aboutus
ArtistsPlus Productions, Inc. is the collective creation of three outstanding director-choreographers from Southern California. After collaborating on numerous projects, Diane De Franco Browne, Shauna Goddard-Barger and Jackie Kopcsak united their creative visions, coming together to form their own production company.
OUR MISSION:
ArtistsPlus Productions enhances performing arts experiences by bringing the power and imagination of excellent dance-making to collaborative creative partnerships throughout Southern California and around the world.
Recent projects include commissions and collaborations with the American Youth Symphony, Angeles Chorale, ArtNight Pasadena, Bel Canto Chorale and Orchestra, LA Art Show, LACMA, MUSE/IQUE, Music & More SummerFest and other Pasadena museums and arts organizations.
ArtistsPlus directors and dancers in Trebinje, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Photo by Whitney Browne.
Diane
Defranco
browne
Diane De Franco Browne is a Los Angeles-based choreographer and producer.
She is a Director of Pasadena Civic Ballet, ArtistsPlus Productions, and owns Theatre Threads, a costume design company. Current projects include immersive performances at Heritage Square Park and sponsorship of choreographic collaboratives at Stomping Ground and Los Angeles Dance Project.
Other projects include commissions and collaborations with the American Youth Symphony, Music & More SummerFest in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Angeles Chorale, ArtNight Pasadena, Bel Canto Chorale and Orchestra, LA Art Show, LACMA, MUSE/IQUE, International Masters of Musical Whistling and other Pasadena museums and arts organizations.
Shauna
Goddard
Barger
Shauna was born in Pasadena where she studied extensively with Evelyne LeMone. She was an original member of Hubbard Street Dance Company from 1978 until 1985 in Chicago. Returning to California, Shauna received her B.A. in Communication Studies and Fine Arts from UCLA. She continued to perform in various productions such as MTV videos, television shows, commercials, and concert work.
Shauna traveled to Rome as a principal dancer for FAME on the Rai Italian network. Touring for one year as a dancer for James Brown, she ended up living in Europe. She moved to Milan to pursue a career in choreography for both television and concert productions. In 1997, Shauna founded Danse Plus; a modern dance studio in Monte Carlo where she lived for 16 years.
While in Monaco, Shauna produced a number of productions for the Princess Grace Theatre, Grimaldi Forum, Services des Fêtes and Academie de Musique de Monaco. It was there she began her own company, MOVING PARTS. Returning to the United States with her husband and children, Shauna began collaborating with Diane De Franco Browne in 2007.
Jackie
kopcsak
Jackie is an Assistant Professor and one of the founding faculty members of the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. She received her dance training through Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, Washington, where she also performed as a principal dancer with Ballet Bellevue and Wade Walthall’s Evergreen City Ballet. She has also worked extensively within the Los Angeles theatre community, appearing in several musicals as well as working behind-the-scenes at Pasadena Playhouse, State Theatre of California.
Jackie graduated with her M.F.A. in Dance from the University of California, Irvine, where her thesis research centered on creating an inter-disciplinary production that fused art history, music, dance and theatre to explore the lives of Edgar Degas' ballerinas.
Jackie also holds a B.A. in History from the University of Washington, where she founded, directed and choreographed for the university’s first ballet company. Other choreographic credits include works for Pacific Northwest Ballet School, Evergreen City Ballet, The Washington Academy of Performing Arts, Ballet Bellevue, San Marino Unified School District, The Red Chair Production Company, Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40, Pasadena Civic Ballet, Inland Pacific Ballet, Pacific Symphony, Laguna Dance Festival, and the University of California, Irvine. Jackie has been collaborating with Diane De Franco Browne since 2009.
