About

Laura Colby founded Elsie Management in 1995 for the sole purpose of representing her contemporary dance friends and peers at the annual Arts Presenters conference – APAP. Today, Elsie Management promotes the careers of national and international performing arts companies on stages and performance opportunities across the globe.

Offering a combination of management and development services, along with artist representation, Elsie Management consists of President Laura Colby, Vice President, Anna Amadei, and Contracts Manager, Jimena Alviar. Dedicated to developing the next generation of arts workers, we also maintain an on-going internship program.

Elsie currently represents twenty companies, artists, and projects. With its office located in between the DUMBO and downtown neighborhoods of Brooklyn, we are members of the North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents (NAPAMA), Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), Dance/USA, Fractured Atlas, The Field, Western Arts Alliance, International Society for the Performing Arts, and International Performing Arts for Youth. We regularly attend national and international performing arts convenings.

Staff Bios

Laura Colby, President
Anna Amadei, Vice President
Jimena Alviar, Contracts Manager

Laura Colby, President

I am APAP, Jan 2017, Laura Colby video

Recipient of the 2016 Liz Silverstein Award for Agent-Manager of the Year, Colby began her arts administrative career in New York City in the early 1980’s while dancing for several contemporary choreographers. She formed Elsie Management in 1995 specifically to provide representation to several friends at the annual APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals) conference.

Since forming Elsie Management, Colby has represented performing arts touring companies from five continents, coordinating tours to over two hundred global venues. She has served as Creative Producer, forming presenter consortiums and securing funding to support the development, creation, and touring of new works. She has served as Tour Coordinator for numerous National Dance Project supported projects including LaTasha Barnes’ The Jazz Continuum” and Ragamala Dance Company’s “Fires of Varanasi.” She served as Tour Coordinator for the National Theater Project-supported work, “The End of TV” by the Chicago-based multi-media theater company, Manual Cinema.

Colby has secured and produced seasons in New York City at: The Joyce Theater, The Public Theater, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, NYLA, Joe’s Pub, the New Victory Theater, Symphony Space, Harlem Stages, Central Park Summerstage, Celebrate Brooklyn, and Performance Space New York for her client roster. She co-manages the Dance Managers Collective’s annual JanArtsNYC showcasing efforts with colleague Jennifer Morris (Siegel Artist Management). Since 2016, Colby has produced seasons at the Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland each August.

Colby most recently served on the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) board for three terms, in the position of Vice President in her final term. During her tenure on the APAP board, her service focused on the formation of JanArtsNYC, a partnership of industry conveners and festivals that gather the industry each January in NYC. Colby served on the board of NAPAMA (North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents) for six years from 2002-2008, and as its President in 2007 & 2008. In 2001, Colby founded Dance/USA’s Agents and Artist Representation Council. She served as the Council’s Founding Chair for three years and on the board of Dance/USA for four years.

Colby has been an invited speaker for APAP’s Winter Institute, The Joyce Theater Foundation, Southern Arts Federation, Western Arts Alliance, Australian Performing Arts Market, Dance/NYC, Dance Theater Workshop, Florida State University, Fordham University, University of Kansas, and UMass Amherst, among others. In 2002 Colby co-curated Boston’s Dance Straight Up series. She has regularly attended the Australian Performing Arts Market as an international delegate. She has been an invited delegate to the Shanghai Performing Arts Market, New Zealand International Arts Festival, Tokyo Performing Arts Market, and the Tanzmesse.

During the global pandemic (2020 –2022), Colby participated in several cross-industry conversations focused on equitable contracting: https://www.elsieman.org/equitable-contracting/ She contributed a section to the Creating New Futures Phase One document about force majeure and the negotiation process. Committed to the development of policy for the not-for-profit performing arts field, Colby served on APAP’s Ethics Task Force (2005), Dance/USA’s Definitions Committee (2004-2005), and directed the updating of NAPAMA’s Ethical Guidelines (2005). She was the initiating facilitator between Dr. Edward Fishkin, Medical Director at Woodhull Hospital and Medical Center and the performing arts community in the creation of ArtistAccess, the groundbreaking healthcare program for artists and arts workers begun in May, 2005 that was launched at other New York City hospitals (pre-dating the Affordable Care Act).

