Dean Andrew Davis of the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts is pleased to announce that he has appointed Melissa Noble Interim Managing Director, and Steven Matijcio Interim Artistic Director, of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts (CWMCA), effective May 1, 2020.

Noble and Matijcio will shepherd the Mitchell Center after long-time Director Karen Farber left earlier this year, continuing the CWMCA’s mission as a catalyst for supporting, cultivating and celebrating a vision of a diverse, interdisciplinary, and collaborative arts college. The Mitchell Center is dedicated to representing all voices on the UH campus, including faculty and students.

Noble and Matijcio have been working productively together on the Convergence Research program at the Blaffer Museum, which was initiated in 2019 to present experimental interdisciplinary projects and performances. They have demonstrated a capacity to move fluidly inside and outside the arts, fostering exchanges that break down silos and conventions. Their collective vision is well aligned with the vision of the Mitchell Center, and with the Center’s founders in the Mitchell family.

Noble will continue in her role as Coordinator of Interdisciplinary Initiatives at the University of Houston, and Matijcio will continue in his role as the Jane Dale Owen Director and Chief Curator of the Blaffer Art Museum. 

Melissa Noble has been on the faculty of the School of Theatre & Dance in the McGovern College of the Arts since 2013, where she has taught movement techniques to actors and dancers and served as Head of Recruitment for the Dance Program. She has had a national professional career as a movement consultant and choreographer, spanning 25 years in theatre, dance, and opera. She has held positions at the University of Washington, Juniata College, the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and the Houston Grand Opera Studio. Her work has been seen with the Pacific Performance Project, Stages Repertory Theatre, Robert Davidson Dance Company, Aero/Betty Aerial Dance Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, the Meany Hall of the Performing Arts in Seattle, On the Boards in Seattle, and the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center in New York. Noble has an interdisciplinary education, with a B.A. in Art and Art History from the University of Northern Iowa and the M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Practices and Emerging Forms from School of Art at the University of Houston.

Steven Matijcio has served as Curator at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati (2013-2019), as Curator at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem (2008-2013), and in various positions in a number of important galleries and museums—including the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the National Gallery of Canada. He has held curatorial residencies in Gwangju (South Korea) and Berlin, was Artistic Director of the 2012 Narracje festival in Gdansk (Poland), and was recently named Commisaire of the 10th Manif d’Art, the Quebec City Biennial. He has lectured on theory and criticism at the University of Manitoba, written for numerous catalogs and journals, and was commissioned in 2003 by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to curate one of their first online exhibitions. Matijcio holds the M.A. from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and the H.B.A. from the University of Toronto, and is the recipient of a prestigious Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award.