Artists and Presenters

Allison Lund

Allison Lund spent 10 years in the field of human services, running a variety of programs for youth, the elderly, and the disabled. Combining this background in community work with a foundation in video and film, Allison now works as a producer focusing on media for social change.

With grants from the Massachusetts Department of Health and the Federal Center For Substance Abuse Prevention, Allison worked with at-risk youth on several media-literacy based projects. Together they produced a short documentary and a series of public service announcements that were broadcast throughout the Northeast and won honors at the National Alliance For Community Media Awards.

Allison’s feature documentary, Stonewalk, chronicles a grassroots effort to raise awareness of civilian deaths in war. Stonewalk played in festivals throughout the United States, was runner-up for Best Documentary at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, and won the Alan Fortunoff Humanitarian Award at The Long Island International Film Festival. Stonewalk was broadcast on PBS in May 2002.

Allison’s short documentary, Down on Me, explores the social impact of advertising stringent beauty standards to girls. The piece was an official selection into numerous 2008 festivals, and won Best Short Documentary at the Baltimore Women's Film Festival. Currently at work on a feature documentary, Acting Together on the World Stage: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict, which explores the development of the field of peacebuilding performance, Allison is dedicated to publicizing the work of peacebuilders and artists engaged in creative social transformation.

Belarus Free Theatre

Belarus Free Theatre is an independent theater group founded in Minsk in 2006. In Belarus the troupe has neither a permanent stage nor space for rehearsals or financial support. It is a member of the European Theatre Convention and was awarded the Prize of the French Republic for human rights defense in 2007 and a “special mention” for the prestigious “Europe for Theatre” theatrical prize. The troupe is currently on tour in the United States with performances schedule for Georgetown University, CalArts and the University of San Diego.

Read more about their performance of Discover Love.

• Read the 9/22 article on them in The New York Times.
• Read the 9/15/09 article on them in The Washington Post.
• Read the Theatre Communications Group article about the internationally award winning theatre group.

Carrie Klewin

Carrie Klewin has developed and directed many world premiers of plays, musicals, and operas. She is known for generating performer conceived performances, often including non-traditional use of music, language, and movement. Recently Carrie founded The International Theatre Network, a virtual community dedicated to artists worldwide interested in theatre for social change. She also created the Variations Project, an award-winning festival of community inspired plays now approaching its sixth annual year. Carrie has worked with The Sundance Theatre Institute, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, and The Kennedy Center, among others. She is the Region VIII SDC Coordinator for the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival, a former Helen Hayes Judge, an alumna of Director’s Lab West, and a member of SDC. www.carrieklewin.com

Catherine Filloux

Catherine Filloux is the author of Silence of God and Other Plays (August 2009), a collection of five new plays. She is an award-winning playwright who has been writing about genocide, human rights and social justice for the past 20 years. She received her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and her French Baccalaureate with Honors in Toulon, France. She is a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders, a volunteer organization engaged in international theater exchange. Her awards include the PeaceWriting Award, Roger L. Stevens Award, Eric Kocher Playwrights Award (O'Neill) and the Callaway Award. Her articles have appeared in American Theatre, Manoa, The Drama Review, Contemporary Theatre Review (UK) and the Drama Guild Quarterly.

A short clip can be seen of Catherine Filloux's play Lemkin's House.
Learn more about Where Elephants Weep, a musical by Filloux

Chivy Sok

Chivy Sok, an educator, trainer and researcher on human rights and child labor, currently serves on the Ginetta Sagan Fund of Amnesty International USA. The fund is dedicated to supporting courageous women who risk their lives to promote and protect human rights of women and children around the world. She is also the former program director of Columbia University's Center for the Study of Human Rights and former deputy director of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (UICHR). During her tenure at the UICHR, she was also appointed as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Iowa's School of Law where she co-taught an advanced research seminar on international human rights and child labor. Sok and her family members are survivors of the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields. She has worked on a number of human rights projects with different organizations during the last 15 years and is deeply committed to advancing public education about genocide.

Deborah Liv Johnson

Deborah Liv Johnson was the third of five children, born to missionary parents in Tanzania, East Africa. Returning to the United States before her first birthday, Johnson was raised in the desert community of Ridgecrest, Calif. Her first love of music was drumming.

