2025 Discipline Days
Conversations to Strengthen and Evolve the Performing Arts Field
Brandon Gryde
WAA’s Discipline Days is a new salon-style community conversation series dedicated to advancing performing arts practice across genres. Each 90-minute virtual session offers a space to connect with peers, discuss opportunities and challenges, and share ideas for how WAA can better support dance, music, theatre, and multidisciplinary art forms—at the conference and beyond.
Guiding the series is Brandon Gryde, a seasoned arts leader who most recently served as Director of Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works, Artist Communities, and Challenge America at the National Endowment for the Arts. With a career spanning arts policy, grantmaking, and equity initiatives—including leadership roles at Dance/USA and OPERA America—Brandon brings deep expertise and a collaborative spirit to the conversation.
Each session will include breakout rooms co-hosted by experienced professionals in the field, offering a more intimate space to exchange ideas, identify shared challenges, and discuss emerging opportunities. Insights from these sessions will help shape future WAA programming and advocacy efforts.
Schedule & Registration
Discipline Days | Dance: November 4, 11:30 AM–1:00 PM PT
Discipline Days | Music: November 13, 11:30 AM–1:00 PM PT
Discipline Days | Theatre: November 18, 11:30 AM–1:00 PM PT
Discipline Days | Multidisciplinary & Other: November 20, 11:30 AM–1:00 PM PT
Multidisciplinary & Other day will be co-hosted by Tara Bailey, Bailiwick Booking Agency, Ruth Wikler, Clark College Foundation & Wikler Arts, and
Courtney Ozaki, Japanese Arts Network & ZOTTO.
We are very excited to be hosting this series and hope to see you there!
If you have any questions, please reach out to membership@westarts.org.