For over four decades, proud daughter of Oaxaqueños, Maria Luisa Colmenarez has played a large role in ensuring Mexican folk dance remains accessible to the community while advocating for a larger presence in the performing arts space. She currently serves as the executive director of Danzantes Unidos de California, a…
Guru Vidushi Smt. Naina Shastri is the Artistic Director of Ushanjali School of Dance, a premier Tri Valley-East Bay based South Indian Classical Dance academy. Students are trained in the Mysuru style of Bharatanatya and taught both theoretical and practical aspects of this ancient art form. Students of Ushanjali have…
Jon has over twenty years experience creating theater in the San Francisco Bay Area and NYC. Since 2006, he has pursued classical Chinese drama (opera) and how to make this art form accessible to Western audiences and performers. Directing credits include the West Coast premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play,…
Gayatri Subramanian is the Founder/Artistic Director of KA Academy of Indian Music & Dance. She is a professional Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer and instructor is one of the senior most disciples of Guru Smt. Padmini Radhakrishnan, the Founder-Director of the institute “Soundarya Natya Kalalaya Foundation”, Mumbai. She has undergone intensive training for over…
Charya Burt is an acclaimed master dancer, choreographer, vocalist and teacher of Classical Cambodian Dance. After the Khmer Rouge genocide, Burt trained extensively with Cambodia’s foremost surviving dance masters, eventually joining the dance faculty of Cambodia’s Royal University of Fine Arts. As a member of Cambodia’s…
Native American Comedy
Bay Area Tibetan opera singer receives our nation's highest honor in the traditional arts
Over-articulated and barely translated, Gbedu Town Radio tells dynamic stories for the culture. Led by Artistic Director, Nkeiruka Oruche, and featuring a dynamic group of performers, GTR explores social and political themes through Pan Afro-Urban music and dance including Afrobeats, Dancehall, Coupé-Décalé & varieties of Hip hop. Gbedu Town Radio…
Fode Sissoko is the grandson of the king of the kora, Soundioulou Cissokho, of Senegal. Sissoko, who carries on that ancestral wisdom in Los Angeles, has been playing the kora instrument, and other Mande instruments for over 40 years. He has toured globally with renowned companies including Ballet Bugarabu and with…
Amelia Butler is an indigenous Māori woman of Ngātiwai, Ngāti Awa and Ngāpuhi descent. She attended Kōhanga Reo (Māori language preschool) at a young age and grew up in Auckland, New Zealand. Amelia studied Māori by correspondence at secondary school and led her school’s kapa haka (traditional Māori performance) group.
