SPA Coaching Ensemble

Khadija Nia Adell (she/they) is a interdisciplinary multimedia artist, arts administrator, independent curator born, and cultural organizer and raised in Miami, FL. She creates work that investigates her ancestral queer Black feminist connection to the African diaspora through a multifaceted practice in abstract and surrealist collage, digital manipulation, fiber, printmaking, performance, sculpture, photography, video, sound, and archival research.

Likes to talk to artists about: A liberatory spirit whose work calls on intuition, deep listening, and reflection. My practice is grounded in solidarity, a sense of expansion, possibility, and care. I love laughing and connecting in ways that center spirit, reflect culture, and harness the power of community. I approach this work with a sense of purpose and joy, moving from an alignment with spirit to support the work of transformation.

Michele Kumi (久美) Baer (she/they) is a facilitator, coach, educator, and cultural organizer working in and across the arts and philanthropic fields. A lifelong dancer, Michele’s sensibilities as a mover and choreographer shape how she strategizes, facilitates, and collaborates. As a coach, Michele enjoys creating an affirming and non-judgmental space for her coach partners to be present with the richness of their inner worlds—the thoughts, emotions, memories, and visions that reside there. Michele has a certification in liberatory coaching from the Coaching for Healing Justice and Liberation school. People reading this may also enjoy knowing that Michele is a Capricorn Sun, Pisces Moon, and Aries Ascendant. 

Likes to talk to artists about: The big questions and dreams that are animating this season of their lives; what they are unlearning, undoing, and releasing; what they are welcoming, creating, weaving, and activating; how to build and call in support structures that feed and sustain their visions; how to interrupt racist, ableist, patriarchal, and colonial narratives that permeate the arts field; and what they imagine for the future.

Janani Balasubramanian (they/them) is an artist working across immersive experiences, conceptual art, and literary work and in sustained, expansive collaborations with scientists. Their artworks invite closer connection with more-than-human worlds and nurture social imagination for care, complexity, and play. Janani has received support for their work from the Lenore Tawney Foundation, Tow Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Sundance Institute, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Community Trust, Jerome Foundation, Brown Institute for Media Innovation,and Red Bull Arts, among others. Their work has been presented at dozens of venues internationally, including the Academy of Natural Sciences, New York High Line, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Public Library, and San Francisco Exploratorium.

Likes to talk to artists about: nurturing great collaborations, creative process, experimenting across forms and disciplines, money, artist residencies, building practical infrastructure for wild imagination, climate change/art in the Anthropocene, working with scientists, disability and accessibility.

A Doris Duke Performing Artist, Sharon Bridgforth (she/her) is a writer that creates ritual/jazz theatre. A 2020-2023 Playwrights’ Center Core Member, Sharon has received support from Creative Capital, MAP Fund, the National Performance Network and is a New Dramatists alumnae. Sharon served as a dramaturg for the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative’s Choreographic Fellowship program and has been in residence with: Brown University’s MFA Playwriting Program; University of Iowa’s MFA Playwrights Program; The Theatre School at DePaul University; allgo, A Texas Statewide QPOC Organization; and The Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Widely published, Sharon author of the Lambda Literary award winning, “the bull-jean stories”, and her performance piece, “delta dandi”, is published in “solo/black/woman: scripts, interviews and essays”.

Likes to talk to artists about: Coffee, Black Mermaids that fly, The Great African-American Migrations, Ancestral Healing, my Mentors, Theatrical Jazz, the Work of Love.

Elizabeth Doud (she/her) is a Florida-based arts organizer and artist with over 20 years experience as an arts presenter, producer and educator, with an emphasis on international cultural exchange, climate arts and language education. She is known as a tenacious advocate for new performance with a professional mission to facilitate climate arts and eco-justice activism. She has worked widely throughout the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean, and co-created Climakaze Miami with FUNDarte in 2015, an annual climate performance and dialogue platform. She led the Performing Americas Program of the National Performance Network from 2005-2018, and was the Artistic Director of the Cultura del Lobo Series at Miami Dade College from 2009-2011. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Miami and a Ph.D. in Performing Arts at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. In 2019, she became the Curator of Performance at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, FL.

