Presenter

Rob Bailis

Artistic and Executive Director, The Broad Stage

Rob Bailis is Artistic and Executive Director of The Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. Prior to his appointment at Broad Stage in 2019, he held the positions of Interim Artistic Director and Associate Director at Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, where he programmed the dance, theater, and world stage platforms, and lead the design of the institution’s signature curatorial and commissioning initiative: Berkeley RADICAL from 2013-2019. From 2003-2011, he served as Director of ODC Theater, San Francisco’s leading experimental incubator for dance and contemporary performance. During his tenure at ODC, he elevated the theater’s platform from regional to national and international visibility, and he was instrumental in the theater’s multi-million dollar expansion of its facility. He has participated in the commissioning of over 80 new works in a variety of genres, and has served as an artistic peer review panelist and policy consultant for many of the leading foundations and arts funding organizations in the US. Beginning his career as a classical clarinetist, he has performed with orchestras, chamber ensembles, and as a recitalist across the U.S., Canada, Asia, and the U.K. A frequent public speaker on arts and culture, he has been heard at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, on KPFA’s Against the Grain, and on NPR’s West Coast Live, as the MC of the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (The Izzies), and has been a speaker and content provider at national conferences such as Dance/USA and Association of Performing Arts Presenters. He has served as an advisor to the National Dance Project as a lead faculty member for the Regional Dance Development Initiative, and he serves on the board of directors for the Alliance of Artists Communities, the national service organization for artist residencies.