Live Arts Boston 2024 Artists

2ruTh7

Spoken Word (Poetry), Early

Sean “2ruTh7” Evelyn is a Massachusetts-based poet, writer, restorative justice practitioner, and social justice advocate. At 20 years old, he was arrested and subsequently sentenced to life in prison. Over the next several years, 2ruTh7 honed his abilities as a writer and performer and got involved in several social justice initiatives in and outside of prison. In 2016, he founded EXPLANATIONS FROM EXILE (E.F.E.) — a storytelling project focused on the interconnection between urban trauma, violence, and the devastating impact that incarceration has had on communities of color.

In 2020, 2ruTh7 received a BLS (Bachelor in Liberal Studies) from Boston University through its Prisons Education Program. That same year he conducted a study at a Massachusetts prison, shedding light on the systemic issues that contribute to the overcharging and over-sentencing of Black and Brown defendants accused of violent infractions. The data from that study contributed in-part to a legislative report examining structural racism in the Department of Corrections (D.O.C.) and the parole process in Massachusetts.

Since his release on parole in the fall of 2022, 2ruTh7 launched E.F.E. as a multimedia company and has contributed as one of the principal collaborators in an forthcoming music-theater production, THE SLAYING OF INNOCENCE — a Beth Morrison Projects production, set to make its world premiere in 2025. Currently, Evelyn is collaborating with The Racism-based Violence Injury & Prevention Lab on a research project exploring the specific relationship between trauma, racism, and their impact on urban communities, mental health, and mass incarceration. In addition to his work with E.F.E., 2ruTh7 serves returning community members in the Merrimack Valley as a Reentry Coach with UTEC Inc. 2ruTh7 will be releasing his debut trauma/healing informed spoken word mixtape and visual album, “ARS MORIENDI: Ruminations of a Rogue Prophet” in the fall of 2024. 

Instagram: @2ruth7
Facebook: 2ruth7
Website

Elizabeth Addison

Musical Theater, Established

Elizabeth Addison is a multi-hyphenate whose work exists at the intersection of recovery and the performing arts. She has written three musicals inspired by her recovery journey, one of which “Chasing Grace '' won best director and best musical at the prestigious SheNYC festival and will be having an Off-Broadway run in 2025.  Her following show, “In Between…” premiered at 54 Below last fall and most recently industry reading at Open Jar Studios. Elizabeth is a creative recovery coach and trauma informed group facilitator with The Meghann Perry Group where she facilitates Recovery Storytelling and Intro to Storytelling Through Song workshops.

Instagram: elizabeth.addison3
Website 

Kyara “DJ TROY Frost” Andrade-Howell (She/Her)

Instagram: @djtroyfrost, @purple.produce
Twitter, TikTok: @djtroyfrost
Website

J. Andrés Ballesteros

Music, Mid-Career

J. Andrés Ballesteros is a composer and administrator based in Boston, MA. His works are centered in classical music but include a variety of musical styles, from Latin music to electronics and theater. Andrés regularly works on collaborative projects that engage with youth and community organizations in creating original works around issues they face, with commissions from the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts, the Chattanooga Symphony, and more. He has been recognized for his leadership in working to expand the representation and performance of works by historically underrepresented composers. His work was showcased in Ana Francisca Vega’s book Corazón de Mexicanos Como Yo, highlighting 50 Mexican-Americans who broke boundaries. 

Chavi Bansal (She/Her)

Dance, Mid-Career

Chavi Bansal, born and raised in India, holds a B.A. in dance and choreography from Fontys Hogescholen Voor de Kunsten in the Netherlands and a master’s in education from Harvard University. Combining Indian movements with Western modern techniques, Chavi’s work centers around offering new avenues for artistic exploration. Her performances have been featured at international festivals and venues, including Danstaliers (The Netherlands), the University of Stavanger (Norway), Mundial Festivals (NL), and India Habitat Center (India). Chavi’s dance company, Vimoksha (founded in 2010), receives support from various grants and is dedicated to community empowerment through dance outreach programs in Massachusetts. Recently, her work was presented by Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston, funded by Amazon and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has been honored with a choreographer’s fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 2022. 

