Work. Shouldnt. Suck.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Lisa Yancey. [Live show recorded: May 8, 2020.]

LISA YANCEY is a strategist, social impact entrepreneur, community builder, and visionary who believes that people build legacies in a lifetime. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Lisa Yancey is the president Yancey Consulting (YC) and co-founder of SorsaMED and The We’s Match. With 18 years of practice, YC has served over 100 nonprofit organizations, grantmakers, and individuals. Advising across arts and culture, public space, and justice-based sectors, YC specializes in strategic organizational development, economic modeling, evaluation and assessments, board development, leadership coaching, and executive transition support. SorsaMED is a biotechnology company engineering cannabinoids infused with nutrient-enriched microalgae for therapeutic pain management, with a specific concern for sickle cell anemia sufferers, especially youth. The We’s Match is dedicated to the wealth, scale, and wellness of Black women entrepreneurs. We match these entrepreneurs with resources and capital for business growth and success. Lisa’s dedication to supporting equitable outcomes for systemically disenfranchised people is the seamless thread that binds these companies. Three essential philosophies drive Lisa’s work. One, we must disrupt patterns that either sustain or are complicit to inequities that challenge any person’s or group’s ability to be their full selves. Two, we will never accomplish sustainable goals looking solely in the short-term. She touts, “It is imperative to assess and set generational impact goals (20-25 years from now) that connect to present-day efforts.” The third is best captured in Lilla Watson’s declaration, “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound with mine, then let us work together.” Lisa believes, “I am one of WE.” Lisa matriculated from Boston College Law School and Emory University. She is a former dancer and choreographer. She is also a member of the New York State Bar Association. Lisa currently lives in Mount Vernon, New York, and serves on the board of Fractured Atlas.

MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. He is also the winner of the 2011 Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, and an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In pursuit of affirmations of black life in the public realm, he co-founded the Life is Living Festival for Youth Speaks, and created the installation “Black Joy in the Hour of Chaos” for Creative Time. Joseph’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His evening length work, /peh-LO-tah/, successfully toured across North America for three years, including at BAM’s Harvey Theater as a part of the 2017 Next Wave Festival. His piece, “The Just and the Blind” investigates the crisis of over-sentencing in the prison industrial complex, and premiered at a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall in March 2019. Bamuthi is currently at work on commissions for the Perelman Center, Yale University, and the Washington National Opera as well as a new collaboration with NYC Ballet Artistic Director Wendy Whelan. Formerly the Chief of Program and Pedagogy at YBCA in San Francisco, Bamuthi currently serves as the Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at The Kennedy Center.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Alexis Frasz. [Live show recorded: May 7, 2020.]

ALEXIS FRASZ sees culture as both a context for and a driver of social change. She is a researcher, strategist and advisor to partners in culture, philanthropy, and the environmental sector, helping design and implement strategies to drive transformative change. Her perspective on systems change draws on her background in cultural anthropology, Chinese Medicine, permaculture design, Buddhism, and martial arts. She is passionate about bringing arts and culture into greater solidarity with broader movements working for social, ecological, and economic justice.

Alexis speaks, teaches, and mentors leaders in the U.S. and Canada on integrating creative and civic leadership, and is faculty in the cultural leadership program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the Creative Climate Leadership program run by Julie’s Bicycle. Her research (with Holly Sidford) on socially engaged artistic practice has informed artist training curriculums and philanthropic programs worldwide. She is actively engaged in Helicon’s ongoing work to confront structural inequities in the cultural sector.

Alexis graduated Summa cum Laude from Princeton University with a degree in Cultural Anthropology and has pursued Master’s level study in Chinese Medicine. She is an advisor of the NorCal Resilience Network, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and The Artist’s Literacy’s Institute. She lives in Oakland, where she spends time in her garden and studies with integrated spiritual/psychological teacher, Jennifer Welwood.

Hear more about Alexis's thoughts on Basic Income.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Danny Harris. [Live show recorded: May 6, 2020.]

DANNY HARRIS, a passionate advocate for livable, walkable and bike-friendly cities, has been named the new executive director of Transportation Alternatives by the non-profit organization’s board of directors. He will officially assume this role on Sept. 3, 2019.

Harris spent four years as program director with the Knight Foundation in San Jose, California, where he oversaw grantmaking related to placemaking, transportation, and affordable housing. He most recently served as senior vice president of Civic Entertainment Group in New York City, where he led teams responsible for high-profile product launches and events.

“Danny Harris is a proven leader and a practiced storyteller who understands the urgency of reclaiming our streets as public space for all New Yorkers,” said Steve Hindy, chair of Transportation Alternatives’ Board of Directors. “Danny is a broad thinker on cities, people, and the connections that drive us. I am confident that he will lead the organization to a new level of effectiveness.”