Graduating with a degree in creative writing from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., Johnson moved to San Diego to continue her music career. Image-rich lyrics and well-crafted melodies became her trademark. Johnson’s performances showcase the eclectic nature of her songwriting, highlighting deft guitar work and vocals as she moves easily between blues, ballads, folk, country and jazz standards.

Johnson has released several CDs on her own Mojave Sun Records label: Mahogany Whispers, The Cowboys of Baja Have Stolen my Heart, Across the White Plains, Softly and Tenderly, A Mountain We Will Climb, Away in a Manger, Real Women, Real Beauty (a fundraiser for breast cancer in conjunction with TheRealWomenProject.com) and her newest release, The Good and Bad of It.

Over the years, Johnson has opened concerts for artists such as Dan Fogelberg, Don McLean, Spyro Gyra, Suzanne Vega, Arlo Guthrie, Nils Lofgren, John Stewart, Tom Chapin, Rita Coolidge and Janis Ian. She’s toured across the country and sung the national anthem for Hillary Clinton.

Dee Aker

Dee Aker, Ph.D., deputy director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice (IPJ), is a psychological anthropologist and conflict resolution professional with 30 years experience working with communities and individuals in transition in Europe, Africa, Central America and South Asia. She has also worked as a columnist and freelance journalist covering women and gender concerns, and produced 234, 30-minute television interviews with women leaders, pioneers and survivors from around the world.

Dijana Milosevic is the artistic director of Dah Teatar and Research Center located in Belgrade, Serbia. The theater was involved in the Arts for Social Change Project, which was supported by European Cultural Foundation and served at-risk youth throughout Southeastern Europe. In 1991, Milosevic and four other women decided to start a small theater company. As they were preparing for their first production, Slobodan Milosevic began moving forces into Bosnia. The members of Dah Teatar refocused their efforts to protest the war and took their production to the streets. Since that time, Dah’s work has included cross-community collaborations with a theater in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as performances that challenge the citizens of Belgrade to acknowledge the legacy of atrocities committed by their government.

For the last two years, Milosevic has also served as artistic director for the International Meeting of Theatre Workshops in Belgrade and has collaborated with the Magdalena Project, an international network of women in contemporary theater. She is also the co-founder of Art Saves Lives, an initiative to explore the healing power of art through discussions and festivals. She is the 2007 recipient of the prestigious Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theatre. Milosevic’s anthology chapter explores theater and performance as a means of communication and action in times of violence by describing and assessing the examples of Dah Teatar, Women in Black and the Mostar Youth Theatre-Dah collaboration.

Formerly the dean of the School of Theater at the California Institute of the Arts, Ehn is currently the head of the graduate playwriting program at Brown University. He collaborated with puppeteer Janie Geiser on a CNT produced version of Poe's William Wilson: Invisible Glass. He is an artistic associate at San Francisco's Theatre of Yugen. Ehn is working through the school to develop a Center for the Study of Genocide and Culture (with Jean-Pierre Karegeye of the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center at the University of California, Berkeley), whose aim is to explore theatrical responses to the 1994 events in Rwanda and to promote peacebuilding through the arts.

A graduate of the New Dramatists, Ehn is married to Patricia Chanteloube-Ehn. His work includes "Maria Kizito," "The Saint Plays," "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling," "No Time Like the Present," "Wolf at the Door," "Tailings," "Beginner" and "Ideas of Good and Evil."

Inocente

Inocente is a talented young woman whohas overcome extraordinary circumstances thanks to her inspiring strength and will.She is a ninth grade student from High Tech High in San Diego and has been attending classes at the Pat D'Arrigo ARTS Center, through ARTS: A Reason to Survive, for two years. Last year she was hired as a youth artist to create art for the gallery and fundraising events as well as to teach classes to younger students. Inocente was recently chosen to be featured in a major documentary profiling four women of courage from around the world, for her use of art and creativity to overcome her struggles. Her first one-woman show will open in the ARTS gallery in November 2009. Inocente often says, “Art is a way to show my emotions, it’s the way I communicate with others. It’s a way of seeing things differently.”

