Nani Agbeli, known for his energy, athleticism, and precision on stage, is one of the leading Ghanaian dancers of his generation.
Born into a family of prominent dancers and drummers in Ghana’s Volta region, Nani was trained by his father, the late Godwin K. Agbeli, who performed with the Arts Council of Ghana Folkloric Company and later served as chairman of the Ghanaian National Association of Cultural Groups.
Nani went on to study with various artists at the National Arts Center in Accra and, for many years, led the award-winning cultural troupe Sankofa Roots II. For nine years, he served as the lead drum and dance instructor at the Dagbe Cultural Center, a school that trains domestic and international students in Ghanaian traditional arts.
In the United States, Nani has taught Ghanaian drumming and dancing and led performing ensembles notably at Tufts University and Harvard University among others. In addition, he has taught at Berklee College of Music, the Edna Manley School in Jamaica, Bowling Green University, and the University of Virginia, and has held artistic residencies at many other colleges.
While teaching at Tufts and Harvard, Nani served as Artistic Director and Lead Dancer of the Agbekor Drum and Dance Society, a community-based group in the Greater Boston area founded by Professor David Locke of Tufts University (www.agbekorsociety.org).
Nani will be working with our students in the dance and music studio, exploring Ghanaian dance and drumming.
Lakhiyia Hicks is a public health cultural shapeshifter, a freedom art warrior, whose work reminds us of who we are. Lakhiyia is spoken word poet, participatory action researcher, singer, director, dancer, curriculum developer, kuringa/joker, educational curator and her art focuses on radical authenticity. Lakhiyia holds a Bachelors from Northwestern, Masters from USC, and lecturer experience at UCLA.
Lakhiyia means “home” in isiXhosa and Haitian Creole. Calling in such Ancestral determinism, Lakhiyia is the founder and project manager for HOMEplxce, an educational consulting space dedicated to the mobilization of Survivors of childhood sexual assault as Liberation Arts Community Health Strategists across the Blxck Queer Diaspora.
Lakhiyia will be working with our students and staff in the classrooms to explore topics such as identity, race, inclusion and equity threw writing and spoken word.
2020—2021
Shivani’s work spans genres from Live Stage shows, film/television and commercial work, and movement direction and choreography for dramatic theatre.
Shivani has performed in India, Japan, USA, and Canada, including prestigious tours where she has performed as both lead and soloist. Credits include TV/Film work for Disney, CW, Fox, Nickelodeon, Omni Television (Canada), Intel, and UTV Motion Pictures (India).
She has presented work at numerous dance festivals including IAAC’s Erasing Borders: Festival of Indian Dance (New York, NY), Battery Dance Company’s Downtown Dance Days (New York, NY), DC Dance Festival at Dance Place (Washington, DC), Indian Film Festival Los Angeles (IFFLA 2013, 2014, 2015), the SoCal Dance Invitational, San Pedro Dance Festival, Mix Match Dance Festival (Los Angeles, CA), Pasadena Dance Festival, Club Jete (Los Angeles, CA), Feats Festival of Dance (Edmonton, AB), multiple performances in the Chennai Dance Season (India), and at museums including Smithsonian, LACMA, Skirball Cultural Center, Glenbow Museum (Calgary, AB).
Rachel Beetz
Rachel Beetz is a Los Angeles based flutist whose playing is both “soulfully elegant” (Washington Post) and evokes the “roar of prehistoric animals” (San Diego Union Tribune). Rachel is passionate about contemporary music and creating supportive and collaborative environments for her community to make music. She is Executive Director of the wasteLAnd ensemble and also half of both Plus/Minus with percussionist Dustin Donahue and of Autoduplicity, a project with cellist Jennifer Bewerse.
Rachel has been invited to play with ensembles who share her mission such as Callithumpian Consort, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Noise, Southland Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, and has been featured on the Jacaranda and Monday Evening Concerts series. Rachel has appeared at festivals all over the globe such as the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico, Vértice in Mexico City, the Dog Star Orchestra in Los Angeles, Prisms New Music Festival in Tempe, American Music Festival at the National Gallery of Art, the New Music Gathering, soundON Festival of Contemporary Music, XI Festival Internacional de Música Nueva in Monterrey, Mexico, Internationales Institut Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Atlantic Music Festival, WithOut Walls Festival at the La Jolla Playhouse, unSUNG Music Festival in Los Angeles, and the Ojai Music Festival.
