Alice Blumenfeld
Dance/Movement, Flamenco
Alice Blumenfeld fell in love with flamenco at age 12, and since then it has been the driving force in her life. Blumenfeld is a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, a YoungArts Silver Award winner in World Dance, a Fulbright recipient in Dance, and an Individual Excellence Awardee in Choreography from the Ohio Arts Council (FY 20). She is the founder and artistic director of ABREPASO Flamenco and she holds an MFA in dance from Hollins University and a BA in comparative literature from New York University, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.…
Utpola Borah
Music
Utpola Borah, Ph.D., is an ethnomusicologist, music educator, cultural archivist, and North Indian classical vocalist. She has been performing diverse North Indian classical vocal genres as well as regional folk songs for several years in the United States and India. Utpola’s vocal artistry is founded on her extensive study with the renowned North Indian classical legends, Padmashri (Dr.) Prabha Atre, Vidushi Malashri Prasad, Pandit Indralal Dhanda, Ustad Iqbal Ahmed Khan, and Ustad Ballu Khan Warsi of Kirana, Banaras, Udaipur, and Delhi gharanas (traditions). Her deep knowledge of music is evident in her many concerts and regular broadcasts on the All India Radio (National Radio) and Television network.…
Terry Boyarsky
Music, Dance/Movement
Terry Boyarsky, pianist, is a movement specialist, singer, and ethnomusicologist who believes that every person is musical. Her search for musical collaboration has led her into chamber music, choral singing, folk dance, coaching, accompanying dance, and creating ceremony.
Terry holds a BA in experimental psychology from Reed College, a BM in eurhythmics from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and an MA in ethnomusicology from Kent State University. Terry has taught and created events for institutions such as the Dalcroze Society of America; American Orff-Schulwerk Society; Society for Ethnomusicology; the Cleveland Institute of Music; University of Hawaii; Rowe Center in Massachusetts; Kasetsat University in Bangkok, Thailand; Los Hipocampitos in Carrizal, Venezuela; Bard College Conservatory of Music; and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.…
Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld
Integrated Arts Experiences
Born and raised in New York City, Mimi Brodsky Chenfeld has been teaching people of all ages and backgrounds for her whole teaching life—through programs such as Headstart and Upward Bound—from early childhood programs to senior communities, from prisons to hospitals, elementary schools, high schools, and higher education institutions. She has presented programs in creative education in 45 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Great Britain. She has written numerous poems, stories, articles, and books. Her children’s novel, The House At 12 Rose Street, was adapted for a TV special and nominated for an Emmy.…
Susan Byrnes
Visual Arts, Sculpture, Photography, & Multimedia Installation
Susan Byrnes is a visual artist whose work includes sculpture, multimedia installation, radio broadcasts, arts-based writing, and curatorial projects.
Her art has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the Midwest, including The Korean Cultural Center of Chicago, the Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, the Sculpture Center in Cleveland, the Weston Gallery in Cincinnati, the Dayton Art Institute, the University of Minnesota’s Nash Gallery in Minneapolis, 516 Arts in Albuquerque, NM and the Amarillo Museum of Art in Texas. Susan is the recipient of a Yeck Teaching Fellowship from the Dayton Art Institute, a Cincinnati Art Ambassador Fellowship, and a Montgomery County Arts and Culture District Award.…
Joanie Calem
Music, Dance/Movement, & Storytelling
Joanie Calem has been a performing musician and music teacher since 1983. She graduated from the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem, Israel, with a major in piano and went on to study music education at the Levinsky Teaching Seminar in Ramat Aviv, Israel. She studied composition with composer Hagar Kadima in Tel Aviv, Israel, and completed her degree, music in community building, at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. Having lived overseas for 23 years, Joanie is well versed in multi-cultural experiences and cross-cultural interchanges. Joanie moved to the Columbus, Ohio, area in 1998 and has been teaching music and performing all over the Midwest ever since.…
Omopé Carter-Daboiku
Wordsmith & Storyteller
An Appalachian of mixed ancestry, Omope Carter Daboiku hails from the Ohio River town of Ironton. She migrated to Cincinnati in 1972 and to Dayton in 2012. A cultural geographer and award-winning teller of tales, Omope became affiliated with the Ohio Arts Council in 1990 and the Cincinnati Arts Association at its inception in 1997 and has performed and led story circles across the U.S. and abroad. In 1993, she spoke at the Art of Survival (Nuremberg, Germany), addressing quilting as a cottage industry used by African American women to support families.…
Sheela Das
Music, Multi-Instrumentalist & Songwriting
Sheela Das is the artistic director and founder of Creative Concepts in Music. With more than a decade of teaching through the arts, she has directed, produced, and delivered compelling workshops and original stage productions for students, community members, and professional venues alike.
From songwriting workshops and camps to classroom residencies, Sheela brings her multi-instrumental talent to the joy of hundreds of audiences each year. She has composed more than 300 original, interactive songs to teach the curriculum in grades K-12 in subjects from social emotional learning to language arts and science.…
Amy Dennison
Music, Wind Instruments, Instrument Making, & Arts + Healing
Amy Dennison will be retiring at the end of August 2021 from her position as the director of education, associate director for preparatory & community engagement for the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati (UC). During her 20-year tenure at UC she held the positions of program manager, director, director of education and assistant dean. She is the coauthor of “One Voice – Music and Stories in the Classroom.” Primarily a woodwind specialist, Ms. Dennison also plays several string instruments including the mountain dulcimer, the cello, and most recently, the ukulele.…
Jerzy Drozd
Visual Arts, Comics & Graphic Novels
Jerzy Drozd leads cartooning workshops for children and teens in libraries and schools, as well as for teachers who want to bring comics to the classroom. He wrote and drew Science Comics: Rockets with his wife, Anne Drozd, and is one of the artists of The Warren Commission Report. He also podcasts about comics and how to make them.
Jerzy has drawn special projects for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, Marvel Comics, VIZ Media, and others. He is currently creating a webcomic with writer Dan Mishkin about a magical school called Amazon Academy.…
Tom Evert
Dance/Movement
Tom Evert has been a creative force in creating and performing original choreographic works with a company of dancers, working intensively in arts-education programming and creating festival-like community events in Ohio for 33 years.
Tom currently serves as artistic director of DANCE EVERT, which he founded in 1986. He holds BFAs in both painting and dance from Ohio University and has enjoyed a world-class touring career with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in New York City. He has created a major body of work for which he has received eight Individual Excellence Awards in choreography.…
Lynette Ford
Storytelling & Spoken Word
Fourth-generation storyteller Lynette (Lyn) Ford is a teaching artist with the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, a Thurber House mentor to young writers, a storytelling and story-writing coach, a Certified Laughter yoga teacher, and a great-grandma.
For more than 25 years, Lyn has provided stories for libraries and schools, keynote and closing presentations, workshops at universities, education and literacy conferences, and featured programs at some of the most prestigious storytelling conferences and festivals in the United States, Australia, and Ireland. Lyn’s work has now expanded to online videos and Zoom sessions for classroom presentations in grades PreK-5 and family night Zoom gatherings, with enrichment information to guide reflection and discussion before and after watching videos.…
