Adham Hafez is a choreographer, curator, theorist, and artist. His work encompasses postcolonial studies, the Anthropocene and performance, politics of choreography, Arab art history, knowledge production, and climate change. As an artist and a theorist his work has been presented internationally at world renowned venues including Hebbel Am Ufer, Cairo Opera House, MoMA PS1, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Damascus Opera House, La Mama Theatre, among others. He publishes essays and texts in Arabic, English and French, and he is the founder of HaRaKa Platform, based out of New York, Berlin and Cairo, and dedicated to Middle East performance, media and dance. He is also the founder of Wizara, a new ecosystem built by artists for artists on the blockchain, enabling artists to experiment with digital tools in a Web3.0 world. Adham Hafez has received multiple awards for his work, including First Prize for Choreography, and Cultural Entrepreneur of the Year. He is a graduate of New York University, SciencePo Paris, Amsterdam University of the Arts, and Cairo Opera House.

Digital portrait by Stefano Fioravanti

www.adhamhafez.co

Andrew Colwell is an applied ethnomusicologist with a focus on indigeneity, heritage-making, and globalization. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree in visual and critical studies from the Art Institute of Chicago. His dissertation on the globalization of Mongol xöömei (throat-singing) explores the transformative relationships between pastoral communities, professional musicians, foreign audiences, and cultural institutions in Mongolia, Germany, and beyond. During this work, he facilitated various locally driven efforts among these communities and persons to realize environmental justice, cultural representation, and economic resilience through the performing arts. His doctoral research has received generous support from the Fulbright Institute for International Education, the American Center for Mongolian Studies, and the Portable Title VIII program, while a conference paper based upon this work received the Martin Hatch award. In addition to publishing in the Journal of Folklore Research, he has a forthcoming chapter in an edited volume with the University of Illinois Press and a forthcoming article with the Asian Music journal. As a practicing xöömeich (throat-singer) himself and multi-instrumentalist, he has given workshops at the University of Pittsburgh, MIT, and Berkeley, performed at the Roaring Hooves Festival and the International Xöömei Festival in western Mongolia, and collaborated with various artists, including ethno-rock band Altan Urag and English pianist Steve Tromans, among many others.

https://ctmd.org/

Andrew Suseno's training came from Western approaches to the body that negated social and political context. He is trained in many somatic movement forms including Laban Movement Analysis and the Feldenkrais Method and he is a doctor of physical therapy. He began to develop his own method, Parcon Resilience, a philosophy and practice that follows the holistic unfolding of non-white experience across our differences as the guide for all people's unfolding and co-existing in harmonious collective. It is a site-specific somatic (body/mind) improvisation form that supports play with the components of relationships such as boundary making, requests, dialogue with ourselves, objects, others and the land. Over the course of COVID Andrew has hosted 100+ embodied BIPOC practice circles. These spaces support BIPOC to mourn loss, recover body and soul, and find community. Andrew also hosted circles for the AAPI community to raise funds to #CancelRent, question anti-blackness and process the Atlanta shootings. In particular, with Southeast Asian diaspora, he has collaborated with Kimberly Tate, a Parcon trained facilitator, to support Filipinx nurses, lab with artists to develop climate resilience and currently to engage with the National Organization of Asians and Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence (NAPISEV) to develop a Survivor Handbook. He offers regular training for BIPOC and immigrant community leaders and artists to learn Parcon Resilience for use in their circles.

www.parconrc.org

Angelica Lara is UnLocal’s Education and Outreach Director. She was raised in Queens, New York and is deeply committed to advocacy as a tool of education, communication, and history for creating sustainability for New York City’s undocumented communities. She is the resident Dramaturg with the ALAT company with which she participates in efforts to dismantle and create alternatives to a system that creates harm in our homes and communities, as well as serving as a community educator and advocate. The community education we offer at UnLocal is essential for expanding our understanding of how immigration laws in the United States affect us, distributing the necessary information to make autonomous and informed decisions, and creating networks to grow and preserve our communities.a??

unlocal.org

Jean Bae is the Director of Policy and Legislative Affairs at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA). During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has led the MOIA’s policy and programmatic efforts to provide critical resources to immigrant communities, including emergency relief fund, burial assistance, and CBO-led vaccine outreach. She also monitors local, state, and federal policies and advocates for immigrant inclusion.

