Mark Fraire | Director, Dane Arts

Mark Fraire has worked as an arts administrator for over 20 years and has been involved in supporting theater arts on every level from producer to writer to actor to comic to playwright to manager to director.  He was the Grants and Fund Development Director for the Madison Metropolitan School District and helped raise in 2013-14, over $2 million in funds.  Fraire spent 17 years as the state’s Grants Officer for the Wisconsin Arts Board. 

Prior to that position, Fraire created the Community Education Department for the Milwaukee Repertory Theater where he was awarded the President’s Coming Up Taller Award for creating TEENworks, an innovative youth and community theater arts training program.  Fraire has an MBA in Corporate Finance from the University of Wisconsin- Madison.

Augusta Brulla | Cultural Affairs Specialist, Dane Arts

Brulla, a Madison native, holds bachelor’s degrees in Art and Communication Science and Rhetorical Studies from UW-Madison, and earned her Master of Arts-Business at the Bolz Center for Arts Administration. She brings over ten years’ experience in art administration, installation, and community outreach. Augusta has worked with hundreds of visual artists locally and nationally as a representative of various Wisconsin art galleries in both the non-profit and corporate sector. She has been a member of the Tania Tandias Flamenco and Spanish Dance Company since 2007, regularly performing at schools and festivals throughout Wisconsin.

Moises Garcia | Cultural Affairs Specialist (LTE), Dane Arts

Moises Garcia is a marketing professional originally from Joliet, IL, and now residing in Madison. As a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) with a BA in Music and Business, he seeks to blend both skills in music and marketing to bring forth positive change in the arts for his community. As a musician, he is a classically trained singer who performs with the Madison Chamber Choir (MCC) and has toured extensively with the IWU Collegiate Choir. As a professional, he is a Cultural Affairs Specialist with the Dane County Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs (aka Dane Arts) and oversees the marketing initiatives for the MCC and the Urban Community Arts Network. He recently started his own business, Amplify Marketing Consulting, where he provides marketing consultation and services to music-orientated organizations.

Meri Rose Ekberg | Community & Cultural Resources Planner, City of Madison

Meri Rose Ekberg serves as Community & Cultural Resources Planner for the City of Madison, where she administrates public art & historic preservation projects. She is also the Managing Director of Make Music Madison, a city-wide festival that occurs every June 21. Previously, she was the Assistant Director of the UW-Madison Public History Project, and Programming & Community Engagement Manager at Overture Center for the Arts.

Meri Rose is part of the 2024 In Business Madison Forty Under 40 class. She has an M.A. In Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.A. In Contemporary Art History, Theory and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a B.A. in Studio Art and Art History from Western Washington University. She is experienced in exhibition curation, collection management, digital archiving, event planning, and web design.

Jess Kent-Johnson | Leadership & Creativity Coach

Jess Kent-Johnson is a Madison-based creative leader and Co-Active-trained coach with 15+ years' experience in people leadership, collaboration, facilitation and change management at the intersection of technology, education, and the arts.
Jess is a graduate of the Mike Curb College of Music Business at Belmont University (Nashville, TN) and has worked with groups like BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.), Epic Systems, Artera, the Overture Center for the Arts, findhelp, Forj, and The Perk to empower leaders, bring about enterprise-wide transformation, nurture teams, and build culture. She is also a songwriter, poet, and writer.

Becky Turk | DABL Producer | Dane Arts Intern

Becky Turk is a painter from Madison’s Atwood neighborhood, working out of a home studio just a block away from Lake Monona and Olbrich Gardens. She graduated from UW-Madison in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science - Art. Coming from a creative background in dance and performing arts, she is particularly focused on anatomy studies and portraiture. Her subjects are the people in her community: dancers, bartenders, bank tellers, teachers, friends and family. Her work was recently featured in, “Wrath and Love”, a new zine publication in Madison.