Harris is an innovator as well as an educator. He has taught at San Jose State University, was named a Vanguard Fellow by Next City, and received a citation from the American Institute of Architects. Harris, a graduate of Connecticut College and Princeton University, is a native New Yorker and currently resides in Manhattan with his family.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Diane Ragsdale & Andrew Taylor. [Live show recorded: May 1, 2020.]

E. ANDREW TAYLOR, Associate Professor and Department Chair of the Performing Arts Department at American University thinks (a bit too much) about organizational structure, strategy, and management practice in the nonprofit arts. An Associate Professor of Arts Management at American University, he also consults for cultural, educational, and support organizations throughout North America. He recently completed a five-year sponsored research project for the William Penn Foundation on “Capitalizing Change in the Performing Arts.” Andrew is past president of the Association of Arts Administration Educators, board member for Fractured Atlas, and consulting editor for The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, and for Artivate, a journal on arts entrepreneurship. Since July 2003, he has written a popular weblog on the business of arts and culture, "The Artful Manager," hosted by ArtsJournal.com (www.artfulmanager.com ).

DIANE RAGSDALE is faculty co-lead of the Cultural Leadership Program at Banff Center for Arts & Creativity; and an assistant professor and program director for the Masters in Arts Management & Entrepreneurship MA at the New School in NYC, where she also designed and launched a graduate minor in Creative Community Development. She additionally teaches a workshop on aesthetic values in a changed cultural context for Yale University's Theater Management MA. Ragsdale is a frequent speaker, blogger, writer, and advisor on a range of arts and culture topics. She previously worked as a program officer for theater and dance at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ran a contemporary performing arts center and a music festival, held a variety of administrative posts, and began her arts career as a theater practitioner (she has an MFA in acting & directing). She is presently a doctoral candidate at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, where she lectured in the cultural economics program from 2011-2015. Her dissertation examines the evolving relationship between the nonprofit and commercial theater in the US over an 80-year period. She is on the board of Anne Bogart's SITI Company; on the editorial board for Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts; and on the Advisory Council for the online theater platform and journal, HowlRound. Among others, she wrote an essay ("To What End Permanence?") for the 2019 book, A Moment on the Clock of the World, published by Haymarket Press. She has dual-citizenship and divides her time between the US and the Netherlands.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Deana Haggag. [Live show recorded: April 30, 2020.]

DEANA HAGGAG is the President & CEO of United States Artists, a national arts funding organization based in Chicago, IL. Before joining USA in February 2017, she was the Executive Director of The Contemporary, a nomadic and non-collecting art museum in Baltimore, MD, for four years. In addition to her leadership roles, Deana lectures extensively, consults on various art initiatives, contributes to cultural publications, and has taught at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and Towson University. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Artistic Director's Council of Prospect.5, and the Advisory Council of Recess. She received her MFA in Curatorial Practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA from Rutgers University in Art History and Philosophy.

She is proudly a first-generation Egyptian-American Muslim disabled woman of Afro-Arab descent. She currently lives in Chicago, Illinois and New York, New York.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Edgar Villanueva. [Live show recorded: April 28, 2020.]

EDGAR VILLANUEVA is a globally-recognized expert on social justice philanthropy. Edgar serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Native Americans in Philanthropy, NDN Collective, and is a Board Member of the Andrus Family Fund, a national foundation that works to improve outcomes for vulnerable youth.

Edgar currently serves as Senior Vice President at the Schott Foundation for Public Education where he oversees grant investment and capacity building supports for education justice campaigns across the United States.

Edgar is the award-winning author of Decolonizing Wealth, a bestselling book offering hopeful and compelling alternatives to the dynamics of colonization in the philanthropic and social finance sectors.

In addition to working in philanthropy for many years, he has consulted with numerous nonprofit organizations and national and global philanthropies on advancing racial equity inside of their institutions and through their investment strategies.

Edgar holds two degrees from the Gillings Global School of Public Health at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Edgar is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Cathy Edwards. [Live show recorded: April 27, 2020.]

CATHY EDWARDS is Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), where she has served since January, 2015. She believes art has a unique role to play in engaging people and communities, and is committed to building opportunity and equity in the creative sector. NEFA invests in artists and communities and fosters equitable access to the arts, enriching the cultural landscape in New England and the nation. The organization administers an array of grant-making programs and professional services, and conducts research into New England’s creative economy. NEFA works in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the nation’s Regional Arts Organizations, and New England’s six state arts agencies, in addition to private philanthropy, to accomplish its work, with an annual budget of over $8 million. Cathy previously served as director of programming at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, CT; as the artistic director at both the Time-Based Art Festival at PICA in Portland, OR and Dance Theater Workshop in New York City; and as co-director of Movement Research in New York City. She has served on the board of directors of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, as chair of the board of directors of Movement Research, and as vice-chair of the board of directors of the National Performance Network. She holds a BA from Yale College. Cathy has two children, both young adults, is married to an activist law professor, and lives in both New Haven, CT and Cambridge, MA.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Jamie Gahlon & Vijay Mathew. [Live show recorded: April 24, 2020.]