Instagram: @vimokshadance
Website

Samuel Beebe (He/Him)

Composer and Music Producer, Performance Art (Opera/Musical Theater), Early

Samuel Beebe is a composer and music producer exploring the dramatic possibilities of music and sound through collaborations that often produce interdisciplinary works. He collaborated with Lex Brown on the NYTimes Critic’s Pick “Carnelian,” a multi-channel musical film installed at MIT List Visual Arts Center. “POW POW POWER UP,” an installation-performance created with Liss Lafleur, was presented at the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., and his dystopian chamber opera “Biophilia” was produced by Stony Brook Opera. He has been commissioned by Strange Trace, Opera On Tap NYC, Boston Choral Ensemble, and has been performed by Chelsea Symphony, Unheard-of Ensemble, and Lilith Vocal Ensemble. Beebe holds a Ph.D in Composition from Stony Brook University, is a Visiting Lecturer at Salem State University, and teaches incarcerated students in Massachusetts Jails through Merrimack College’s Jail Education Project. He is based in Boston. 

Instagram: @sambeeebeee
Facebook: sam.beebe.77
Website

Christina R. Chan (She/Her)

Theater/Playwright, Mid-Career

Christina R Chan is a playwright, producer, and actor. She is a 1.5  immigrant from Hong Kong. Her work examines the intersection of the Pan Asian American experience, AAPI mental health, and erased stories of Asians in US history. 

Her plays have been workshopped/produced at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Fresh Ink, TC Squared Theater, Boston Theater Marathon, Starlight @Central Square, Pao Arts Center, Company One Theater, Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, Chuang Stage, and ArtsEmerson. 

She is a Co-Founding Member of the Asian American Playwright Collective. Christina was a 2016 Company One Theater PlayLab Fellow and a multi-LAB Grant awardee. Her first full-length play was a semi-finalist for the O’Neill National Theater Conference. Christina received her theater training from Trinity Rep Conservatory, RI and The Royal National Theatre, UK. 

Previous LAB Grantee - 2017, 2018, 2019  

Andrew Choe / Abilities Dance (He/They)

Dance/Music, Established

Andrew Choe is a composer, pianist, and the Director of Music and Operations at Abilities Dance Boston. Andrew has created numerous scores with various artists and organizations, including three original ballets and several installments, productions, and other forms of collaborations. His works have been featured in the MFA Boston, Isabella Gardner Museum, WBUR Boston, The Cultural Equity Incubator, and more. Andrew collaborates and creates art as a means of exploration, identity, and healing.

Abilities Dance Boston is a disabled performing company centered on disrupting antiquated beliefs and promoting intersectional disability rights. They consist of artists that represent a variety of diverse identities within and outside of the disabled community. They perform in prestigious venues such as the MFA, Peabody Essex Museum, Boston University, and more to challenge who gets to be represented on stage and show what intersecting identities can manifest in this work. 

Social: @_andrewchoe_ / @abilitiesdanceboston
Website

Abilities Dance is a previous LAB grantee - 2020

Arielle Colella (She/Her)

Dance, Early

Arielle (Pina) Colella is a performance artist and choreographer. Her art explores ideas of race, beauty and identity. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from The University of the Arts and completed the Headlong Performance Institute’s post-baccalaureate program. Arielle’s works have been featured at venues and film festivals in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Antwerp and Paris. She has toured internationally with Enchantment Theatre Company and has performed in dance and theater productions for Nichole Canuso, Michael Kiley, Solange Knowles, Lightning Rod Special, Sad13 and Sebastienne Mundheim. Arielle is also an entrepreneur and food justice advocate inspired by her work with Dirtbaby Farm and her own motherhood journey. 