As a composer, Rachel makes sound pieces involving acute realizations of graphic materials. In collaboration with visual artist, Nichole Speciale, they created the project, Script-Rescript, a translation project between Nichole’s mixed media drawings and Rachel’s sonic realizations. In the winter of 2015-16, Rachel received the Listhus Skammdegi Air Award, a three-month artist residency in Ólafsfjörður, Iceland. There she created the 30-hour work, The Winter Stars, based on sonic realizations of long exposure photographs of the night sky. Her work has been exhibited at Watt Space Gallery in Newcastle, Australia, the Natural History Museum in Ólafsfjörður, Island, Salur Myndlistarfélagsins in Akureyri, Iceland, Rabindranath Tagore Centre in Kolkata, India, and at Emergent Artspace’s ongoing online exhibition “Translations.”
As an educator, Dr. Beetz lectures on contemporary flute playing, collaboration, and the creative process of creating and realizing graphic scores. She has given guest lectures at Arizona State University, California Institute of the Arts, Iceland Academy of the Arts, and Santa Clara University. She holds degrees from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (Bachelor of Music) and UC San Diego (Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Arts). Currently, Rachel instructs contemporary chamber music at the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP) at New England Conservatory and is Adjunct Instructor at Moorpark College.
2018—2019
Grace Lynne
Printmaker, activist
Lauren Weedman
Storyteller, writer, theater artist
Adam Kerbel
Artist, performer, improv actor
Diane Williams
Multimedia installation using recycles materials
2017—2018
Sophia Allison
Sculptor
Matt Sheridan
Painter and media artist
Susanna Battin
Media and installation artist
Jennifer Saparzadeh
Filmmaker
2016—2017
Lauryn Whitney
Theater artist
James Rojas
Urban planner
Bill Ramsey
Performance artist and composer
2015—2016
Francesco Rengifo
Visual artist and entrepreneur
Navarasa Dance Theater
Theater dance company
Nathan Gelgud
Graphic artist and illustrator
2014—2015
Sayda Trujillo
Actress, educator and theater director
Allison Keating
Puppeteer and theater artist
Jeremy Mikush
Performer and media artist
2012—2013
2011—2012
Jolino Becerra
Mosaic artist
Angela Tayler
Angela Tayler is a visual storyteller whose practice is rooted in long-term obsessions with observation. The dialogues that shape the core of her process work to deconstruct a vernacular, to illuminate and honor personal ideology. Explorations of Angela’s family archive inspired her interest in the coexisting intricacies of identity and representation, gendered experiences and generational scarring. Angela’s photographs continually question self-fashioning, combatting the notion of a single story. In doing this, Angela seeks to open an intimate dialogue, to recognize the desire and curiosity of a subject, while also honoring the stillness of a moment.
Over the past 10 years, Angela has had the pleasure of participating with the National Young Arts Foundation, the U.S. Presidential Scholars, the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, and the Music Center’s Spotlight Awards Program. Angela holds a B.A. in Studio Arts with concentrations in Photography, Printmaking, and African American Studies from Loyola Marymount University.
2019—2020
Aaron Ashby
Aaron Ashby is a sleeper spy from an extraterrestrial empire, posing as a Black-Thai American writer, director, and producer. His mission? To connect people from diverse—even clashing— cultural backgrounds and life experiences through thought-provoking, emotionally-compelling, and context expanding stories. At the tender (read: totally normal) age of 18 he left the comforts of his bunkbed and went to Los Angeles on a full ride scholarship to USC film school. After producing a series of multimedia art shows in South LA, Aaron turned to virtual reality production to combine his experiences in filmmaking, art installation, and community building. Aaron has created commercial and narrative content in North Carolina, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Most recently Aaron has produced and directed virtual reality short films with Sony Pictures, Jaunt Studios, and Strivr Labs. His work has been featured at Sundance Film Festival, ArtShare LA, and all major virtual reality platforms.
Aaron’s work highlights the beauty and struggle of families in all their forms, whether they’re on space stations and magical lands, or the shuttered shacks and cracked sidewalks of rural North Carolina. When he’s not penning power punch stories and screenplays, Aaron is constructing killer beats for his funk band and scores for his short films. To view more of his work or just chat about life, connect with Aaron at epiphanypictures.co.
Rachel Beetz
Rachel Beetz is a Los Angeles based flutist whose playing is both “soulfully elegant” (Washington Post) and evokes the “roar of prehistoric animals” (San Diego Union Tribune). Rachel is passionate about contemporary music and creating supportive and collaborative environments for her community to make music. She is Executive Director of the wasteLAnd ensemble and also half of both Plus/Minus with percussionist Dustin Donahue and of Autoduplicity, a project with cellist Jennifer Bewerse.
