We are pleased to announce our Award Jury for the 2026 San Francisco Dance Film Festival. These jury members were selected for their formidable dance, film, and cultural expertise. They will select winners in various categories and we will announce their decisions at the festival finale.
Amanda Beane
The seedling of a traveling salesman and a copywriter, Amanda Beane sprouted from the muddy soil of Seattle, WA, where she slept under her mother’s typewriter and fashioned Barbie clothes from the single sock drawer. She took root at California College of the Arts, where she graduated honorably with a double major in jewelry/metal arts and textiles. She began her budding career as a production designer before blossoming into a director.
Mia J. Chong
Mia J. Chong (she/they) is a San Francisco–based director, choreographer, and artist who serves as Co-Artistic Director of ODC/Dance and is the founding Artistic Director of EIGHT/MOVES, a contemporary dance company dedicated to uplifting diverse artistic voices. A former company dancer with ODC/Dance, Mia has also performed with Post:ballet, Robert Moses’ Kin, Dance Theatre of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Symphony. She is a recipient of a Princess Grace Award and the Chris Hellman Dance Honor, and was named one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch. Mia’s choreography has been commissioned and presented by ODC/Dance, Post:ballet, FACT/SF, RAWdance, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, UC Berkeley, Gonzaga University, and others. Her dance films have screened at more than 15 festivals internationally. She holds a BA in Social Sciences with a concentration in Organizational Behavior from New York University and a MS in Arts Administration and Cultural Entrepreneurship from Northeastern University.
Joanna Haigood
Since 1980, Joanna Haigood has been creating work that uses natural, architectural, and cultural environments as points of departure for movement exploration and narrative. Her stages have included grain terminals, a clock tower, the pope’s palace, military forts, and a mile of urban neighborhood streets in the South Bronx. Her work has been commissioned by many arts institutions, including Dancing in the Streets, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Walker Arts Center, the Exploratorium Museum, the National Black Arts Festival, and Festival d’Avignon. She has also been honored with the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the United States Artist Fellowship, the Rainin Arts Fellowship, Doris Duke Artist Award, and recently the Dance Magazine Award. Joanna has had the privilege to mentor many extraordinary young artists internationally at the National École des Arts du Cirque in France, the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in England, Spelman College, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, the San Francisco Circus Center, and at Zaccho Studio.
Lily Plotkin
Lily Plotkin is an Oscar shortlisted & award-winning documentary filmmaker. In 2025, her directorial debut film, WICKET, won the Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary at Frameline Film Festival. In 2022, she lead produced the Paramount+ film Lynching Postcards: Token of a Great Day, which was shortlisted for the Academy Awards, won an NAACP Image Award, and was Peabody-nominated. In 2024, she archival produced Netflix’s Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Previously, she spent five years developing and producing the Critics’ Choice and Writers Guild-nominated Netflix series Amend: The Fight for America (2021).
Her work explores themes of social justice, American inequality, the relevance of history to modern life, and the power of artistic expression.
Wei Wang
Wei Wang is a Principal Dancer with San Francisco Ballet. After training at SF Ballet School, he was named an apprentice in 2012, and joined the Company as a corps de ballet member in 2013. He was promoted to soloist in 2016 and principal dancer in 2018.
Christopher Wheeldon
Christopher Wheeldon, OBE, is an internationally acclaimed director and choreographer who trained at The Royal Ballet School before joining The Royal Ballet in 1991 and New York City Ballet in 1993, where he became the company’s first Resident Choreographer in 2001. He has since created works for many of the world’s leading ballet companies, including San Francisco Ballet, The Bolshoi, The Mariinsky, The Paris Opera Ballet, and Hamburg Ballet, with acclaimed full-length productions such as Cinderella, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Winter’s Tale, Like Water for Chocolate, and Oscar. His work extends to film and television, including choreography for the feature film Center Stage, the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, and the finale performance in the television series Étoile. On Broadway, he directed and choreographed MJ The Musical, winning the Tony Award for Best Choreography, and An American in Paris, also a Tony winner. His many honors include multiple Olivier Awards, the Benois de la Danse, and recognition as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Photo copyright Benjamin Rivera Photography
