2022-23 National Cohort: Western States Arts Federation

Kapali Bilyeu, Kīlauea, Hawai'i

Kapali Bilyeu, Kīlauea, Hawai'i

Program Coordinator, Mana Maoli

Born and raised in Wailua, Kauaʻi, Kapali Bilyeu’s education and professional careers have always centered around her kanaka maoli (aboriginal Hawaiian) identity. As an alum of Kanuikapono Public Charter School in Anahola, Kauaʻi, Bilyeu credits her success to the cultural, place-based education she was able to receive from an early age, which inspired her to pursue and earn a bachelor’s degree in Hawaiian Studies as well as complete the Kahuawaiola indigenous teacher education program, both through Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. Bilyeu currently oversees year-long programming on Oʻahu, Kauaʻi, & Hawaiʻi Island for Mana Maoli, a native-founded nonprofit that promotes awareness and support for native at-risk youth through music and multimedia services. She also serves as a curriculum specialist for Hanalei River Heritage Foundation, another nonprofit that focuses on restoring and preserving natural resources and traditional native practices on Kauaʻi.

Latoya Cameron, Salt Lake City, Utah

Latoya Cameron, Salt Lake City, Utah

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Dramaturg and Audience Relations, Salt Lake Acting Company

Latoya Cameron resides in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she is an actor and equity, diversity, and inclusion dramaturge for Salt Lake Acting Company. She has performed at various local theater companies, including: Pioneer Theatre Company, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Salt Lake Acting Company, and Plan-B Theatre Company. She has performed at the Denver Center for Performing Arts and led a new musical called Shelter: The Musical at The New York Musical Theater Festival. She has always been an advocate for representation and inclusion in her community. In 2020, she joined the staff at Salt Lake Acting Company to have a more significant impact for BIPOC and other historically excluded artists, not only within the arts organization she works for but also within the greater Utah community.

Big Wind Carpenter, Lander, Wyoming

Big Wind Carpenter, Lander, Wyoming

Indigenous Organizer, Wyoming Outdoor Council

Big Wind is a Two Spirit member of the Northern Arapaho tribe from the Wind River Reservation. At a young age, Big Wind recognized many injustices and degrees of oppression within their community. They became involved in youth and climate leadership at the age of 13, when they learned of environmental racism happening near their home. Since then, they have worked on numerous campaigns throughout “Indian Country” and is currently an Indigenous organizer at the Wyoming Outdoor Council. They are an artist, collaborator, and musician, who can be found utilizing a multi-media approach to grassroots organizing and movement building.

Andrea (Drea) Edwards, Fairplay, Colorado

Andrea (Drea) Edwards, Fairplay, Colorado

Arts Education Manager, Breckenridge Creative Arts

Andrea Edwards (artistically known as Drea E.) was born, bred, and educated in Seattle, Washington. She graduated Cum Laude from Seattle University earning a bachelor’s degree in photography. In college, she spent a semester abroad studying art and national identity in New Delhi, India. Post graduation, she spent a year serving in AmeriCorps at Youth Villages Inner Harbor campus, a treatment facility for youth with severe emotional and behavioral challenges. There, she led teenagers in a project linking themes of compassion, art, and service. Following her service year, Edwards participated in a six-month artist residency in Navasota, Texas, creating a body of work about Mance Lipscomb, a local black sharecropper and blues musician turned small town folk hero, contributing to Navasota being dubbed as the “Blues Capital of Texas”. In 2017, Edwards moved to Colorado to take a seasonal job as a Craft Shop Supervisor for the YMCA of the Rockies Snow Mountain Ranch. From there, she found part-time employment at Breckenridge Creative Arts, where she was quickly promoted to full-time positions as part of their programming team. She currently works as the organization’s arts education manager. In her own art practice, Edwards has shifted from photography to more interdisciplinary work. Due to the loss of her mother in February 2019, she’s recently been exploring themes of grief as handled across varying cultures, working paper as an affordable medium but also one that symbolically parallels many aspects of the human experience. Her work has been exhibited in Washington, Georgia, Texas and Colorado.