Rachel has been invited to play with ensembles who share her mission such as Callithumpian Consort, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Noise, Southland Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, and has been featured on the Jacaranda and Monday Evening Concerts series. Rachel has appeared at festivals all over the globe such as the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico, Vértice in Mexico City, the Dog Star Orchestra in Los Angeles, Prisms New Music Festival in Tempe, American Music Festival at the National Gallery of Art, the New Music Gathering, soundON Festival of Contemporary Music, XI Festival Internacional de Música Nueva in Monterrey, Mexico, Internationales Institut Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Atlantic Music Festival, WithOut Walls Festival at the La Jolla Playhouse, unSUNG Music Festival in Los Angeles, and the Ojai Music Festival.
As a composer, Rachel makes sound pieces involving acute realizations of graphic materials. In collaboration with visual artist, Nichole Speciale, they created the project, Script-Rescript, a translation project between Nichole’s mixed media drawings and Rachel’s sonic realizations. In the winter of 2015-16, Rachel received the Listhus Skammdegi Air Award, a three-month artist residency in Ólafsfjörður, Iceland. There she created the 30-hour work, The Winter Stars, based on sonic realizations of long exposure photographs of the night sky. Her work has been exhibited at Watt Space Gallery in Newcastle, Australia, the Natural History Museum in Ólafsfjörður, Island, Salur Myndlistarfélagsins in Akureyri, Iceland, Rabindranath Tagore Centre in Kolkata, India, and at Emergent Artspace’s ongoing online exhibition “Translations.”
As an educator, Dr. Beetz lectures on contemporary flute playing, collaboration, and the creative process of creating and realizing graphic scores. She has given guest lectures at Arizona State University, California Institute of the Arts, Iceland Academy of the Arts, and Santa Clara University. She holds degrees from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (Bachelor of Music) and UC San Diego (Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Arts). Currently, Rachel instructs contemporary chamber music at the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP) at New England Conservatory and is Adjunct Instructor at Moorpark College.
2018—2019
Grace Lynne
Printmaker, activist
Lauren Weedman
Storyteller, writer, theater artist
Adam Kerbel
Artist, performer, improv actor
Diane Williams
Multimedia installation using recycles materials
2017—2018
Sophia Allison
Sculptor
Matt Sheridan
Painter and media artist
Susanna Battin
Media and installation artist
Jennifer Saparzadeh
Filmmaker
2016—2017
Lauryn Whitney
Theater artist
James Rojas
Urban planner
Bill Ramsey
Performance artist and composer
2015—2016
Francesco Rengifo
Visual artist and entrepreneur
Navarasa Dance Theater
Theater dance company
Nathan Gelgud
Graphic artist and illustrator
2014—2015
Sayda Trujillo
Actress, educator and theater director
Allison Keating
Puppeteer and theater artist
Jeremy Mikush
Performer and media artist
2012—2013
2011—2012
Jolino Becerra
Mosaic artist
Nicholas Hummingbird (Cahuilla/Apache)
Nicholas Hummingbird is a California caretaker and cultural educator. He founded and managed Pasadena‐based Hahamongna Native Plant Nursery, a grassroots non‐profit nursery of the Arroyo Seco Foundation that produces native plants propagated from sustainably‐collected seeds and cuttings within the Arroyo Seco watershed.
Hahamongna is proudly the first California native plant nursery in Southern California that bears an indigenous name and is run with indigenous management, fostering stewardship of the land. He has extensive experience propagating plants, collecting seeds, documenting plant populations, and assessing the health and vitality of restoration projects. His educational background has focused on restoration ecology, biology, botany and architecture from Mt. San Antonio College and USC. Since 2012, Hummingbird has been a cultural educator centering the wisdom, stories, and histories of Native Peoples, and creating and implementing curriculum in K-12 school and universities. He has worked with the National Park Service, the Wishtoyo Foundation and others to provide much needed outreach and environmental restoration support.
Nick will be in residency with California Creative Learning Academy for the entire year, working with different grade levels and with the parent community on environmental sustainability and educational projects with an emphasis on California native plants and ecosystems and environmental restoration projects.
Angela Tayler
Angela Tayler is a visual storyteller whose practice is rooted in long-term obsessions with observation. The dialogues that shape the core of her process work to deconstruct a vernacular, to illuminate and honor personal ideology. Explorations of Angela’s family archive inspired her interest in the coexisting intricacies of identity and representation, gendered experiences and generational scarring. Angela’s photographs continually question self-fashioning, combatting the notion of a single story. In doing this, Angela seeks to open an intimate dialogue, to recognize the desire and curiosity of a subject, while also honoring the stillness of a moment.
Over the past 10 years, Angela has had the pleasure of participating with the National Young Arts Foundation, the U.S. Presidential Scholars, the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, and the Music Center’s Spotlight Awards Program. Angela holds a B.A. in Studio Arts with concentrations in Photography, Printmaking, and African American Studies from Loyola Marymount University.