Instagram: @pina_rabbit
Website

Donatella Fermata (She/Her in drag, He/Him out of drag)

Opera and Drag Performance/Opera/Musical Theater, Early

Forget the concert hall—Donatella Fermata brings classical music to life with a cocktail in hand. This Boston-based drag artist combines old-school diva elegance with modern flair, working to make opera a welcoming and exciting space for the LGBTQ+ community. Recipient of a 2022 grant from Mixtape Recital Series, Donatella continues to push the boundaries of what is “right” in classical music. Through bold programming in accessible spaces, her creative endeavors seek to deconstruct the barriers to classical music many communities face. This season, Donatella made her professional operatic debut as the Sorceress in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. Outside of drag, bass Michael Galvin collaborates with Boston's classical scene, including the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Early Music Festival, and more. 

Instagram: @donatella_fermata
Website

David Guerra

Literary/Performance Festivals, Mid-Career

Aynel David Guerra is the founder and director of A R E A, a multi-format and interdisciplinary gallery in SoWa, South End that organizes exhibitions and experiences. Since November of 2016, A R E A features the work of local and international artists and designers. His gallery welcomes creatives of diverse social and cultural backgrounds. His passion for innovation in the arts has led him to collaborate on a variety of projects and exhibitions as a curator in Boston. David has organized exhibitions at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, the Boston Center for the Arts, Villa Victoria Center for the Arts (VVCA), MIT Hacking Arts and The Yard. He has been a juror for Post-Gay, an annual group show organized by the Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance (2016) and for Emergente, an annual exhibition organized by the VVCA, featuring the best Latinx artists working and living in New England (2018). He has been invited to participate as a reviewer for the 5th and 6th annual Undergraduate Photography Now portfolio Walk, Portfolio Reviews at Montserrat College of Art and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts (SMFA at Tufts). David has served on the Friends of the Jamaica Plain Library’s 2018 Exhibition Selection Committee, the Art Committee at the French Cultural Center, Fenway Health and on the Art Sale Committee of the SMFA at Tufts for several years. He has taught workshops on art pricing organized by Abigail Ogilvy Gallery and Somerville Arts Council. In 2014, David founded Darkroom Boston, a project to display photography using unconventional forms at alternative spaces and combining photography with other artistic expressions. 

Laury Gutiérrez (She/Her)

Music, Established

Laury Gutiérrez, viola da gamba, Venezuelan cuatro, and Renaissance guitar, was born in Venezuela, holds degrees from Indiana University and Longy School of Music, and did doctoral work in historical performance at Boston University. Praised as a “first-rate” instrumentalist by the Boston Globe, she is the founding director of both La Donna Musicale, an internationally acclaimed ensemble that specializes in the performance of early music by women composers, and Rumbarroco, a Latin-Baroque fusion ensemble. She has been a featured guest artist–lecturer at Harvard University, Brandeis University, and Simmons College, a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and was a resident scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center. Early Music America awarded her their first Thomas Zajac Memorial Scholarship (2021). She was also cited as Exemplary Leader in the category of Arts by the Venezuelan community in Massachusetts, confirmed by the City of Boston (2022). 

Facebook: laury.gutierrez.7 / donnamusicale / Rumbarroco
Instagram: @laurycoro / @donnamusicale / @rumbarroco
YouTube: @musicalle11 / @Rumbarroco
Spotify: La Donna Musicale / Rumbarroco
Vimeo

Reynaliz Herrera (She/Her)

Music, Established

Included in The Boston Globe’s “The best of Boston music” 2023 list, Boston-based and originally from Mexico, Reynaliz Herrera is a multi-international award winning performing musician, percussionist, composer and producer, who has performed throughout North America, Caribbean Islands, and Europe.  