Jayne Flemming

Since January 2007, pro bono counsel Jayne E. Fleming has led the 50-attorney Human Rights Team at Reed Smith LLP to 30 straighthuman rights victories for refugees from around the world. Jayne, herself, has successfully handled more than 20 pro bono asylum cases, which have involved matters of racial, political, religious and gender-based persecution; forced labor and human trafficking; and the rights of immigrant children. To date, none of her clients have ever been deported, and several of the published decisions in her cases have had major impacts on U.S. immigration law in recognizing the rights of women,LGBT and child refugees. Jayne also serves on the Executive Committees for both the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and Survivors International, andshe runs pro bono mentoring programs at UC Berkeley School of Law’s California Asylum Representation Clinic and the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Immigrant Rights Project. For her work, Jayne was recently awarded the 2009 Daniel Levy Memorial Award for Immigration Rights, the 2009Legal Services for Children award for child advocacy, and the ABA’s 2008 John Minor Wisdom Award for Public Service.

Karen Kohlberg

Painter, photographer, and poet, Karen Kohlberg’s Africa Series is about giving voice to the African woman. Recent travels to Tanzania, have inspired her to record and contemplate images of daily life, and to understand the challenges these women face daily.  While retaining the individuality of each woman, these paintings illustrate the extraordinary within the ordinary.

“Life remains difficult for African women of the Kigoma region in Tanzania, and elsewhere, as HIV and high infant mortality rates continue to be critical challenges.  Basic sustenance is all consuming, yet when these women sing, smile, or nurse their children, there is warmth, dignity, and grace.  There is beauty within the community and within each woman, amidst her daily hardships.”  With passion and emotion, Karen’s rich multi-layered textures can be interpreted as a metaphor for these complex challenges.

“I began this series thinking that I was giving voice to the African woman and realize now that the African woman has given voice to me.”

Currently a USD student, Kohlberg is studying Interdisciplinary Humanities with an emphasis in painting.  Her goal is to show her paintings and publish her writings internationally.  Her work will be on display in the rotunda of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at the University of San Diego.

A San Diego resident for 20 years, Kohlberg is also founder of the Serenity Grace Foundation, which is dedicated to healing, through the arts, integrative medicine, youth at risk, cultural and land preservation as well as peace and justice.

Kathy Sangha

Kathy Sangha, together with Becky Sangha, is co-founder of Sun & Moon Vision Productions, a nonprofit organization that strives to support women filmmakers in producing films, documentaries, media art and events that educate, inspire change and advance a humanitarian vision. She is the co-producer/director of the Women PeaceMakers Documentary Series, films of which have been screened in classrooms and at film festivals and community events. Other documentaries include “Creating a Place at the Table,” about multicultural lesbian families, and the internationally distributed “Youth Out Loud!”, on LGBT issues in schools. Kathy and Becky Sangha have received the 2007 Media Justice Award from the Funding Exchange of the San Diego Foundation for Change, the 2006 Arts and Culture Women of the Year from the Women’s Resource Center, a 2006 California State Assembly Certificate for Significant Contributions to the Arts, and various other media awards.  

Kirsten A. Kuriga

Kuriga recently completed her master’s degree in Peace and Justice Studies from the University of San Diego (USD), where she focused her studies on community-based organizing, art and peacebuilding, restorative justice and trauma healing.Before attending USD, she worked for several years in the labor movement and completed her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in 2004.She currently lives at a Buddhist meditation center and strives to bring together spirituality and social action.

Marcia Megumi Luttio

Marcia Megumi Luttio recently finished her master’s degree in Peace and Justice Studies at the University of San Diego, where she studied the role of youth in transforming violence and creating a culture of peace, environmental justice, children in conflict, human trafficking and social transformation through the arts. Luttio completed her B.A. in Anthropology in 2006 from the University of Notre Dame and has since worked with youth living on the streets in both Brazil and the United States.

