quinn (aka the Cat Dad). She has worked as a master contemporary, jazz and hip hop instructor at various establishments in the Southeast including Gotta Dance Atlanta, Dancefx, The Larew Center, Charleston School of the Arts and SCAHPERD. Her choreographic works have been featured on multiple occasions at The Piccolo Spoleto Finale, The South Carolina Dance Festival, The Charleston Wine + Food festival, JAIL BREAK, Charleston Fashion Week, the American Heart Association Heart Ball and the CAS Firemen Calendar Debut Party (to name a few). Broe’s passion for and dedication to teaching, cultivating, connecting and inspiring the dance community in the Southeast grows and evolves every day. Determined to push progress for arts in Charleston, Broe continues to provide unique performance outlets for performers of all varieties. Currently, her mission’s main focus is providing the humans of Charleston with the means of making themselves happy, one movement-and-laughter-filled dance class at a time. What can you expect from a Broe class? Lots of feel-good movement, an awesome playlist, and incredible vibes.

Mike Quinn

Connecticut-born saxophonist Mike Quinn is a soul musician with roots in jazz and rock. Coming of age professionally in the dynamic Charleston music scene, Quinn has found himself in nearly every musical situation imaginable, equally at ease in pop, latin, swing or r&b settings. He has established himself as an commanding performer marked by emotive, energy driven solos with unique ideas. In the hustle to build his musicianship and talents as a band leader and performer, Quinn has unwittingly helped develop the social and professional infrastructure of working musicians in the greater Charleston area. To put it simply, he is good at putting the right person in the right place.

Professor Ping

Professor Ping, aka DJ Josh Silverman, has been the house DJ for PechaKucha since the early days.  His style blends old school, breakbeat, rare groove, and electronic tracks in a continuous mix that will blow your headphones.  He produces a weekly radio show, Class with Professor Ping, that broadcasts nationally on the Fleet Radio Network and is the Music Director of LA based Lo Fly Radio.  For more information and to listen in, visit www.professorping.com.

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