Reynaliz Herrera is also founder, director, composer and lead performer of “Ideas, Not Theories” a theatrical percussion company for unconventional instruments (like bicycles). Since 2012, Reynaliz’s work has focused on using bicycles as musical instruments, by extensively composing musical pieces for bicycles and continuously performing that music with her company "Ideas, Not Theories", throughout North America and the Caribbean at renowned venues. 

In 2021, supported by LAB and SAC grants, Reynaliz premiered her composition “BIKEncerto: a concerto for solo bicycle and orchestra”, released a critically acclaimed album of her piece in 2023, and for her LAB 2024 project Reynaliz will produce local and touring performances of “BIKEncerto” featuring herself as bicycle soloist and her company “Ideas, Not Theories."

Facebook: Ideasnottheoriesbyreynaliz
Instagram: @ideasnottheories
Twitter: @ideasnotheories
Website

Previous LAB Grantee - 2021

Cerise Lim Jacobs (She/Her)

Opera Maker/Writer, Mid-Career

Cerise Lim Jacobs forges new American opera from her past in multicultural Singapore. She co-founded White Snake Projects, an activist opera company which focuses on social justice issues by integrating civic practice into its work. Cerise's first opera, Madame White Snake, composed by Zhou Long, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. Her opera, Alice in the Pandemic, was acquired by the Library of Congress. Musical America named Cerise one of the Top 30 Professionals of the Year in 2021 and a Mover & Shaper in 2017. In 2018, she was named one of Boston’s 100 Most Influential People of Color. 

Website

George Lernis/ Ize Trio (He/Him)

Music, Mid-Career

Ize Trio is a multi-cultural music group featuring Chase Morrin (Piano), George Lernis (Percussion), and Naseem Alatrash (Cello). We focus on combining the American art form of Jazz with Middle Eastern traditions in order to create a more inclusive vision for musical communities and to raise awareness for immigrant rights. Through our different backgrounds and cultural traditions, we write original music and tell musical stories that are important in opening positive dialogue about the relationship between the US and the Middle East. We seek to inspire musicians to add their cultural roots to the Jazz tradition and display how music can be a bridge to understanding and connection. 

Instagram: @ize_trio
Website

Seba Molnar (He/Him)

Music, Mid-Career

Seba Molnar is an award-winning saxophonist, composer, and educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. Known for his dynamic performances, Molnar has shared stages with Grammy-winning artists like Ghost-Note, Braxton Cook, Patrice Rushen, Makaya McCraven and many more. He frequently tours New England and has played at major festivals such as the Boston First Night, BAMs Fest, Boston Jazz Festival and Burlington Discover Jazz Fest. In 2020, he released his debut album “Level Up.” Molnar is also the founder and executive director of the Charles River Jazz Festival and the Boston Jazz Foundation, dedicated to revitalizing the jazz scene through education and performance opportunities. 

Instagram: @sebamolnarmusic
Facebook: sebamolnarmusic
Youtube

Olivia Moon (She/He/They)

Dance/Pole Dance, Early

While pole dance has become most of her identity, Olivia Moon is also a photographer, sock-lover, boy, martini enthusiast, princess, and simp. Based in Boston, Olivia is curious about pushing boundaries and buttons of all sorts; WBUR named her as one of 15 artists of color making an impact in Boston. A recipient of the Next Steps for Boston Dance award, Olivia experiments with fusing the grace and fluidity of contemporary dance with the sensuality and athleticism of pole dance. Their home is within the dynamism of performance and visual artistry; the possibility for range and contradiction of character and gender excite her. You can find Olivia snapping pix at @halfasianlens, and grooving at @mooningeveryone on Instagram. 