Colby’s early administrative work includes serving as Administrative Director of Mark Haim & Dancers (1985-1987). In the 80’s she also worked for choreographer Patricia Hoffbauer and Nancy Duncan’s CoDanceCo. She served as Company Manager for Neo Labos Dancetheater (Michele Elliman, Artistic Director) from 1993-2000 and was the Founding Company Manager (1997-2003) of Seán Curran Company.

Colby graduated with a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School, under the direction of Martha Hill. She was a member of Mark Haim & Dancers, the Limón Dance Company, CoDanceCo, and Seán Curran Company. Colby has also performed with Sara Rudner, Ann Carlson, Patricia Hoffbauer, and Mark Taylor, and has assisted choreographers Ann Carlson and Mark Haim in restagings. She trained extensively with Elizabeth Streb’s Ringside Inc, performing as an extra in their 1994 Joyce Theater season, and assisting the company in their Kid Action program.

Prior to moving to New York City, Colby attended the University of California at Irvine as a dance major, then under the direction of Eugene Loring. It was at Irvine that Colby created the student organization, START (Support The Arts), as an early fundraising effort. She graduated from Berkeley High School – where she was first introduced to modern dance as a member of Dance Production, under the direction of Marcia Sigman. She began her early ballet training with Patricia Schuster in Ridgefield, CT, before moving to the Bay Area where she trained as a scholarship student at the San Francisco Ballet from 1975-1978. For three years, she performed with the company in the annual stagings of Lew Christensen’s The Nutcracker, performing the roles of Clara, numerous children’s roles, and as a member of the corps de ballet. Instrumental teachers in her dance training included Alfredo Corvino, Risa Steinberg, and Hector Zaraspe.

Colby lives in Brooklyn neighborhood of Prospect Heights. She rides her bike to work in the Gowanus and maintains an active yoga practice. She launched the podcast: “The Middle Woman: a roadmap to managing the performing arts” in Oct, 2023.

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Anna Amadei, Vice President

A native of Italy, Anna Amadei has a BA in Communication and an MA in Performing Arts Management from the University of Bologna, Italy. A trained dancer, Anna moved to NYC in 2008 after her 4-year tenure as Daniele Cipriani’s executive assistant during which she managed the Italian tour of major dance companies such as the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Limon Dance Company. 

The same year, she joined the Elsie team as contracts manager and has since then covered the roles of Business Manager, Artists Representative, and now Vice President. Amadei signed Spellbound Contemporary Ballet (IT), Union Tanguera (FR & ARG), eVenti Verticali (IT), Sankofa Danzafro (COL), and fuse* (IT) to the Elsie Management roster. She has been awarded multiple grants from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals in support of her international travel and has served on grant panels. She is a 2010 APAP Emerging Leaders Institute Alumni.

With a passion for social dancing and traditional dances, she has performed tango, salsa, and Colombian traditional dances from 2009-2017 with Daniel Fetecua Productions, and has briefly returned to modern dance performing with JA Compania de Danza in 2018. With a yoga training of over 30 years, Anna is a certified Yoga Teacher and teaches Yoga for Dancers at the Harkness Dance Center.  

Amadei and her two children, Violeta and Elian, speak fluent Italian, English, and Spanish.

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Jimena Alviar, Contracts Manager

Jimena Alviar, originally from Bogotá, Colombia, joined Elsie Management in 2016 as Marketing Manager. Since 2018, she has been working as Contracts Manager and has overseen processing artists visas for Elsie’s international roster. She holds a BFA in Performing Arts from Universidad Distrital-ASAB (Colombia) and an MFA in Dance Choreography from Temple University (2009) while being a Fulbright Scholar (2006-2008). She has been awarded with the Rose Vernick Choreographic Achievement Award (2009), and IDARTES grants (2011). Jimena is the founder and artistic director of both ja dance company and HysteryaFest. She is a 2024 APAP Emerging Leaders Institute Fellow.

Jimena’s passion for the arts finds its niche as a dancer, choreographer, educator, lighting designer, production manager, and arts administrator. She loves her two cats.

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