Prior to joining MOIA, she worked as a senior policy analyst at NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and played a key role in implementing and evaluating ActionHealthNYC, a 1-year demonstration program that assessed the health impact of providing direct access to immigrants in New York City. Jean graduated Harvard Law School and obtained her Master’s in Public Health at NYU. She has taught at NYU and Weil Cornell on various topics, including human rights advocacy through photography and art. She lives in Brooklyn.

nyc.gov/immigrants

Matthew Covey has devoted his professional career to helping artists build bridges between international communities. Following his studies in literature and music (BA Oberlin College) and post-colonial theory (MA UCD Ireland), Covey moved to Slovakia where he co-founded the critically acclaimed US/Slovak indie-rock band Skulpey. After relocations to Dublin and then New York, Covey worked as a festival talent-buyer before running the Knitting Factory Amsterdam booking agency. In 1998 he co-launched Tamizdat and managed its Prague operation for three years before returning to New York to become the manager of Grammy Award winning band, The Klezmatics. Through the early 2000s, U.S. visa policy became an increasing impediment to international culture in the U.S., inspiring Covey to attend law school (JD NY Law School) to further Tamizdat’s work facilitating international cultural mobility. He launched Tamizdat’s affiliated law firm, CoveyLaw, in 2015, and is the U.S.’s leading authority and advocate for arts immigration. Covey is admitted to the New York Bar, and is also a member of the board of Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

www.tamizdat.org

Mohamed Q. Amin is an Indo-Caribbean, Queer, and Muslim immigrant rights activist, a native of Guyana, who currently resides in Richmond Hill, Queens NY. Amin is a survivor of anti-LGBTQ hate violence, a cultural producer, and the founder and executive director of the Caribbean Equality Project (CEP), a non-profit organization that advocates for Caribbean LGBTQ+ voices in New York City. His transnational advocacy and community organizing are rooted in gender equity, racial justice, dismantling and decolonizing systems of oppression, healing, and ending anti-LGBTQ hate violence in the Caribbean diaspora. Amin is the Director of “My Truth, My Story,” CEP’s multimedia oral history documentary series that curates “coming-out” narratives of Queer & TGNC people of Caribbean heritage in the diaspora. He the curator of "Queer Caribbeans of NYC," the first-ever multimedia historical retrospective exhibition and archive documenting the racial and cultural intersections of Caribbean LGBTQ rights activists in New York City. As an intersectional community organizer, activist, and coalition leader, following the horrific Pulse nightclub shooting, Amin’s relentless advocacy to uplift Queer Muslim voices were recognized with a Proclamation from the New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito at the 2016 NYC Council Eid ul-Fitr Celebration. In 2018, Mr. Amin co-organized "Breaking Silences," the first International Caribbean LGBTQ conference in Toronto, Canada. In 2019, he was selected as a New York State ambassador for WorldPride and was honored by Gay City News with an “Impact Award” for his work with the Caribbean Equality Project, the first for a Caribbean LGBTQ immigrant organizer in NYC. Amin holds a B.A. in Economics and is currently pursuing a Masters in Mental Health Counseling at his alma mater, Queens College.

https://www.caribbeanequalityproject.org/

Violinist Nariman Asanov is a leading based exponent of the musical tradition of the Crimean Tatars. He was born in Almalik, Uzbekistan in 1973, the child of community activists who survived the Soviet’s mass deportation of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia in 1944. Growing up in a large community-in-exile, he was inspired by a local village fiddler, as well as the late Enver Sherfedinov, a leading Crimean Rom violinist who frequently played on Uzbek television. In 1988, his family was able to return to Crimea, and he enrolled in the Tchaikovsky Music College in Simferopol, the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine. While there, Nariman became one of the first members of Ali Alimov’s Uchan-su Folk Ensemble, which takes its name from a famous waterfall near Yalta. Uchan-su toured the US in 1991 and in 1994, and at the end of the second visit Nariman decided to stay. He enrolled in the Music Conservatory at SUNY Purchase and graduated with a degree in viola performance. Leading a band composed of a number of émigré alumni of Uchan-su and the Efsane Ensemble (including Efsane’s former musical director, Rustem Faizov), Nariman performs frequently for events at the American Association of Crimean Turks (Tatars) in Brooklyn, as well as at weddings and other family celebrations in the community. He is a featured artist of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance in New York City, and has performed at major venues such as Lincoln Center, Symphony Space and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Nathalie Rea is a 14 year old student at Gramercy Arts School and resident of Corona, Queens. A dancer and an artist, Nathalie has been a part of Centro Corona for about 9 years. She has done many projects with Centro–from dance, art, and theater to political movements–and hopes to do more in the future. Centro Corona has helped Nathalie build her creativity, leadership, and Community building skills. She helps others with whatever they need and works collectively with people, discussing issues and campaigns and responding to many different problems in community.

Centro Corona is a comforting place that everyone is accepted into. It helps build new experiences, leadership, and knowledge of working-class people, and supports immigrant communities who seek opportunities to try new things, build solidarity, and use their creativity and strength. A key reason Nathalie has been a part of Centro for such a long time is because it helps her with public speaking, community building, and independent and group work––and it is a lot of fun making new friends at Centro! She considers it her second home, a place where she goes all the time and always has fun. The people from Centro Corona have always been there for Nathalie, and she thinks that that is very special. She feels that Centro is a very kind and respectful environment. There are not a lot of spaces that are unique and helpful like it. Everyone should have a space like Centro Corona to go to when they need help with accompanying different cases, homework, and many other things. At Centro Corona, everyone is welcome, everyone has a voice, everyone is a leader in their own way.