Instagram: @halfasianlens / @mooningeveryone

Isaura Oliveira (She/Her)

Dance / Multidisciplinary Dance / Theater/Storytelling / Costume Design, Established

Isaura Oliveira was born and raised in Salvador-Bahia, Brazil, one of the cradles of African Brazilian culture, where many African, Amerindian traditions and arts are maintained and nourished. Isaura is a Multidisciplinary Artist of Dance, Theater and Costume. As a Cultural Educator, Isaura’s expertise is African Brazilian Cultural Dance, dedicated to studying, teaching and creating ritual performances. Spirituality, Nature, and Ancestors are her guides; thus artistic and educational work is connected with her Ancestrality. Since 2019, Isaura is developing Power of Skirts Collective, a community group under Isaura’s choreography. Recently, the collective performed “YABÁS” at the #HellaBlack at the BCA. In 2019 Isaura created and continues to develop programs focused on her Joy is Resistance, such as Living Experience Outdoors and Sacred Space. The LAB- Boston Foundation will provide Isaura a vast opportunity for her professional development and to create the conceptualization for Isaura’s third- one woman performance production. 

Instagram: @isaura_dourada
Facebook: isaura.oliveira
LinkedIn
Website

Jaclyn O'Riley / Jackie O'Riley and Rebecca McGowan Duet (She/Her)

Traditional Irish Dance / Traditional/Folk Performing Arts, Mid-Career

Jackie O'Riley and Rebecca McGowan are a duet specializing in old-style traditional Irish dance, recognized for their unique synchronicity and musicality. Originally drawn to the grace, musicality, and subtlety of older steps, they have been dancing and creating together for 12 years. With original choreography and interpretation of traditional steps, Jackie & Rebecca’s work magnifies the intricate movements and musical connections of traditional dance, bringing music and dance back together. Jackie & Rebecca have performed around the US at festivals. Their visual album “From the Floor” (2019) was called “audacious, ground breaking, and brilliantly realized” (Irish Echo) and was shown at the Utah Dance Film Fest, St Patrick’s Film Fest London, Motion State Dance Film Series, and Leitrim Dance Festival. They were recognized as 2022 Mass Cultural Council Fellows in Choreography, and have received support from Next Steps for Boston Dance, NEFA, Dance Documentation in Isolation at the BCA. 

Instagram: @jackieorileyirishdance
Facebook: fromthefloordance
Website (Jaclyn)
Website (Duet)

Mayowa "MO" Osinubi

Music, Early

Mayowa "MO" Osinubi stage name MO the Great is a writer, music producer, and rapper; her studies on ethno-racial trauma healing through music grounds her creativity, using music as an intervention of healing from oppression, specifically for individuals who have been "othered" by society. MO produces, writes, and performs hip-hop futurist sounds, honoring the genre's traditions while expanding its boundaries. Her unique productions pay homage to her Nigerian-American roots, her father from Lagos with Ejebu-Igbo Balogun heritage, and her mother from a strong Black-Indigenous legacy. MO’s music bridges the old with the new, re-imagining the intersections of African rhythm and rap, all while sonically exploring hip-hop’s relationship with its influences. Centered around community healing, MO believes she is part of the global consciousness upshift and embraces the interconnected power of unity across various disciplines, industries, places, and spaces. Her new music album, Drinks of Hope, is entirely self-produced and will be released soon. 

Ernesto Lea Place (He/Him)

Circus Artist / Aerialist / Dancer, Mid-Career

Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, he started his journey in the arts as theatre student. Storytelling took him to his first dance class, and there is where his passion for movement begun. After almost a decade of dancing professionally in various ballet companies, Ernesto took a leap of faith with his best friend to create a duo circus act and find new horizons in his artistic career. His aerial duo, also known as pas de deux straps, has been internationally recognized. He loves to find a balance of pushing physicality to express emotion and connect with all audiences. 

Instagram: @ernielp09

Moe Pope

Moe Pope, born and raised in Roxbury, MA, is a gifted lyricist and visual artist who reflects about community, family, love, equality and the human experience through his music. With over 25 years in the music industry, Pope has been an integral part of the bands Mission, Electric Company, Project Move, and is currently the lead vocalist in the Boston based Hip-Hop band STL GLD. Pope is known for curating innovative musical collaborations that draw from Indie-Rock, Punk, Soul, Jazz and others to create their unique style of music, challenging the perception of what Hip-Hop is supposed to be. 

