An accomplished dancer, choreographer and artist was struck and critically injured by an unlicensed driver as she crossed a rain-slicked Brooklyn street yesterday.
Jillian D. PeÑa, 28 – a doctoral candidate in fine arts in London who got her MA at the Art Institute of Chicago – was in critical condition after getting hit at around 11 a.m. at Myrtle and Marcy avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Sources said PeÑa was talking on her cellphone when she was crossing the street.
Her body was slammed against the windshield as the Dodge skidded 75 feet, and she rolled onto the pavement. She was rushed to Bellevue Hospital.
Walter Drumgo, 54, was charged with aggravated unlicensed operation of motor vehicle and driving with a suspended license. He has 11 previous suspensions and has not had a valid license in three years.
PeÑa’s parents, Ingrid and Raymond, of Albuquerque, NM, were en route to New York last night, said neighbor Abe Nickerson.
PeÑa is a National Merit Scholar who is pursuing a Ph.D. in performance studies, according to her online profile. “Mothership,” which she choreographed, was performed at the Dance Theater Workshop last spring.
Writing about her National Hispanic Merit scholarship, she says on a foundation Web site that “although I had always identified myself as Hispanic, this was the first time it had been thrust towards me from the outside as something that set me apart.”
“I am a female Hispanic/Scandinavian performance artist, but simultaneously, and more simply, I am an American artist.”
Additional reporting by Cathy Burke