Likes to talk to artists about: Deeply curious about artistic process, finding support and analyzing habits and goals. I’m a fearless dream-tank session partner and pretty darn good at understanding purpose and potential of new projects/initiatives. Favorite pastime: Undoing seriousness while rebuilding the sacred.

Bear Hebert (they/them) is a theater maker, visual artist and writer who makes their living as a countercultural life coach, social justice educator, and anti-capitalist business consultant. Bear is queer, white, working class, and Southern; Scorpio sun, Sagittarius rising; ENTJ. When not working, Bear spends their days sitting near bodies of water and riding bikes around New Orleans, chasing all the joy they can find.

Likes to talk to artists about: Anti-capitalism, marketing, branding, fundraising, creative practice, non-extractive productivity, the power of queerness, undoing patriarchy, unlearning whiteness, self-love, healing, joy, and more.

Rika Iino (she/her) is the Founder & CEO of SOZO, a contemporary arts agency and incubator at the intersection of social impact, innovation, and culture. As an entrepreneur and creative producer, Rika’s dedication to artists as change agents has shaped global projects. She is deeply engaged in independent artist advocacy and leadership development, serving as a coach, mentor, and speaker at institutions like Stanford, Yale, and UC Berkeley. Rika co-created the systemic allyship program HEALING FORWARD™ with Marc Bamuthi Joseph and co-chairs Building Ethical and Equitable Partnerships, a national initiative on equitable artist contracting. In 2021, she became the first woman of color to receive the Patrick Hayes Award for transformative leadership from the International Society for the Performing Arts. Her accolades also include the 2023 Mentoring Award from Western Arts Alliance and the CALI Catalyst Award from the Center for Cultural Innovation, recognizing her extraordinary efforts in fostering inclusion and equity in the cultural sector. In 2024 she earned a certification in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from Harvard Kennedy School. She currently leads the SOZO Fellowship, a groundbreaking program on artist entrepreneurship and sustainability. Learn more at sozomedia.com.

Likes to talk to artists about: Sustainability. Entrepreneurship. Visioning. Positioning. Branding. Strategies.

Spirit McIntyre (they/them) Spirit McIntyre is a Speaker, Composer, Cellist, Lyricist, Reiki Practitioner, Compassionate Facilitator, and Visual Artist. Spirit has produced several albums: ‘Blusolaz’, 2003; ‘Bars Of Gold’, 2005; ‘It Soon Come’, 2013; and ‘Mourning To The Moonlight’, 2014. They are a prolific collaborator who has crafted improvisationally based live music for dance and theatre since the early 2000’s. They debuted their first soundscape in Dastak: I Wish You Me, with ADT in Minnesota and premiered their second work with this brilliant collective called Nün Gherāo: Surrounded By Salt in 2022.

Currently Spirit is the Arts Director for TransFire a 9-month residency program for 5 TGNC+ artists and a Freelance Artist composing soundscapes and collaborating on a variety of artistic projects.

Likes to talk to artists about: In true Leo fashion, I keep it equal parts real and compassionate. I love empowering artists and do so through: exploring worthiness, boundary maintenance, being the best hype-person, celebrating wins, easeful creativity, and being a divine mirror.

Rebecca Mwase (they/she) is a midwife to creation. Her work investigates belonging, home and the borders we create that separate us from our selves, each other and our humanity. In all aspects of Mwase’s work, they mine ancestral embodied memory to discover our truths; the essence of our stories and creates containers that release the toxic, stagnant energies of systemic oppression. Rebecca utilizes artistic and creative forms rooted in African and Afro-Indigenous cosmologies to instigate transformation and transmute the energies of systemic dysfunction into clear visions, experimental and adaptable structures, and personal/collective practices that undergird our new ways of being.