Öneza Lafontant is a cultural activist, musician, and founder of CTMD Touring Artist group Kongo, an Afro-Haitian roots music band based in Brooklyn. The Haitian artists, musicians, and activists of Kongo work from the conviction that the artist must represent the community and organize people to bring about positive change. Titled “Nou Sòti Lwen” (We’ve Come So Far), this program addresses spiritual healing in the time of Covid-19 and the traditional wellness practices that members of the Haitian community have turned to for treatment, prevention, and spiritual well-being. Lafontant lifts the names and contributions of Haitian community members who have transitioned during the pandemic and memorializes four elders who have been cultural gatekeepers over the decades. These four leaders are a Haitian traditional dancer, a vodou priestess, a Haitian folk drummer, and the founder of a Haitian cultural center. Interspersed with performances of Haitian folk songs and traditional rhythms, the program also addresses how the Haitian community has been affected by the systemic racism that has been exposed in recent months, in terms of healthcare services, police abuse and in society at large.

https://www.Kongoroots.com

I am a disabled Haitian immigrant, currently residing in Northern New Jersey. I do activism and advocacy work with Justice Center en El Barrio for immigrants detained by ICE.

Rebecca Margolick is a dancer and choreographer based in Brooklyn NY and raised in Vancouver, Canada. Her multi-disciplinary and solo works have been presented in Poland, Bulgaria, Israel, Seattle, San Diego, Montreal, Vancouver, Wells BC, Mexico City and NYC. Her solo Bunker + Vault won the Jury Prize for “best indoor choreographic work” at the 2019 Festival Quartiers Danse in Montreal. She was a Dance Artist in Residence at The Banff Centre for the Arts in December 2019 and a 2020 New Directions Choreography Lab Fellowship at the Ailey School under the mentorship of Gus Solomons Jr. She was a 2020/2021 artist in residence at the Dance Deck in Vancouver. She received the Conney Conference Fellowship to study the archives of the Clara de Hirsch Home for Working Girls at 92nd St Y and presented her research at the 2019 Conney Conference. She was a 2017 GPS Fund Movement Research Artist in Residence at Derida Dance Center in Sofia Bulgaria, and a 2015/16 LABA Fellow at the 14th St Y in NYC. Rebecca danced with Sidra Bell Dance New York from 2012-2016, and is currently a member of Chuck Wilt’s UNA Productions and Kayla Farrish / Decent Structure Arts. As a freelance dancer she has worked with a number of artists including Allen Kaeja, Patricia Norowol, Jerome Bel (The Show Must Go On), Derrick Belcham, Emily Terndrup, Maya Orchin, Shay Kuebler, Donald Sales and Barak Marshall, among others. Rebecca trained at Arts Umbrella in Vancouver and graduated from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, with a BFA in Dance. She is a proud member of Dance Artists National Collective and is currently organizing the NY dance community in support of a WPA bill and the New York Health Act.

https://www.rebeccamargolick.com/

Réka Echerer (she/her) hails from Vienna, Austria and has performed with the Vienna State Opera, Sue Bernhard Danceworks and Kizuna Dance. She has performed works by Merce Cunningham, Gabrielle Lamb,  Aszure Barton and currently dances with the Metropolitan Opera and Megan Williams Dance Projects. She is a proud member of Dance Artists’ National Collective and Dancers of the Met and currently resides on the stolen lands of the Lenapehoking/Canarsie lands also known as Astoria, Queens. 

Photo credit: @jhtheadshot

Rosa Bao (she, her) migrated to Corona from Ecuador in 1993, and has lived in Queens for 26 years. She is a mother to three children, who were all born, raised and went to school in Queens. She has done childcare to support her family, and her neighbors who go to work and needed affordable childcare. As an activist, artist member at Centro Corona since 2014, she is promoter of the organization's campaigns such as anti-gentrification and broader community cultural work. She is part of the organization's leadership bodies. She is also a co-founder of the Ecuadorian traditional dance group, Sumak Warmis, based at Centro Corona.

Zahra Banyamerian is an independent curator and an art administrator living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She works as a Program Officer at the New York Foundation for the Arts, where she supports NYFA Learning Team in various professional development programs, such as entrepreneurial training and Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program (IAP). In her role, she facilitates NYFA's Doctor's Hour events, Online Learning programs for artists and seeks exhibition opportunities for IAP artists. In addition to her affiliation with NYFA, Zahra pursues curatorial projects in alternative venues, creating space for emerging artists whose work may not conform to the standards of mainstream art.