JAMIE GAHLON (she/her/hers) is the Director and a co-founder of HowlRound. She is a co-creator of the World Theatre Map and New Play Map, oversees the HowlRound Journal and HowlRound TV, supports the work of the Latinx Theatre Commons, and co-administers The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program, and regularly produces theatre convenings around urgent field-wide issues. Prior to her work at HowlRound, Jamie helped launched the American Voices New Play Institute and the NEA New Play Development Program at Arena Stage. Jamie has also worked for New York Stage & Film, and the New Victory Theatre. She is a proud member of the Latinx Theatre Commons Steering Committee, the Committee of the Jubilee, and a Think Tank Member for the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. Jamie holds a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service with a focus on Culture & Politics from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She originally hails from Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, and likes to dabble.

VIJAY MATHEW (he/him/his) is the Cultural Strategist and a co-founder of HowlRound Theatre Commons, based at Emerson College, Boston, USA and is privileged to assist a talented team by leading HowlRound's development of commons-based online knowledge sharing platforms and the organization's notions of cultural innovation. Prior to his current position, he was the Coordinator for the National Endowment for the Arts (USA) New Play Development Program, as well as a Theater Communication Group (USA) New Generations Future Leader grant recipient in new work at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Vijay has a MFA from New School University, New York, a BA from University of Chicago, and an artistic background as an ensemble-based filmmaker and theatremaker. He is a board member of Double Edge Theatre located in rural Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA.

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Caroline Woolard. [Live show recorded: April 22, 2020.]

CAROLINE WOOLARD employs sculpture, immersive installation, and online networks to imagine and enact systems of collaboration and mutual aid. Her work has been commissioned by and exhibited in major national and international museums, including MoMA, the Whitney Museum, and Creative Time. Recent scholarly writing on her work has been published in The Brooklyn Rail (2018); Artforum (2016); Art in America (2016); The New York Times (2016); and South Atlantic Quarterly (2015). Woolard’s work has been featured twice on New York Close Up (2014, 2016), a digital film series produced by Art21 and broadcast on PBS. She is the 2018–20 inaugural Walentas Fellow at Moore College of Art and Design and the inaugural 2019–20 Artist in Residence for INDEX, a new initiative at the Rose Museum.

Woolard co-founded barter networks OurGoods.org and TradeSchool.coop (2008-2015), the Study Center for Group Work (since 2016), BFAMFAPhD.com (since 2014), and the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative (since 2016). Recent commissions include The Meeting, with a rolling premiere at The New School, Brandeis University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA (2019); WOUND, Cooper Union, New York, NY (2016); and Capitoline Wolves, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2016), and Exchange Café, MoMA, New York, NY (2014). She is the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships including at Moore College of Art and Design (2019), Pilchuck (2018), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2016), the Queens Museum (2014), Eyebeam (2013), Rockefeller Cultural Innovation Fund (2010), Watermill (2011), and the MacDowell Colony (2009). Caroline Woolard is Assistant Professor at the University of Hartford, and the Nomad/9 Interdisciplinary MFA program. Making and Being, her book about interdisciplinary collaboration, co-authored with Susan Jahoda, was published in the fall of 2019. 

Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guests Mica Scalin & Noah Scalin, Another Limited Rebellion. [Live show recorded: April 21, 2020.]

NOAH SCALIN is an artist, author, and activist. He founded Another Limited Rebellion in 2001 with the idea that he could make a living doing what he enjoyed and effect positive change in the world. Since then, Noah has traveled the world bringing his message of creative practice to everyone from incarcerated teenagers to Fortune 500 executives. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts, Noah started his career as the Art Director for Troma Entertainment and Avirex Clothing. Noah's artwork is collected internationally and has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Mütter Museum and NYC’s Times Square. He is the author of six books — most recently Creative Sprint which he co-wrote with his sister/business partner Mica. Noah is also one of the co-hosts of the VPM PBS television program The Art Scene. In 2016 Noah was chosen as the first ever artist-in-residence at the Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business and was named the "The Region's Most Creative Individual" by Richmond magazine in 2017.

MICA SCALIN is an innovator in the use of art and media for community engagement and creative development. She was among the first producers hired by NBC Universal Digital Studios, she launched social media strategy at Showtime Networks and consulted on CBS Interactive marketing. She was VP of Communications for the groundbreaking non-profit JDub and has produced documentary films, art exhibitions and cultural events. From grassroots to broadcast, her passion lies in creating cultural experiences that make meaningful connections between people. She has a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC and studied with Douglas Rushkoff at The New School in NYC. She is the co-author of Creative Sprint: Six 30-day Challenges to Jumpstart Your Creativity. She is also one of the humans behind dOGUMENTA: America’s First Art Show For Dogs.