Olisa Enrico, Seattle, Washington

Olisa Enrico, Seattle, Washington

Arts and Executive Director, Griot Girlz

Olisa Enrico is an artist, educator, and administrator who believes in the unique power of art to cultivate community and culture. Enrico spent her childhood writing music and performing, traversing genres and rooting in hip hop as her primary form of expression. She branched out to theater and found passion for the power of story to reveal and heal. A performing artist who prioritizes connection to emotional, spiritual and cultural truth, Enrico writes, produces and performs in a multidimensional magical manifestation of the moment. She earned her bachelor’s degree in theater performance (magna cum laude) and a master’s degree in theater pedagogy with a dual focus in both acting/directing and voice/speech. She specializes in the use of ritual poetic drama within the African continuum and archetypes for the artist. Enrico is a board member of The Conciliation Project (TCP), which engages the community in courageous conversations to undo oppression that is woven into the fabric of this complex nation. Enrico is the artistic and executive director of www.GriotGirlz.org, a collective of Black Womxn artists whose mission is to engage the community in the art of storytelling through cultural practice and performance, and is co-director of arts education at www.Artscorps.org, igniting the creative power of young people. She also provides performances, professional development, curriculum development, consultations and workshops through her business www.PraxisEssentials.com. Enrico proclaims that artists and art are vital to the state of culture and society and shares her soul through performance and cultural practice.

Dāna James, Las Vegas, Nevada and Los Angeles, California

Dāna James, Las Vegas, Nevada and Los Angeles, California

Associate Director of Alumni Affairs, Berklee College of Music

Dāna James is the associate director of alumni affairs for Berklee College of Music in Los Angeles. She joined Berklee in September 2018, transitioning from a nonprofit healthcare association, where she spearheaded data and technology strategies for six years and eventually assumed the role of information and systems specialist. A Berklee alumna, she completed her degree in performance as a vocalist and continues to work on music projects. At Berklee, James oversees alumni programming and activities in the western regions of the U.S. Outside of Berklee, she’s passionate about social equity, consuming as much film and TV content as humanly possible, and spending time with her chosen and biological families. She has a strong affinity for silver glitter.

Bruce A. Lemon, Jr., Los Angeles, California

Bruce A. Lemon, Jr., Los Angeles, California

Associate Artistic Director and Ensemble Member, Cornerstone Theater Company

Bruce Lemon is a storyteller born and raised in Watts, California. As a child, his father made him write stories and read them aloud in the hallway as punishment for lies and mischief. He’s still in trouble. He hosts 89.3 KPCC In-Person’s UnheardLA and is co-artistic director of Watts Village. He is also associate artistic director/ensemble with Cornerstone Theater Company. An actor, writer, director, producer, creative collaborator, Lemon’s hobbies include: holding a mirror up to America, rabble-rousing, chasing dreams, and working for the reimagining of his community.

Patricia Mareham, Saipan

Patricia Mareham, Saipan

Artists

Patricia Mareham is a parent to three children and a U.S. citizen from one of the territories of the Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan. An individual artist for more than 20 years, she has taught educational arts and crafts in schools, exhibited at community events, summits, conferences, youth summer programs, and women’s summits for three islands for Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. She loves sharing her crafts with children to give them the inspiration, patience, and passions in their creativity and to continue learning about cultural wear like the head lei, called MWAAR in Carolinian language. Mareham’s art and crafts include mwaar (head lei), lighatuttur (bead necklace), floral crafts, recycled materials, and more. Mareham believes that teaching and sharing our making and showcasing our products with our children and community brings more knowledge, interest, patience, commitments, and inspiration to future artists. Thus, it is important to promote our culture to our children and community to pass down to future generations so that this will be remembered and continued on.