Mo'olelo Performing Arts Company

Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company's mission is to create, produce and educate. Through all three aspects, they seek to broaden the scope of San Diego's cultural environment by offering professional, socially-conscious theater that provides a voice for diverse and underrepresented populations, aesthetics and issues on stage, and generates participation and dialogue between local communities. Read more

MOXIE Theatre

MOXIE's mission is to create more diverse and honest images of women for our culture using the art of theatre. Through the production of primarily female playwrights and the special attention given to plays which defy the stereotypes of what women are writing about, MOXIE expands the idea of what is feminine. Read more

Norma Brown Hill

Hill is a native New Yorker who recently moved to San Diego.She began her photographic career almost 30 years ago, landing her first job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Photograph Library and later studied in Paris, where she was exposed to the technique of hand-painted photographs.Her interest in manipulated photographs led her to study Polaroid Transfer techniques at the International Center of Photography in New York. As a result of her work in this medium, Hill was chosen as one of six people in the country to be a creative consultant to Polaroid.She produced and starred in her own TV show entitled "Focus on Photography." She has exhibited in many galleries and museums worldwide, her work has been purchased by major corporations and private collectors and also featured innumerous publications, including the New York Times, Newsday, Better Homes and Gardens and Modern Photography.Hill’s current series incorporates sacred icons and texts from various cultures to help promote harmony in diversity.

Paola Gianturco

For the past 12 years, Paola Gianturco has worked as a photojournalist, documenting women’s lives in 40 countries. Her book, Women Who Light the Dark (September 2007), is her fourth to be published by powerHouse Books, along with ¡Viva Colores! A Salute to the Indomitable People of Guatemala, Celebrating Women and In Her Hands: Craftswomen Changing the World.

Gianturco’s photographs have appeared in Marie Claire (U.S., Greek, Taiwan editions), Harpers Bazaar-Australia, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post and many other periodicals. Gianturco has been a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, NPR and Voice of America programs and had her work exhibited by the United Nations, the U. S. Senate, and the International Museum of Women, San Francisco, among others.

Gianturco graduated from Stanford University in 1961 and lives in Mill Valley, Calif. All of her books are philanthropic projects for which she donates her royalties to carefully selected nonprofit organizations that relate to each book's content. For Women Who Light the Dark, Gianturco is giving 100 percent of her author royalties to the Global Fund for Women, which advocates for and defends women's human rights by making grants to support women's groups around the world.

Peggy Watson

Peggy Watson is a unique musician. She is recognized as one of San Diego's leading acoustic singer/songwriters but has been embraced by the jazz and pop world as well. With a wide vocal range, her smooth, emotional voice effortlessly moves between contemporary folk stylings, smoky jazz or powerful pop ballads. She is a fine songwriter/guitarist who moves her audience from tears to laughter with her relevant and touching songs. Karla Peterson of the San Diego Union-Tribune has written, "Peggy Watson's music is filled with simple pleasures and reflects years of hard work, empathetic observation and an easy familiarity with the tough compromises people make every day."

While Watson has performed in a wide variety of venues, including major clubs, coffeehouses, house concerts and industry showcases, she has also used her talents to support many community, nationwide and international efforts. Her concerts have helped raise thousands of dollars for AIDS organizations, environmental issues, medical aid projects, women's health and education fundraisers.

Rebecca Romani

Rebecca Romani holds an M.A. in Television, Film and New Media from San Diego State University. She has lived and worked as a journalist in France and Morocco and currently covers the border and Arab-American culture for IPS.org and Al Jadid. She is also an adjunct instructor in film at Palomar College. Her personal film work includes documentaries which touch on issues of cultural identity, language and representation, and which have been shown throughout the United State, Europe and Morocco. Romani’s latest publication is a major essay on documentaries about Palestine for Cineaste magazine. Her current projects include curating Movies that Matter, a monthly documentary screening series.

Roberta Levitow

Roberta Levitow, director, dramaturg and teacher, has directed over 50 productions in New York City, Los Angeles and nationally, with a focus on new work for the American theater. In 2004, she co-founded Theatre Without Borders (www.theatrewithoutborders.com) and the Theatre & Peacebuilding Initiative with Coexistence International at Brandeis University. She is currently an associate artist with the Sundance Theatre Program's five-year Sundance East Africa initiative. She is one of the Creative Team that created "Beneditctus" by Motti Lerner, a collaboration of Iranian, Israeli and U.S. artists.

