This story was published in the Brattleboro Reformer on March 4, 2018.
[B]RATTLEBORO — After a seven-month period of interim management, the New England Center for Circus Arts as appointed one of its own, operations director Jamie Hodgson, as its new executive director.
The appointment was announced by Elizabeth Wohl, chairwoman of NECCA’s board of directors, to staff and students on Friday, and to audience members at NECCA’s Circus Spectacular shows on Saturday and Sunday at the Latchis Theatre.
“We received applications from candidates around the world with a wide variety of expertise and experience,” Wohl said in a press release. “In the end, the board’s choice of Jamie as executive director was unanimous. We have great confidence that she will build on NECCA’s strengths as the best professional — and amateur — circus training center in the United States.”
Hodgson joined NECCA in 2006 as a coach, and has helped develop many of the classes being taught there. In 2009, she developed the school’s successful Intensive Training Program for aspiring professionals, and led that program until 2017, when she developed and led NECCA’s new three-year ProTrack program.
She was founder and artistic director of Girls on Trapeze, which has produced four national tours and won the People’s Choice Award at the first International Circus Exposure Festival in New York City. Previously, she traveled internationally performing for corporate events, and she has coached at a variety of circus schools including Circus Smirkus. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut.
In July 2017, NECCA experienced a short period of turmoil that resulted in the replacement of its board of directors with a completely new slate of members and the resignation of its former executive director. The new board appointed an interim executive director, Jeffrey Lewis, the former executive director of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. Lewis then appointed Hodgson as operations director, to manage the day-to-day operations and teaching programs of the school.
Since July, the staff and board raised $160,000 in donated operational support to stabilize operations, and registrations in nearly all of NECCA’s programs, classes and workshops have exceeded goals.
NECCA was founded in 2007 by Elsie Smith and Serenity Smith Forchion, who continue to serve as artistic co-directors.