2019—2020
Aaron Ashby
Aaron Ashby is a sleeper spy from an extraterrestrial empire, posing as a Black-Thai American writer, director, and producer. His mission? To connect people from diverse—even clashing— cultural backgrounds and life experiences through thought-provoking, emotionally-compelling, and context expanding stories. At the tender (read: totally normal) age of 18 he left the comforts of his bunkbed and went to Los Angeles on a full ride scholarship to USC film school. After producing a series of multimedia art shows in South LA, Aaron turned to virtual reality production to combine his experiences in filmmaking, art installation, and community building. Aaron has created commercial and narrative content in North Carolina, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Most recently Aaron has produced and directed virtual reality short films with Sony Pictures, Jaunt Studios, and Strivr Labs. His work has been featured at Sundance Film Festival, ArtShare LA, and all major virtual reality platforms.
Aaron’s work highlights the beauty and struggle of families in all their forms, whether they’re on space stations and magical lands, or the shuttered shacks and cracked sidewalks of rural North Carolina. When he’s not penning power punch stories and screenplays, Aaron is constructing killer beats for his funk band and scores for his short films. To view more of his work or just chat about life, connect with Aaron at epiphanypictures.co.
Rachel Beetz
Rachel Beetz is a Los Angeles based flutist whose playing is both “soulfully elegant” (Washington Post) and evokes the “roar of prehistoric animals” (San Diego Union Tribune). Rachel is passionate about contemporary music and creating supportive and collaborative environments for her community to make music. She is Executive Director of the wasteLAnd ensemble and also half of both Plus/Minus with percussionist Dustin Donahue and of Autoduplicity, a project with cellist Jennifer Bewerse.
Rachel has been invited to play with ensembles who share her mission such as Callithumpian Consort, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Noise, Southland Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, and has been featured on the Jacaranda and Monday Evening Concerts series. Rachel has appeared at festivals all over the globe such as the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico, Vértice in Mexico City, the Dog Star Orchestra in Los Angeles, Prisms New Music Festival in Tempe, American Music Festival at the National Gallery of Art, the New Music Gathering, soundON Festival of Contemporary Music, XI Festival Internacional de Música Nueva in Monterrey, Mexico, Internationales Institut Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Atlantic Music Festival, WithOut Walls Festival at the La Jolla Playhouse, unSUNG Music Festival in Los Angeles, and the Ojai Music Festival.
As a composer, Rachel makes sound pieces involving acute realizations of graphic materials. In collaboration with visual artist, Nichole Speciale, they created the project, Script-Rescript, a translation project between Nichole’s mixed media drawings and Rachel’s sonic realizations. In the winter of 2015-16, Rachel received the Listhus Skammdegi Air Award, a three-month artist residency in Ólafsfjörður, Iceland. There she created the 30-hour work, The Winter Stars, based on sonic realizations of long exposure photographs of the night sky. Her work has been exhibited at Watt Space Gallery in Newcastle, Australia, the Natural History Museum in Ólafsfjörður, Island, Salur Myndlistarfélagsins in Akureyri, Iceland, Rabindranath Tagore Centre in Kolkata, India, and at Emergent Artspace’s ongoing online exhibition “Translations.”
As an educator, Dr. Beetz lectures on contemporary flute playing, collaboration, and the creative process of creating and realizing graphic scores. She has given guest lectures at Arizona State University, California Institute of the Arts, Iceland Academy of the Arts, and Santa Clara University. She holds degrees from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (Bachelor of Music) and UC San Diego (Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Arts). Currently, Rachel instructs contemporary chamber music at the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP) at New England Conservatory and is Adjunct Instructor at Moorpark College.
2018—2019
Grace Lynne
Printmaker, activist
Lauren Weedman
Storyteller, writer, theater artist
Adam Kerbel
Artist, performer, improv actor
Diane Williams
Multimedia installation using recycles materials
2017—2018
Sophia Allison
Sculptor
Matt Sheridan
Painter and media artist
Susanna Battin
Media and installation artist
Jennifer Saparzadeh
Filmmaker
2016—2017
Lauryn Whitney
Theater artist
James Rojas
Urban planner
Bill Ramsey
Performance artist and composer
2015—2016
Francesco Rengifo
Visual artist and entrepreneur
Navarasa Dance Theater
Theater dance company
Nathan Gelgud
Graphic artist and illustrator
2014—2015
Sayda Trujillo
Actress, educator and theater director
Allison Keating
Puppeteer and theater artist
Jeremy Mikush
Performer and media artist
2012—2013
2011—2012
Jolino Becerra
Mosaic artist