Executive and Artistic Director

Michelle Witt

Michelle joined the University of Washington in August 2011 as the Artistic Director of UW World Series and Executive Director of Meany Hall, and led a transition unifying both organizations as Meany Center for the Performing Arts in 2016.

During her tenure, Michelle's leadership has resulted in a ten-fold increase in the Center's artistic endowment, expanding programming across dance, music, theater and multimedia performance, and numerous high profile commissions and collaborations, such as Meany’s Artistic Partner program with Bill T. Jones, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Rhiannon Giddens and Peter Sellars.

 

Building Partnerships

On the UW campus she has launched long-term partnerships with a wide range of faculty and staff, including the UW Resilience Lab, the  Provost’s “Dialogue Across Difference Initiative,” and collaboratively spearheading the Mellon Creative Fellowships Initiative and the Arts & Creativity Initiative.  Michelle has worked tirelessly to cultivate a wide variety of institutional collaborations across the city of Seattle, including with organizations such as Seattle Public Schools, Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, Langston Seattle and many others. 

Leading in the Arts

Michelle has extensive arts leadership experience and has served as Executive Director of the nationally acclaimed San Francisco-based dance company Robert Moses’ Kin, in Associate and Executive Director positions with Stanford University Lively Arts (now Stanford Live), University of California, Santa Cruz Arts & Lectures, and the Performing Arts division of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Idaho, where she developed innovative artistic programming and educational residencies in music, dance, theater and film. Michelle has distinguished herself as a leader in supporting and championing new, culturally diverse creative work in the performing arts and bringing artists into meaningful dialogue with communities and scholars, both nationally and internationally. 

Michelle has served on the Executive Committee of the Board of the International Society for the Performing Arts, where she was a leader of their Global Fellows Program for nearly 10 years. She has also served on the Boards of Chamber Music America and California Presenters, and on numerous conference and grant panels, including the NEA and Villa Albertine, and until recently was co-chair of the Seattle Cultural Roundtable of arts and culture leaders across the city. Currently, Michelle serves on the Development Committee of the International Society of the Performing Arts, the steering committee of the International Presenting Commons, and is a member of the Major University Presenters consortium.  

Michelle is currently ABD (all but dissertation) in a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Washington, and is writing about the interdisciplinary creative process. Michelle holds a certificate from WACUBO’s Executive Leadership and Management Institute at Stanford and is the recipient of a Clifton Webb Graduate Academic Fellowship from UCLA where she studied the Philosophy of Aesthetics and Music Performance. Michelle also spent many years as a professional violinist and has taught at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Washington, Seattle.

 

Contact Michelle Witt

Email: mwitt@uw.edu
X: @MichelleMWitt