Board of Directors

Moshe, aka. Mr. YooWho, is the founder of Clowns Without Borders-USA as well as the ambassador for CWB-International. Since 1987, he has performed in Burma/Myanmar, Kosovo, South Africa, Nepal, Guatemala, Haiti, Croatia, Chiapas (Mexico), Sudan and Baton Rouge, LA. Moshe performs and teaches internationally. Over the past 25 years, he has given over 2000 performances in thirty plus countries. He teaches workshops exploring the expression of personal humor through physical theater and contemporary clown.

Selena McMahan spent her childhood divided between New York and France. In 2005 she received a yearlong travel fellowship from the Watson Foundation for her project « Contemporary Clown Circuit, performance across borders ». She moved to Paris in 2007 to train at the Jacques Lecoq theater school (2007-2009 professional course and LEM scenography course). She has also trained with John Turner of Mump and Smoot, Lory Leshin at the Samovar, and with the Brazilian company LUME. She is an actor-clown with the Parisian hospital clown company Le Rire Médecin, performing improvised and individualized interventions in clown duos. Selena speaks english, french, spanish, and portuguese. She acts, sings, dances, is a puppeteer, makes costumes, and directs. She has performed in : “800 Words” directed by Sonja Moser, “À la Recherche de l’Age d’Or” directed by Susana Lastreto of G.R.R.R, “Pop’pea” directed by Giorgio Barbario Corsetti at Théâtre du Châtelet. She directed the opera “L’Enfant et la Nuit” at l’Académie de Villecroze, and is artistique director of “Inclownito” with Cracheurs de Rêves. Selena has volunteered with Clowns Without Borders USA since 2005 and been a board member since 2010. She currently serves as president on the board of the International Federation of Clowns Without Borders.

David Lichtenstein has been a professional performer specializing in street, clown, and variety theater for 25 years.   He has performed various versions of his one-person Leapin’ Louie Comedy Shows at festivals, theaters, and other events in 28 different countries across five continents. He’s also part of Wanderlust Circus in Portland and he has written reading encouragement and science themed shows that he performs at tons of schools and libraries.  He has organized and performed on several Clowns Without Borders expeditions in Chiapas, Guatemala, Haiti, South Africa, and Palestine.  And he hosts great CWB fundraisers in Portland, Oregon.  His wife Lisa Loving, a journalist, does even cooler stuff.

Sarah Liane Foster has been creating, teaching, and performing theatre and clown since 2002, and has performed in thirty states and eight countries. From 2010 to 2014, Sarah assisted and then taught at Giovanni Fusetti’s Helikos International School of Theatre Creation in Florence, Italy. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Sarah has devised eight original shows with Portland’s Nomadic Theatre Co. She has been the recipient of a RACC Professional Development grant, the Portland Civic Theatre Guild’s Leslie O. Fulton Fellowship, and the Ben Linder Award for Most Inspirational Juggler. Sarah has regularly performed with Clowns Without Borders-USA since 2005, and has served on the Board of Directors since 2007.

Kolleen Kintz is a clown, actor, creator, photographer, and musician. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and two Dachshunds. She is so honored and overjoyed to be part of the CWB team. Kolleen joined the team as the DC area intern in 2011, and became a board member in June 2014. With CWB, Kolleen has traveled to Indonesia in 2012 and Haiti in 2013 and has helped manage social media/website, merchandise, and fundraising since 2011.

Kolleen is a graduate of Dell’Arte International and a protege of Dody Disanto at The Center for Movement Theatre in DC. Kolleen owns Photos By Kintz, a wedding/lifestyle photography company, with her husband, Bobby. Nothing brings her more joy and than sharing laughter with children and communities around the world. Kolleen is a singing, dancing, acrobatic fool who loves to play and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

As an international educator and advocate for the arts, Dianna enjoys spending time to support CWB! Dianna has worked with a range of organizations developing international programs and training volunteers, students and educators for these experiences. She is currently the Director of Global Routes, an organization that offers authetic cross-cultural service learning programs for high school and Gap Year students. She has taught second grade, au paired in Paris, led students to explore the Caribbean, studied traditional tattooing in Samoa and most recently began dabbling in floral design. She has a masters in International Education from the School For International Training. While not a clown, she loves to be silly and laugh, which is a nice perk of working with so many who clown around!

Anne Olivia is a street fighter… sort of…
She has spent 23 years fighting for social and economic justice in the U.S. and internationally working on trade, development, and electoral issues and their social ramifications. Anne Olivia received her degree from Portland State University, was a Carnegie Mellon Fellow (Public Policy and International Affairs), and Studied in Barcelona at the Academy of Liberal Arts. She has worked in and with numerous non profits over the years, consulting, creating fundraising programs, and organizing with labor and community groups. She is a proud aunt and dedicated to improving the world her nieces, nephews, and all children will grow up in.

