Hakim Bellamy is Deputy Director of Cultural Services for the City of Albuquerque. A native of New Jersey, lives in Albuquerque. Bellamy is the author of the award-winning poetry collection, Swear (West End Press) and was Albuquerque's inaugural Poet Laureate from 2012-2014. His poetry is published at the Albuquerque Convention Center and in Alternet, TruthOut, Counterpunch, and in many other media. He has shared the stage with Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, and the Dalai Lama. He has been a featured guest on The Tavis Smiley Show and is the host of the arts program Colores on New Mexico PBS. Bellamy's honors include the Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing from the Working Class Studies Association, a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Fellowship, honorable mention for the University of New Mexico's Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize.

To learn more about Hakim’s work, please visit http://hakimbe.com/

Reed Adair Bobroff (Diné) is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, performer, and educator from Albuquerque, NM. After graduating from Yale University in 2016, he did research at the Yale Child Study Center studying the therapeutic benefits of writing. His own writing challenges personal identity and social issues as a process of reflection and growth. He works with youth around the country to help them use writing as a tool for self-expression and healing.

Maria is a stage/film actor, musician and dancer. Her passion ignites her performances on stage with acting credits including: Real Women Have Curves, with Teatro Nuevo México, Aye, No! with Camino Real Productions, and Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me Ultima with The Vortex Theatre, to name a few. As a founding member of Hembras de Pluma a women's writing and acting collective, María is always looking for ways to craft her artistic vision to invigorate and promote performance art.

Sheri Crider is a visual artist and owner of Sanitary Tortilla Factory.

Crider sees great possibility in discarded materials, unused spaces, and missed opportunities that inspire her art practice.

While maintaining a keen, curious perspective of inquiry, Crider values her community. She says, “my community is vast. My circles are filled with cons, hustlers, academics and hipsters alike.”

Originally from Phoenix, AZ, Crider lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Tannia Esparza is a Queer Xicana from Santa Barbara, CA who is proud to come from an immigrant family of strong women. She is a writer who honors stories as embodied ancestral knowledge for collective healing. Tannia’s writing can be found in Latina Magazine, NBC News, Rewire Magazine, and Malpais Review. She is inspired to live as an act of love and more commited than ever to fiercely offer her gifts to building the world we all deserve.

María Gallegos, Executive Director, is a native Nueva Mexicana Meztiza Chicana born and raised in the beautiful Red Earth mountains of rural northern New Mexico. She has dedicated her life to social, economic and environmental justice. She previously served the public as an environmental scientist specializing in water quality and worked on statewide policies involving labor & economics, public health and water & agriculture. María is a member of Ballet Folklórico Fiesta Mexicana, Inc. dance company and teaches Mexican folk dance to students ranging in age from 5 years to adult. She is a blessed to be Mama to a wonderful person and gifted musician.

Juli Hendren is a founding member and the Artistic Director of Tricklock Company and the Curator of The Revolutions International Theatre Festival. Hendren has produced artists from over twenty different countries around the world through the festival. She is also a director, writer, actor, and teacher who has taught and performed across the United States, Canada, Europe as well as Uganda and Colombia. She is a member of Theatre Without Borders and an adjunct instructor in theatre at the University of New Mexico.

Szu-Han Ho's work in performance, sound, and installation addresses the practice of exchange through diverse collaborations and constellations. Recent projects include “BORDER TO BAGHDAD,” an exchange between artists from the US-Mexico border and Baghdad, Iraq, and “Shelter in Place,” a sculptural installation and performance around the affective weight of trauma. Szu-Han lives and works in Albuquerque and is currently Associate Professor in Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico.

Dominika Laster is Assistant Professor and Head of Theatre at the University of New Mexico. She holds a PhD in Performance Studies from New York University. She is the Books Section Editor of TDR: The Drama Review and Co-Editor of European Stages. Laster is also the author of Grotowski’s Bridge Made of Memory: Embodied Memory, Witnessing and Transmission in the Grotowski Work (2016).

