Debra Cash

Executive Director, Boston Dance Alliance

Debra has been Scholar in Residence at BDF since 2009. Her roles in New England’s cultural community have spanned arts administration, journalism, education, consulting, and advocacy for the rights of creative professionals. Under Debra’s leadership, Boston Dance Alliance was named one of four statewide finalists for a 2017 Nonprofit Excellence Award in the Small Nonprofit category by the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network. In October, 2017, she was  honored by OrigiNation Cultural Arts Center with its Champion of the Arts award. She regularly presents preshow talks and public interviews for World Music/CRASHarts at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art.

A longtime consultant to the National Endowment for the Arts and New England Foundation for the Arts, Debra managed the research and documentation for the May, 2016 conference The Future of Physically Integrated Dance in the USA. She has served on panels and nominating committees for the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Maine Arts Commission, The Boston Foundation, The LEF Foundation, and The Yard. Debra was a dance critic for the Boston Globe for 17 years, followed by a five year stint at WBUR, and seven as a founding Senior Contributor to The Arts Fuse, for which she now is a Board member. Debra has taught at Emerson College, the Boston Conservatory, and Northeastern. Her first book of poetry Who Knows One, was published in 2010 and she is working on her second collection, The Bumblebee’s Diwan for which she won the Ilse Rothschild award of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute.

Debra earned her B.A. at Brandeis University and a Master’s degree in Design Studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Before coming to Boston Dance Alliance in 2015, she led an international consultancy focused on turning customer research into products, services, and experiences.  She lives in “little Armenia” in Belmont MA with her spouse, an artsy activist volunteer, and their rescue border collie.