The 2008 FAAR Grantees are:

 

kahlil almustafa ( NEW YORK, NY) is a performer, educator, and writer, known as the People’s Poet. He is the 2002 Nuyorican Grand Slam Champion and the author of two collections of poetry: Grandma's Soup and I'm Crying Everyone's Tears which has sold or distributed more than 5,000 copies. almustafa recently released his highly-anticipated debut CD CounterIntelligence and a collection of 15 years of poetry entitled Growing Up Hip-Hop. He is currently on the “Hip-Hop 4 President Tour.” Re-energized from performing at the first solar-powered Hip-Hop concert, almustafa is ready to infuse the world with hope and insight through his poetry.

 

Holly Bass

 

Naomi Bragin’s ( OAKLAND, CA) choreography integrates Hip-Hop, House, African and Latin rhythm and form. She has researched dance in New York, Cuba, Brazil and the Philippines. In 2002 she founded Oakland, California based DREAM Dance Company to research, promote and illuminate Afro-diasporic connection. Her 2007 Izzie-nominated Full Circle returned Hip-Hop via Cuban Rumba to its African roots, creating new meaning from traditional form. Naomi received her BA in Dance from Wesleyan University and support from Creative Work Fund, Zellerbach, East Bay Community Foundation, and California Arts Council. She pursues her Masters in Folklore at UC Berkeley, working to redefine folklore, dance anthropology and performance.

 

Kristoffer Diaz ( NEW YORK, NY) is a playwright and educator. His full-length plays (Welcome to Arroyo's, Guernica, and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity) have been developed and performed at the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, The Lark, The Summer Play Festival, The Donmar Warehouse, South Coast Repertory, New York Stage and Film, The Tank, New York University, The Knitting Factory, and New Dramatists. Kristoffer is a recipient of the Van Lier Fellowship and a member of The Dramatists Guild. He holds an MFA from New York University's Department of Dramatic Writing and is currently an MFA candidate at Brooklyn College's Performing Arts Management program.

 

Rudi Goblen ( MIAMI, FL) has performed along the side of artists such as The Roots, Mos Def, and De La Soul. Besides his musical pursuits, he is an acclaimed B-Boy. His crew "Flipside Kings" has traveled to places such as France, South America, Holland, and Asia. Rudi is a member of "D-Projects," a cross-section of conservatory and street trained artist creating contemporary performance. Commissioned by Miami Light Project and the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, he premiered his one-man show Insanity Isn't at the Here & Now Festival in 2006. Rudi has spent the last 4 years fueling his passion for theater/performance and new creative expressions, while working to bring it to a broader audience.

Idris Goodwin ( ALBUQUERQUE, NM) is an award winning Hip-Hop playwright, break beat poet, recording artist and teacher committed to making work that incites, inspires, and engages. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Idris a Playwright-in-Residence grant to explore Hip-Hop aesthetics in theater. Idris' break beat poetry has featured on season six of Russell Simmons' HBO Def Poetry as well as in the Spoken Word Revolution Redux Anthology. Idris frequently teaches and lectures at institutions across the country on themes of arts, culture and activism. He currently resides in Santa Fe, NM with his fiancé.

 

 

 

 

Adam Mansbach's ( BERKELEY, CA) latest novel, The End of the Jews (Spiegel & Grau/Doubleday), was published in March. His previous novel, Angry Black White Boy (Crown) was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005 and is taught at more than forty universities. His other books include the novel Shackling Water (Doubleday, 2002), the poetry collection genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights (Subway & Elevated, 2002). The founding editor of the hip hop journal Elementary, Mansbach teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute.

 

 
Jamie Merwin ( PHILADELPHIA, PA) is the Founding Artistic Director of Philadelphia-based Olive Dance Theatre and the artist-driven management cooperative Seed Management. She is equally committed to the tradition of Breakin' and the creation of contemporary American theatre. Ms. Merwin has worked with multiple Philadelphia organizations in many capacities from actor and director to stage manager and administrator, including: Rennie Harris Puremovement, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia Young Playwright's Festival, CEC, Actin' Up!, Eastern State Penitentiary and the Pennsylvania Prison Society. Her current projects include two new evening length works - “Brotherly Love” and “Conversations.” Jamie serves on the Executive Committee for Alternate ROOTS as well as The Network of Ensemble Theaters’ (NET) Board of Directors.

 

Christine M. Peng ( BROOKLYN, NY) is a multimedia artist/ educator who works towards personal and social transformation through the arts. For the past seven years she has been working on documentaries and with youth on issues of gender, education, police brutality and community space issues in New York City. Recently she co-produced Songs & Ciphers: Brothers & Sisters in the Struggle, a short documentary on grassroots community organizing in Venezuela, and NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Gentrification, a community collaboration with Movement for Justice in El Barrio. She is currently working on a film project about the history of racial violence in New York City.

 

The artistic vision of Omar G. Ramirez (LOS ANGELES, CA) stems from his deep appreciation of shared spaces and a fascination with public art. Born to Mexican immigrants and raised in East Los Angeles, his work evolved as a vehicle for relevant social analysis it celebrates culture as a means of empowerment and functions as a catalyst for self-awareness. His spirituality charged art is functional, sustaining an evolving dialogue and social commentary about the human experience, struggle and beauty. Omar’s art is part of the permanent collection of the Museo Cuevas in Mexico City; his murals can be found throughout the United States. www.omartista.com

 

David Szlasa ( OAKLAND, CA) is a new media + performance artist. Original works include Dissection (1997), Light (2000), and GADGET (2006). Szlasa's next piece, My HOT Lobotomy, will premier at CounterPULSE Theater in San Francisco 10/08. He has collaborated with Bill “Crutchmaster” Shannon, Rennie Harris, Synaesthetic Theatre, Sara Shelton Mann, Guillermo Gomez Peña, and Marc Bamuthi Joseph in such venues as the Walker Arts Center, The Kitchen (NYC), Humana Festival, Yerba Buena, the Sydney Opera House and the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe. Szlasa’s video installations have been exhibited at the Oakland Art Gallery, Thatcher Gallery at USF, and the Center for Advanced Technology at NYU.

 

Nicolas R. Valdez ( SAN ANTONIO, TX) is an actor, writer, musician, performance artist, and proud father. His work as a Cultural Activist has given him the opportunity to perform and organize in diverse communities across the country, specifically as a facilitator of Popular Education workshops with immigrant youth. His unique prose style and original music is reminiscent of the Border Experience; at once Latino in form and language but evolving and limitless. He is honored to receive the support of the HHTF and hopes to build new working relationships with the other FAAR grant recipients. Que viva este movimiento de arte, cultura, y conciencia!