Cathe Giffuni lives in New York City : )

Erin Leigh Crites is an international theatre artist, educator, and purveyor of make believe. In the past ten years, Erin has traveled extensively to explore the global community and create bonds through theatrical play. From 2013 to 2015, she worked in an international ensemble to develop and originate a role in Nobel Prize Winner, Dario Fo’s newest, unpublished play, La Storia di Qu for the International Milan Expo. This work reinforced her passion for international collaboration and fueled her continued teaching of workshops in ensemble dynamics, clown, mask work and devising, all of which center around the conveyance of meaning through physicality rather than language. Currently, she splits her time between Los Angeles and Idyllwild as an ensemble member of Fiasco! Physical Theatre and as a full-time instructor in the theatre department at the international boarding school, Idyllwild Arts Academy, respectively. She joined Clowns Without Borders in 2010 after receiving her MFA in physically based ensemble theatre from Dell’Arte International.

Gulshirin Dubash (teacher/actor-creator/director) is originally from Mumbai, India, and has spent the last several years doing theatre between the United States and India. She has been faculty at Interlochen Arts Academy since 2011 where she most recently directed A Flea in He Ear, The Servant of Two Masters, Blood Wedding, A Departure (a devised work), The Secret in the Wings and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Having received her MFA in Ensemble based Physical Theatre from the Dell’Arte School of Physical Theatre in California, her work is grounded in the pedagogy of theatre practitioner Jacques Lecoq (physical theatre – Commedia dell’Arte, melodrama, clown, street theatre, devised work). Having a strong interest in Eastern forms of theatre she has studied Japanese Noh theatre with master teachers Rick Emmert and the late Mitsuo Kama. She has been a performer with CWB since 2007, having created the India-centered mission called “Project Muskurahat.” Being a part of CWB is one of the great loves of her life as it melds her desire of theatre for real change and her love of performing. Most recently her ability to perform has been limited but she hopes she can still make an impact by being on the board and live her life in the pursuit of this mission.

Martha Neighbors has been fundraising in the arts for more than 20 years, most recently with Big Apple Circus, where she fell in love with clowning and tripled the Circus’s funding for its seminal Clown Care program.  Prior to Big Apple Circus, Martha worked in theatre, dance, visual arts and museums, raising lots of money to help artists realize their dreams and produce innovative, original work.  Currently, she is the director of development at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan in New York.

Martha is thrilled to be on the board of Clowns Without Borders, having learned of the organization through a former Big Apple Circus Clown Doctor, Tim Cunningham.  She firmly believes that the world needs more laughter, and that bringing joy to desperate situations improves the lives of all with lasting benefits.  Martha also serves on the board of the A.S. Neill Summerhill Trust, which promotes the educational philosophy and writings of educational pioneer A.S. Neill and provides bursaries to attend Summerhill School in England, of which she is a proud alumna.  She has an M.A. in art history and museum studies from the University of California and graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College in New York.  That Summerhill education really worked.

Sayda Trujillo was born in Montreal and grew up in Canada, Guatemala, and the USA. She is a theatre artist specializing in voice and movement. She also devises original physical theatre performances. Her performance and teaching experience abroad includes work in Guatemala, Ecuador, Singapore, Spain, Germany, Colombia, UK, Egypt, Palestine with The Freedom Theatre, and most recently in India. Her three solo shows BANANA LEAVES, DEFINITELY OOPS, and I WAS RAISED MEXICAN have been presented nationally and internationally at theater houses including La Mama ETC, REDCAT, and NYTW.

Since 2005 Sayda has volunteered for Clowns Without Borders performing for thousands of children in Latin America and the Middle East. She teaches Acting, Viewpoints, Tai Chi Chuan, Contact Improvisation, Voice, and Solo Performance. Her training combines a BFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts; a post-graduate certificate in Physical Theatre from the Dell’ Arte International School of Physical Theatre; and a Masters in Voice Studies from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London where the training encompassed a multiplicity of workshops in Vocal Anatomy, Accents, Vocal Pedagogy, Practice as Research, culminating in a Master’s Thesis: Latino/a Voices: Reconsidering the ‘Natural,’ ‘Familiar’ and ‘Cultural’ in Freeing Vocal Expression. Sayda is full-time faculty at Dell Arte International. For more information please visit: http://www.saydatrujillo.com