Laura Sánchez (She/Her)

Dance / Multidisciplinary, Mid-Career

Laura Sánchez is an award-winning flamenco artist, creator, choreographer and educator originally from Cádiz, Spain. Laura received professional training from the Dance Conservatory of Madrid and holds a Professional Certificate in Expressive Arts Therapies from Lesley University where she developed an emerging therapeutic dance practice, Expressive Flamenco©. She facilitates workshops and presents this work internationally. Her arts-based research work was published at the Journal of the American Dance Therapy Association in 2021.

Laura actively performs as soloist in flamenco venues in the Eastern U.S., and placed 3rdat the 2016 Flamenco Certamen USA, an international competition that takes place in NYC annually. She works as an independent choreographer for organizations including The Boston Center for the Arts, Boston College of Fine Arts, Bridgewater University, and Kingston Theater among several others.  Laura works as an independent producer and has presented several flamenco shows over the past few years in Massachusetts. Laura is currently working on an autobiographical project entitled "Welcome to Holland!?," inspired by her experience as a Hispanic immigrant mother of two children, one with multiple disabilities, to question the role of the Mother in contemporary society. It is an Expressive Flamenco© multidisciplinary performance that uplift the role of the caregiver and deconstruct ableism in society. Her work was featured at the Boston Globe and received support from several organizations across New England. 

Instagram: @LauraSanchezFlamenco
Facebook: Laura Sánchez

Previous LAB Grantee - 2021 

Red Shaydez (She/Her)

Music, Established

Red Shaydez, a versatile artist hailing from Boston with roots in Macon, GA and Jamaica, excels across multiple creative disciplines. She is not only a celebrated hip-hop lyricist and Boston Music Award winner but also a Recording Academy voting member for the GRAMMYs. Beyond music, Red is a skilled video producer and a respected mentor. Her dynamic talent and vibrant personality have garnered acclaim from various media outlets, including MTV, BET JAMS, Boston 25 News, The Boston Globe, NPR MUSIC, and others. Her influence spans both local and national stages, solidifying her as a prominent figure in contemporary hip-hop and entertainment. 

Twitter/X: @redshaydez1
Instagram: @redshaydez1
Facebook: @redshaydez1
LinkedIn

Amanda Shea (She/Her)

Spoken Word, Established

Amanda Shea is a two-time Boston Music Award-winning Spoken Word Artist. Shea is an artist, performer, educator, artivist, publicist, host, and curator. She co-founded and curated six iterations of Activating ARTivism, a community festival to amplify POC through art, activism, and resistance. Her work can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, The Boston Globe, TEDX, TEDXRoxbury, Netflix, Prime Video, BBC News, GBH, and much more. Shea will be releasing her first book, “Pieces of Shea” in the Spring of 2024. Amanda's work examines her personal life experiences, social justice issues, and healing through trauma utilizing art as the catalyst. 

Instagram: @amandasheaallday
Facebook: alschaefer3
Twitter/X: @amandashea.06
Website

Jacquinn Sinclair (She/Her)

Literary Arts/ Literary/Performance Festivals, Early

Jacquinn Sinclair is a Boston-area-based journalist, author, and poet. Currently, she’s a contributing performing arts writer and theater critic for WBUR The ARTery. Typically, her writing seeks to highlight creatives and organizations whose work is at the intersection of art and activism. Jacquinn’s stories and poems have been anthologized in  "How We Take Up Space," featuring  memories, stories, and poems on spatial justice, the International Women’s Writing Guild’s “Heels into the Soil: Stories & Poems Resisting the Silence” and “New Jersey Fan Club: Artists and Writers Celebrate the Garden State.” She is a recent winner of the Dunamis Boston’s Emerging Artist Fellowship, GrubStreet’s Teaching Fellowship, and a Fine Arts Work Center and City of Boston scholarship winner for poetry. Jacquinn’s writing has appeared in various publications, including The Boston Globe, Lonely Planet, American Theatre Magazine, and more. 

