Off Center

A series of reflections on outgoing Walker director Kathy Halbreich from colleagues and friends.

“Kathy Halbreich — an inspirational, courageous, thoughtful, supportive, and glorious boss. An all too rare moral and visionary leader in the contemporary arts world. Working for her was a great privilege and honor for which I am deeply grateful. Lessons learned from her resonate every day in my life.”

–John R. Killacky, program officer for arts and culture at the San Francisco Foundation

“Friendliness and candor in the art world might be an aberration, so it seems. And then there’s Kathy Halbreich. I’ve met very few in the business with an office like hers: big windows, big books, about big art, who make themselves so available, every time. I've loved our many conversations about the discursiveness of human sadness, Taylor Branch's America in the King Years, and the tyrannical weather in the Midwest.

Kathy also has a great collection of shoes. I can’t wait to see where she lands.”

–Ralph Lemon, choreographer

“It seems to me that Kathy is a true one-of-a-kind. A direct mind and voice, a fearless, shameless provocative diva-style leader. I was very nervous to meet her. I had a feeling she would figure out very fast whether I was worth her time. I had the feeling she would not suffer fools.

Well, we had the most hilarious, raucous meeting, after which I felt a new confidence in my work and in my person. I am not sure quite how she did that. It has stayed with me somehow, that confidence she pushed me to feel in our talking, and I will never forget my time there, or her, and her generous boldness in her role she so well understood. Warmest wishes to her for her new life!”

–Dancer-choreographer Sarah Michelson. Her world premiere performance Daylight (for Minneapolis) in September 2005 was inspired by the architecture of the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Walker expansion