Jennifer Cendaña Armas (Creator & Actor) is an actor-writer-singer-dancer-educator-community worker telling stories of diaspora through art and social justice work. She was a 2022 Harlem Stage Emerging Artist and 2021 NYC Artist Corps grant awardee for Story Of A Romance (working title). Story Of A Romance is also Jennifer’s Off-Broadway debut as writer and performer, featuring in 2022’s Downtown Urban Arts Festival. She was a featured artist at Smithsonian Institute’s Crosslines, presenting visual and performance art on the Filipino identity and our African-Asian-Hispanic lineage. Her show, skinimin12, featured at Hip-Hop Theater Festival (Public Theater), Downtown Urban Theatre Festival, and was later adapted into a film (BRICArts). She premiered Twists & A Bridge at New York City Summerstage, with workshopping at Berkeley’s La Peña Cultural Center.

KT Kennedy (they/them) is a Black queer non-binary multidisciplinary digital artist, art educator, cultivator, and community organizer based in Brooklyn, NY, committed to resource sharing, artistic expression, and youth art programming as tools for liberation. KT is the founder and director of both BTGNC (Black Trans & GNC) Resource and Black Education Matters (BEM), and recently received their Masters in Art Education and Community Practice from NYU in 2021 receiving the AECP Student Excellence Award. KT’s unique artistic practice transcends and translates to various communities, gatherings, mediums, digital paintings, and teachings. They continue to explore collective community engagement while creating, facilitating workshops, and coordinating community safety workshops that heal and empower communities. They currently work as the Youth & Community Organizer for Recess Art, and is a member of Thank God for Abortion advocating for bodily autonomy and reproductive liberation for all.

Amber Lodman, a Harlem based artist known for her use of bold color, pattern play and silhouettes in her paintings. Amber’s work explores the complexity of shared and individual identity as a black woman and is inspired by the relationship between memory, nostalgia, and family which to her shape a sense of pride, knowledge of self and love. Through her use of color, Amber’s paintings often elicit a joyful childlike response. Her nuanced paintings have in part nurtured her throughout life, providing moments of introspection and cultivate understanding.

Lorena Marin Ortiz is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY, originally from Bogotá, Colombia. She has been involved in numerous theater and dance projects across Manhattan and Jersey City. Her credits include notable Shakespearean roles such as Isabella in “Measure for Measure” and Banquo in “Macbeth.”

Lorena has been an integral part of the Dance Company Katherine Pettit Creative as a principal dancer and the Something From Abroad Theater Company as an Actress, Director, and Producer. Among her recent works is her bilingual play based on Shakespearean monologues titled “Unspoken Garden/El jardín que calla.” Additionally, she orchestrates the Artistic Laboratory, a live performance where, as a dancer and director, she collaborates with other artists to explore their craft and create original works through improvisation.

She is also the Founder and artistic director of the Robus Dance Theater Ensemble, which has showcased commissioned works for the New York Foundation for the Arts, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, and the Queens Council on the Arts.

Sari Nordman, a Finnish interdisciplinary artist and educator, creates public art projects, video works, and dance performances. Many of her projects have been informed by climate change and respond to environmental social justice issues. She has exhibited her works with The Immigrant Artist Biennial, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning and King Manor Museum. Her work has been supported by Brooklyn Arts Council Creative Equations Fund, and Arts Alive and New York State Council on the Arts grants. She has discussed her art, and the environmentalism and social engagement in her process at The Kennedy Center and Hirshhorn Museum. She holds a M.F.A. from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.

A born and bred New Yorker, La-Shonda Rice’s love for yarncraft started at the age of nine. However, alongside her crochet was an interesting and varied career; she worked for the US army before becoming a kindergarten teacher, then an legislative aide, finally ending up as a NYC police officer (retired) and best selling children’s book author. But no matter what, crochet has always played a part in her life. Her natural hairstyle dolls are popular because of the undeniable representation. “They aren’t just dolls created with brown yarn, I create to promote pride one doll at a time.” says, La-Shonda. Her ability to mimic hairstyles with yarn has raised the bar in fiber art and has inspired crocheters globally since 2009.

La-Shonda’s art dolls can be seen all around the world in the arms of notable people. “As a United States veteran and police officer I’ve seen so many horrific things. Crochet gives me an outlet, a way to escape from stress and PTSD.” La-Shonda’s bespoke dolls are always in demand, as well as her crochet patterns and classes. Custom designs and ready to ship items can be purchased at WWW.THECHRISTIANCROCHETADDICT.COM

C Joi Sanchez, aka Radical Black Joi, emerges as a self-taught polymath artist and urban art curator rooted in Brooklyn, finding solace in The Bronx. She presently leads “Creating With Black Joy” self-development workshops at Caldwell Enrichment, nurturing joy amidst the intersection of Blackness, womanhood, and queerness, drawing from ancestral wisdom and personal resilience.

An NYC poet recognized for her Pushcart-nominated works in SF & D Magazine after pursuing film photography at NYU. Buzzfeed acclaimed her debut publication, “B.L.A.H. Vol 1,” as a standout poetry book in 2017, igniting a journey of community-driven healing. Follow-up volumes, “BLAH Vol 2: The Space between The Lines” and “BLAH Vol 3: The Secret Life Of Clouds,” enrich the Brooklyn Library.

Jean E. Taylor has been a teaching artist for Lincoln Center for over 25 years, working extensively with LCE’s teaching artist faculty, the Teaching Artist Development Labs and international consultancies. Jean is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Directors Emeriti Award, and represented LCE at the International Teaching Artist Conferences (ITAC) in Oslo, Brisbane, Edinburgh, New York City, Seoul, and again in Oslo in 2022. LCE, along with the Maui Arts and Culture Center and the Teaching Artist Guild, are the US Hub for ITAC joining a global network for change.

Jean teaches Theatrical Clown and Accepting the Ridiculous for The New School College of Performing Arts BFA and MFA programs and teaches Theatrical Clown/A Level of Theatre for The Barrow Group’s Actor Training program. As a performer, Jean is developing a series entitled Great Small Moments and has a dream of using her vintage tractor for Movable Stories along a country road.