Instagram: @jacquinnsinclair
Facebook: Jacquinn Sinclair
Twitter/X: @Jacquinn_S

Jose Soto (He/Him)

Music, Early

Driven by the purpose of creating socially conscious music, and art, José Soto, a Costa Rican pianist, composer, and educator, explores free improvisation, jazz, classical music, and Latin American rhythms. He studied at the National University of Costa Rica, the New England Conservatory, and the Berklee Global Jazz Institute. His album "The Ancestral Call," inspired by the Bribri indigenous culture, won the Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards and was featured in NPR's Best Alternative Latin Music of 2023, Jazziz Editor's Choice, NBC New York, and People en Español. Notable jazz musicians such as George Garzone and Francisco Mela contributed to the project. José has toured nationally and internationally, sharing stages with artists like Luciana Souza, Francisco Mela, Danilo Perez, and Eddie Daniels. He currently teaches at Berklee College in Massachusetts.

Instagram: @josesotoartist
Youtube: @josesotomusic
Facebook: josesotoartist
Website

Yung-Chi Sung (He/Him)

Traditional/Folk Performing Arts, The Spiritual Arts of Chinese Calligraphy and Tai Chi , Mid-Career

Yung-Chi Sung is a minority and immigrant artist dedicated to the spiritual arts of Chinese Calligraphy and Tai Chi. Inspired by his parents' practice of these traditional forms, he has innovatively fused them into "Tai Chi Calligraphy," a unique art form that embodies balance, harmony, and cultural connection. With a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and a rich career in education and research, Yung-Chi aims to promote cultural understanding and mindfulness through his art. His work has been recognized with the Cambridge Arts for Health Grant and numerous invitations to demonstrate his calligraphy at community events. As the founder of Yuan3 Chih4 Education, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Yung-Chi continues to enrich the artistic landscape of Boston by integrating tradition with modernity and fostering an appreciation for diverse cultural heritages. 

Youtube
Instagram: @yungchisung
Facebook: Y3C4EDU
Spotify
Website

Crystal Valentine 

Spoken Word, Mid-Career

Crystal Valentine is a nationally and internationally acclaimed poet, educator and organizer. A former New York City Youth Poet Laureate and two-time winner of the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, Crystal has been offered fellowships from Callaloo, Tin House, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences and The Boston Foundation. She is the winner of Palette Poetry’s 2021 Emerging Poet Prize, selected by Kelli Russell Agodon and her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Muzzle Magazine, TriQuarterly Magazine, MSNBC, BET, CNN, The New York Daily News and elsewhere. She received an MFA from New York University. Originally hailing from the Bronx, Crystal now resides in Boston where she serves as the Director of Programming for Mass Poetry. When she isn’t writing or agonizing over line breaks, you can find her watching anime and dreaming. 

Instagram: @CrystalValentine94
Twitter: @Crysta1Valentin

Ilya Vidrin (He/Him)

Dance, Mid-Career

Ilya Vidrin is a Boston-based choreographer and Assistant Professor of Theatre + Creative Practice Research at Northeastern University. Most recently, Ilya has been featured as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” (2022) and has been artist-in-residence at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, National Choreographic Center, North Atlantic Ballet, Ballet Des Moines, L.A. Contemporary Dance Company, Schwerin Ballett, MIT Media Lab, Harvard ArtLab, and the New Museum (NYC). Ilya is the recipient of a Presidential Grant (Knight Foundation), Choreographic Fellowship (Massachusetts Cultural Council), Byron Fellowship (Byron Foundation), and a Bok Fellowship in Media, Literacy, and Visualization (Harvard University). 

Previous LAB Grantee – 2018 and 2022