Monique N. Michel, Boise, Idaho

Monique N. Michel, Boise, Idaho

Owner, Ballet Folklorico Mexico Lindo

Monique N. Michel is a bilingual educator, teacher, and the owner and director of the Mexican folk-dance company, the Ballet Folklorico Mexico Lindo, located in Southwest Idaho. The group was established in 2003 in Nampa. Currently they have over twenty Mexican states in their repertoire. Ballet Folklorico Mexico Lindo have performed in five states in the Pacific Northwest and will celebrate twenty years of existence in 2023. Michel is a former diversity equity and inclusion director, dance studio owner, English language learner teacher, and educational arts director and is active in both the Boise and Canyon County area arts communities. Because of her dance experience and her dance company, Michel has traveled and performed both in and around the states. She has won numerous community awards for her work in the Latino community in Idaho. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, with Northern and Central Mexican roots, Michel began dancing at age 6 and moved from Los Angeles to Idaho in 1997. Since then, despite multiple dance injuries, she’s never stopped being a passionate educator/instructor/dancer and arts advocate. When she’s not teaching or dancing, you can find her either reading, meditating, practicing yoga, listening to all genres of music while cooking, and spending time with her favorite German Shepherd, Pirate. Her biggest achievement after the creation of the Ballet Folklorico Mexico Lindo is successfully raising her two beautiful adult children in a wildly uncertain world.

Loida Maritza Perez, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Loida Maritza Perez, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Founder and Executive Director, AfroMundo

A native of the Dominican Republic, Loida Maritza Pérez is the founder and executive director of AfroMundo. She is an independent scholar, cultural activist, and author of “Geographies of Home,” a novel published in the U.S. and abroad. Her upcoming book, “Beyond the Pale,” won a PEN America 2019 Jean Stein Grant for literary oral history. Her work has appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review, Latina, MaComere, Meridians, Edinburgh Review, Bomb, Callaloo and Best of Callaloo. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from several organizations, including New York Foundation for the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts, in collaboration with University of New Mexico and Rutgers University; IC3-Institute for Communities, Creativity and Consciousness; Djerassi’s Henry Louis Gates Fellowship; Ragdale Foundation for the Arts U.S.–Africa Writer’s Project; MacDowell Arts Colony; Yaddo Foundation; Hedgebrook; Millay Arts Colony; Ucross Foundation; and Villa Montalvo. A University of New Mexico visiting scholar, she has taught creative writing at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Taos Writers’ Workshop, Bread Loaf’s Summer Institute at St. John’s College, and elsewhere. A former board member for the Albuquerque nonprofit Casa Barelas, she mentors high school students and edited Reflections on Water, an anthology of poetry, prose, and art resulting from collaborations with elementary through high school students and established artists to foster conservation and an awareness of water issues in New Mexico.

Jennifer Quinto, Juneau, Alaska

Jennifer Quinto, Juneau, Alaska

Artist and Educator

Jennifer Quinto is Tlingit, Athabascan, Inupiaq, and a Japanese adoptee who works to bring trauma responsive practices to education, the arts, and organizational systems change. She centers place-based knowledge to enhance the practices of equity, inclusivity, and undoing historical harm, while elevating representation and increasing opportunity.

Yasmin Ruvalcaba, Beaverton, Oregon

Yasmin Ruvalcaba, Beaverton, Oregon

Arts and Culture Manager, Centro Cultural

Yasmin Ruvalcaba is a Portland-based director, writer, consultant, and arts advocate. She centers her work around advancing equity, honoring mentorship and education, and promoting community outreach and engagement. Ruvalcaba is currently working at Centro Cultural as the arts and culture manager. Her time is also spent working as a teaching artist. Previously, Ruvalcaba has worked with Advance Gender Equity in the Arts (AGE) as the grants program director, and with Bag&Baggage as the Problem Play project manager, focusing on new play development and community outreach. She is also honored to be a co-founding member of Moriviví Theatre.Ruvalcaba has also engaged with her community through directing. During her time at Williams College, she directed El Nogalar and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. In Portland, she has directed a Bilingual Adaption of The Tempest (Bag&Baggage Productions) and was honored to be the assistant director of La Ruta (Artists Repertory Theatre) and La Isla En Inviero/The Island in Winter (Bag&Baggage Productions). Ruvalcaba is also an active writer in the community. She was commissioned by the Portland Revels to write their 2022 spring show, and has been brought back for the 2023 show. Two of her monologues, Carmelita and Ruega Por Mi, were featured in Theatre Diaspora’s Here on This Bridge: The -ism Project. She has also had the opportunity to workshop her work with the Northwest Theatre Workshop and also premiered a Dia de los Muertos performance, EL JIMADAOR, in partnership with Bag&Baggage and Centro Cultural in 2020.