Other recent international work includes: co-producer of “Eti! East Africa Speaks!”, Dartmouth College/651 ARTS/Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, Graduate Center CUNY, July 2008; workshop leader, “New Writing in East Africa’’, TCG/ITI New Generations International Fellowship, October 2007; Fulbright Senior Specialist at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, September 2006; Project Director, "After the Fall: Reality and the New Romanian Theatre," New York City, July 2006; co-coordinator of the first CalArts symposium "Arts in the One World," January 2006.

Awards and honors include being named the American Honoree at the 15th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre in 2003 and the Alan Schneider Award in 1992 for directorial excellence. She has received Fulbright Senior Specialist assignments at Makerere University (Uganda), the National University of Theatre & Film (Romania) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her accomplishments and writings are featured in The New York Times, American Theatre Magazine, Theatre in Crisis?: Performance Manifestos for a New Century, South Atlantic Quarterly and Writing the World: On Globalization. A graduate of Stanford University, she has previously taught at UCLA and Bennington College.

Stephanie Goldman

Stephanie Goldman is a renowned San Diego-based artist whose work is as emotionally evocative as it is visually stunning. Her work reflects the influences of distinguished artists including Ken Goldman, Wolf Kahn and Nelson Shanks. Known especially for her portraiture, Goldman brings her exquisite skill with texture and color to bear in her latest exhibit on display in the rotunda of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at the University of San Diego.

Inspired by her recent travels to Morocco, Goldman explores issues of gender, culture, religion and identity through exotic images rich with symbolism. The piercing gazes of her subjects ensconced in vivid hues immediately evoke issues of identity, agency, rights and universal humanity. Goldman explains the impetus for this exhibit having sprung from an ardent desire to bear witness, allowing observers an opportunity for personal reflection on the meaning they find in her pieces.

Her work can be seen online at www.goldmanfineart.com

Seema Sueko

Seema is the Artistic Director of Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company, where she will be producing 9 Parts of Desire this October. Acting credits include: The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (The Old Globe & Yale Repertory Theatres, San Diego Theater Critics Award, Patté Award), A Christmas Carol (San Diego Rep), A Chorus Line (Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre), Rashomon (North Coast Rep). She is a three-time recipient of the Chicago's Jeff Award for her performances in The Crime of the Century, A Piece of My Heart (Circle Theatre), and The Waiting Room (Stage Left Theatre). Directing credits: Since Africa (The Old Globe and Mo`olelo), The Adoption Project: Triad, Permanent Collection, and Good Boys (Mo`olelo). Playwriting credits: remains (McDonald Playwriting Award), Messy Utopia and Hijab Tube (commissions from Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis).

Tanya Alexis Susoev

Susoev is a recent graduate of the M.A. program in Peace and Justice Studies at the University of San Diego. Her studies focused on ways in which art can be used as a tool for social transformation, with a strong emphasis in studying the role of race within the United States and methods to build cultural competency both at home and abroad. Originally from San Francisco, Susoev came to San Diego for her undergraduate work, gaining a degree in English literature with a single-subject teaching credential. She hopes her future work will continue to foster the arts and creativity while working for social change.

Tzighereda (Tziggy) Schindler

Schindler was born and raised in a small village in Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. As a missionary nun in south Ethiopia, Schindler was able to go to school, and in 1974 came to the United States and earned a B.A. in Biology. When she returned to Ethiopia in 1979 to continue her missionary work, her home state of Eritrea was at war with Ethiopia, which had since converted to communism. As a native Eritrean and a nun educated in the U.S. during the Cold War, Schindler was compelled to leave the convent and return to the United States. In 1981 she earned a scholarship from Salve Regina University in Rhode Island and has since made her home in the United States.

Sonabai Rajawar

Self-taught artist Sonabai Rajawar, while living in enforced isolation by her husband for 15 years in a remote village in central India, created her own joyous sculptural environment. Developing an innovative art form, which she later taught to other artists, Sonabai was honored by the government of India with its highest award for artistic merit.

Guest Curator, Stephen Huyler, Ph.D., has selected 33 sculptures by Sonabai and her family as well as 38 works by four artists trained by her for this dynamic exhibition that includes videos of daily village life and the artist at work as well as projections of village dancers and photomurals of Sonabai's studio.

Exhibition running July 26, 2009 - Sept. 5, 2010 at the Mingei International Museum, in Balboa Park.