Based in Boston, violinist and composer Shaw Pong Liu works to engage diverse
communities in music and meaningful conversation.
She is a founding member of
Play for Justice, a network of musicians and artists supporting social justice causes.
In 2016 as an artist-in-residence for the city of Boston,
she began Code: Listen, which uses music to support healing and dialogue around
gun violence, race, and law enforcement
in collaboration with the Boston Police Department,
local musicians, teen artists, and family members surviving homicides.
Her current work also includes Sing Home, a project that gathers and shares songs
from Boston's Chinatown community to create new compositions as a way to
start conversations about immigration, neighborhood, and cultural and civic identity.
Donney Rose.
Donney Rose is a community
activist, educator, and active member of the poetry scene in his native
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
He is the marketing director for Forward Arts,
a youth poetry organization that serves more than 3,000 youth in the
Baton Rouge area through in-school creative writing workshops, open mics,
poetry slams, and a youth poet laureate program.
Using his art form to address
racial inequality, Donney has been part of the spoken word and slam circuit for
over 15 years and has facilitated spoken word events for youth for over a decade.
Through his work and art, Donney helps youth find their voice in a racially
and ecumenically divided Baton Rouge.
Justus Harris.
Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes
at age 14, Justus Harris has combined his experience as a patient
with his skill as a technologist and artist to advance medical literacy and
improve patient care in his Chicago community.
Justus is the founder of MedSculp, which produces educational content
featuring data-driven visual artworks and designs that help people with
diabetes who struggle with conventional explanations of how to treat and
understand their disease.
Justus is an active member of the Chicago
entrepreneurship, media, and arts communities, where he mentors artists to
create sustainable, professional lives.
Rulan Tangen has worked tirelessly to
inspire a new generation of indigenous performers to express their culture in
vital contemporary and experimental art forms.
She is the founder, choreographer,
and featured dancer in The Dancing Earth, a company whose work has been described
as "rooted in the spirit and energy of the first peoples and the land."
Rulan engages community through intergenerational dance training
workshops and full-length theater productions, and she teaches extensively
in Native communities across the Americas. Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico
and San Francisco, California, the company tackles themes that reflect contemporary
Native people, such as nature transformation, and decolonization.
Omar Offendum.
Omar Offendum is a Syrian American rapper and a poet raised in
Washington, DC and who lives in Los Angeles. He first felt a strong
connection with rap while studying Arabic poetry, which he describes as the
backbone of the Arabic language.
As an entertainer and activist, Omar has been
able to speak to diverse global audiences over his decade-long career.
He tours the world performing at international music festivals,
lecturing at major academic institutions,
and fundraising for humanitarian relief organizations.
His first solo album "Syrian Americana" was released in 2011.