Celine Schein Das is Executive Director of the Chitresh Das Institute, which she co-founded in 2016 with Artistic Director, Charlotte Moraga and Managing Director, Preeti Zalavadia. Schein Das served as Executive Director of the Chitresh Das Dance Company & Chhandam School of Kathak (CDDC/Chhandam) from 1996 to 2016, in partnership with and inspired by her late husband, Founder and Artistic Director Pandit Chitresh Das, Schein Das built the organization’s national and international reputation, growing it from a budget of under $100,000 in 1996 to over $1.1M in 2014.   Schein Das built the programming, fundraising, marketing and community outreach to achieve a vision of an organization that had both grassroots, community involvement and global recognition.  This was so successful, in part, because she passionately believed in incorporating Pandit Chitresh Das’ advocacy of traditional arts and insistence that traditional artists and art forms and artists of color, should be supported equitably along-side Western-based art forms and largely white organizations.  She increased touring by 500%, and under her leadership, the school grew from 50 to over 500 students.  She raised millions of dollars from local, regional and national government and foundation funders, raised over $500,000 through the individual donor program she established and developed a successful corporate sponsorship program. 

Schein Das served as Executive Director and Producer of two of the largest Indian classical dance festivals to have taken place outside of India: Kathak at the Crossroads in 2006 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Traditions Engaged in 2010 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA and at REDCAT in Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, CA.  Those festivals gained national and international recognition from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dance Magazine, the Hindu, among others, as well as a special Isadora Duncan Dance Award. Schein Das produced performances in India as well as managing artistic exchange programs between the U.S. and India.   She produced, India Jazz Suites, Pandit Das’ iconic collaboration with Tap star Jason Samuels Smith, that went on to become an international phenomenon, touring throughout the world and resulting in a documentary that was screened internationally and aired nationally in the U.S. on PBS.  Schein Das also currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Dance/USA, the national service organization for dance, where she chairs the Programming Committee.

For more than three decades Denise Pate has been building bridges and arts infrastructure between communities of color and mainstream dance/performing arts institutions and funders, between traditional and contemporary artists and arts communities, and now with her position with the City of Oakland, she is building bridges between artists and the city government. Denise currently serving as the City of Oakland's Cultural Funding Coordinator, and manages the City's competitive, cultural arts grants process awards over $1 million dollars annually to Oakland individual artists and nonprofit organizations. She has spent over 25 years working in the non-profit arts community as an executive director, program manager, board member, development professional, dancer, and choreographer. As a consultant, she has done fundraising, managed programs, and provided technical assistance for over 20 non-profit organizations in San Francisco, Alameda, Solano, Marin and Sonoma counties. She serves as a member of the Northern California Grantmakers Arts Loan Fund Steering committee, and has sat on grant review panels for Alliance for California Traditional Arts, MAP Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, and the California Arts Council. She was the Associate Director of Operations for California College of the Arts' Center for Art and Public Life (2005-2007). Her past affiliations include Young Audiences of the Bay Area, Wolftrap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, Youth in Arts, Community Action Marin, and World Arts West (Producers of the SF Ethnic Dance Festival). She is the former Executive Director of CitiCentre Dance Theatre, a multi-cultural arts center that was once headquartered in Oakland’s Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts. She received her B.A. in Movement Education, and has an M.B.A.