Cynthia Amoah
Creative Writing: Poetry & Spoken Word
Cynthia Amoah is a spoken word artist, educator, and mentor originally from Ghana. Since the onset of her career, Cynthia’s dynamic voice has captured diverse audiences and her authentic stage presence has left them inspired after every performance. Her literary pieces often highlight the forgotten stories of the world, while transcending the oftentimes marginalized groups she delineates in her work. Her writing and performances also concern the foraging questions that have to do with identity and belonging, with displacement, migration and uprootedness.
Cynthia completed her MFA at The New School and has been featured on the stages of TEDxDrewUniversity, TEDxOhioStateUniversity, and the United Nations Information Center in Accra, among many.…
Andrea Belser
Musical Theater, Dance/Movement, & Acting
Andrea Belser is a performing artist and instructor from Cleveland, Ohio who has received her Bachelor of Arts from Wright State University in Theatre Studies, with an emphasis on Dance and Applied Voice. Beginning with ballet at three years of age, she also continued her studies in various dance forms, including tap, African folk dance, liturgical/spiritual, jazz, musical theatre dance, modern/contemporary, hip hop, and Latin ballroom.
Post college, Andrea has remained extremely active in the northeast Ohio theater community, receiving 2008 Best Actress in Cleveland for her role as Juliette in “I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda” at Dobama Theatre, and nomination as 2012 Best Actress in Cleveland for her role as Pecola in “The Bluest Eye” at Karamu House Theatre.…
Jennifer Hambrick
Poetry
A poet hailed for her “brilliant” imagery, “masterful” craftsmanship, and “uniquely musical voice,” Jennifer Hambrick is the six-time Pushcart Prize- and Best of the Net-nominated author of the free verse poetry collection In the High Weeds, winner of the Stevens Manuscript Award of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies; the haibun collection Joyride (Red Moon Press), winner of the Marianne Bluger Book Award from Haiku Canada; the collection of avant-garde haiku and short prose poems, a silence or two (Red Moon Press), acclaimed as “a stunning collection … destined to become a haiku classic;” and the free verse poetry collection Unscathed (NightBallet Press).…
Sierra Leone
Entrepreneur, Poet, Wholistic Urban Creative Arts, & Theatre
Poet, producer, activist, educator, and entrepreneur Sierra Leone captivates audiences with her unassuming ingenuity, profound insight, and comedic sense of “knowing.”
A Governor’s Award winner and writer, Sierra is the president and artistic director of OFP Theatre and Production Company. For more than a decade, Ohio has benefited from Sierra’s vision of creative urban arts as a powerful artistic medium to bring communities together across racial, cultural, ideological, and economic divides. Her project “The Signature: A Poetic Medley Show” presents a hybrid of urban poetry, music, dance, and visual arts from local, regional, and international talent.…
Ray McNiece
Drama/Theatre: Performance Poetry & Storytelling
Ray McNiece is the author of eight books of poems and monologues, most recently Breath Burns Away, New Haiku. He has created two solo theatre works: Dis – Voices From a Shelter and Us? Talking Across America; two music/poetry collaborations: “Mouth Music” and “A Rust bowl Hootenanny;” and an autobiography on stage: The Lives of A Poet. The Orlando Sentinel reporting on Ray’s solo show at the Fringe Festival called him “a modern day descendant of Woody Guthrie. He has a way with words and a wry sense of humor.” In a review of Us?…
Brianna Rhodes
Dance/Movement, Visual Poetry, Modern, West African, Afrobeats, & Hip Hop
Brianna Rhodes is an Ohio native and graduate of The Ohio State University Department of Dance. She formally danced as a fellow with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Currently, she is working with Dianne McIntyre and serving as a freelance dancer and dance teacher. Her talents span concert, street, and commercial dance. Primarily, she works with the youth teaching dance, along with dance history, in many corners of Columbus, Ohio. Her professional career has allowed her to perform at the Bermuda Dance Festival, in a Brazil tour group, and at City Center in New York.…
Rikki Santer
Creative Writing: Poetry, & Film Studies
Rikki Santer has worked as a journalist, magazine and book editor, co-founder and managing editor of an alternative city newspaper in Cleveland, poet-in-the schools, high school teacher of English and film studies, and director of a student writing center. Currently she is serving as a vice-president of the Ohio Poetry Association, education consultant for Film Columbus, member of the performing poetry troupe, Concrete Wink, and she holds an Ohio Department of Education Lead Professional Educator teaching license as well as National Board teacher certification.
She earned an MA degree in journalism from Kent State University and an MFA degree in creative writing from The Ohio State University.…