Anni Leming is a community organizer, PhD Candidate in Educational Linguistics at University of New Mexico, and language educator of 15 years, who’s taught in various countries. Issues important to her are language access, immigration rights, reproductive justice, and racial and socioeconomic equity. Serving on the Asian American Association of New Mexico board, she advocates for Asian Pacific Islander’s diverse and historically underrepresented communities, while fostering connections to her own mixed and bilingual Pin@y heritage.

Daryl Lucero is from the Pueblo of Isleta. As a land-based practitioner his work focuses on reconnecting his community’s people through sustainable Pueblo livelihood practices. Daryl is an educator, facilitator, sometimes an artist, and food grower. Daryl received a BFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), Santa Fe, NM; MA in Indigenous Governance from the University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C. His current focus is on Indigenous Land-based Education as a Ph.D. candidate in the Educational Foundations Program at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon.

Valerie Martínez is a poet, collaborative artist, educator, and program director. She was the Executive Director of Littleglobe and subsequently founded Artful Life, two organizations dedicated to art for social change. Valerie is also an accomplished poet. Her book-length poem, Each and Her, is the recipient of many awards and honors, including a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize. Valerie was the Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, NM from 2008-2010 and is currently the Director of History and Literary Arts at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

Elsa ​is the Performing Arts Director at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico and a Core Artist of Tricklock Company, Elsa has been a member of the Cultivating Women's Leadersip facilitation team since 2014 and a co-facilitator of various local, national, and international workshops, symposiums, and retreats including New Mexico Educators Wild Leadership Retreat and the Theatre Without Borders/Revolutions International Theatre Festival Symposium. As a theatre artist, writer, performer, director, producer, her mission is love, and her passion is to connect, and co-create in multicultural environments with diverse groups of collaborators. Elsa utilizes the wisdom of play, the body, and a deep appreciation and attention to Nature to support leaders of all ages toward personal, community, and social transformation and systemic changes that equitably lift and value all living things.

Born of Tamaya and Kha’po Owingeh heritage, Warren Montoya is a artist and the Executive Director of the non-profit organization, REZILIENCE. His organization produces an annual Indigenous arts festival to supports the vitalization of North American Indigenous cultures by sharing the work of Indigenous community members. As an artist, he practices painting, jewelry-making and graphic design and utilizes his skills to produces public arts projects that promote community engagement throughout New Mexico.

Naomi Natale is an interdisciplinary artist and organizer and the founding artist of One Million Bones and The Cradle Project. She is a co-founder of The Art of Revolution and is currently a visiting lecturer at the University of New Mexico. Natale is a Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellow, TED Senior Fellow and Carl Wilkens Fellow as well as an Arts and Healing Network Awardee.

Michelle Otero is the Poet Laureate of Albuquerque. As a community-based artist and coach, she utilizes creative expression and storytelling as the basis for organizational development and positive social change. Her process of engaging individuals and communities through the expression of shared story has found a wide range of applications, from helping environmental organizations understand the priorities of traditional land-based communities to helping people heal from trauma.

Jaclyn Roessel was born and raised on the Navajo Nation. Roessel is the president of Grownup Navajo, a company dedicated to sharing how Native American teachings and values can be a catalyst for change in community. Her work as a writer/poet and installation artist is motivated by theories of afro-futurism and healing. She lives with her husband in Santa Ana Pueblo.

Dr. Shelle VanEtten de Sanchez is currently the Director of the Cultural Services Department for the City of Albuquerque - a position that motivates and inspires her each day. She is also an educator, creative facilitator, and optimist living happily with her family in the Barelas neighborhood of Albuquerque.With 30+ years of professional experience and leadership in classrooms, cultural institutions, businesses, nonprofits, and community programs, she likes to work at compelling intersections of arts, education, and community.