Likes to talk to artists about: Personal ritual, spirit and ancestral memory, embodied practice, integrated work/life, craft and community based artistic practice, clarifying one’s sense of self, deepening relationships with collaborators, crafting new ways of being crafted to achieve individual and collective visions.

Daniel Penilla (he/him/el) is driven to bring joy, love, healing, and liberation to our communities. He completed Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation’s (CHJL) Liberatory Coaching certificate program, and is grateful for how coaching is the thread connecting his many experiences. Daniel was Associate Artistic Director and an Ensemble Member of Cornerstone Theater Company. He trained as an actor at Circle In The Square Theatre School, NYC. He is an alum of the LAByrinth Theater Company’s Intensive Ensemble and artEquity’s National Facilitator Training program. He has held leadership roles in the for-profit and non-profit sectors, with an approach that is always heart centered and led by gratitude and intuition. He trusts that we have all that we need within ourselves and that sharing our light and our stories is the most powerful medicine.

Likes to talk to artists about: Their process and all its layers. What brings them joy. Family, Ancestors, and Lineage. Visions and wildest dreams. How their heart is doing. Balancing the many roles they play. What are they remembering and releasing. What they need to be present in this moment.

Black Pruitt (they/them) is a renaissance, embodying the legacies of artists like Josephine Baker and Ntozake Shange who were unapologetic and unbound in their creative expression. They are a Black, genderqueer healing and teaching artist based in Bulbancha (so-called New Orleans, LA). Through anti/interdisciplinary creative practice, Black transcends the boundaries between art and form to create space for healing, discovery and transformation. They’re an Afrofuturist, conjuring and world-building through creative expression in ways that facilitate a sense of collectivity, wholeness, and embodied wisdom. It is through this work that Black strives towards liberation.

Likes to talk to artists about: Creativity as ritual, art as spiritual practice, creative wellness, therapeutic art-making, pleasure-centered creative practice, embodiment/somatics, community building/organizing, social and civic arts practice, decolonizing creativity, anti/interdisciplinary arts practice, building sustainable systems, visioning/organizing/strategizing, healing justice, art as activism, Afrofuturism, queer identity, Blackqueer poetics, mysticism, ancestor veneration.

Ron Ragin (he/him/flexible) is a researcher, strategist, organizer, coach, and interdisciplinary artist. He sustains a vibrant performance and creative writing practice, rooted in music of the African Diaspora, improvisation, and cultivation of spiritual technologies. He is ever-curious about the role of sound, and the unamplified human voice in particular, in transforming our environment, our selves, and each other. Alongside his creative work, Ron partners with artists, organizations, and grantmaking institutions to help them move in deeper alignment with their values, goals, and principles. For nearly a decade, he worked in the field of arts and cultural philanthropy, with program officer posts at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Ron makes a mean red velvet cake, and can throw down on some biscuits. 

Likes to talk to artists about: Purpose, vision, creating a sustainable creative life, surviving capitalism, everyday futurism, all things strategy, navigating institutions.

David Sheingold (he/him) has worked in the arts field for over 20 years. He served as Dance Theater Workshop’s Senior Producer, co-founded ArtsPool, and has consulted with arts organizations across the US including 651 ARTS, Miami Light Project, ODC Theater, Pew Charitable Trust, Queer|Art, and Vermont Performance Lab, among others. A critical through line of his work has been focused on coaching artists. This begins with understanding what animates artists’ desire to create alongside how they make and share their work. From that grounding, he co-creates pathways to realize the wants and needs of artists’ practice, helping to seed possibility and agency. He brings compassion, deep curiosity, and challenge to his coaching practice, opening up space to balance the often-isolating dynamics of art making with frank, strategic partnership.

Likes to talk to artists about: Endless. One that comes to mind is the choices artists are constantly making as they develop their work. I was sitting in on a run through for a work that was about to premiere. The director stopped the action mid-stream, went up to one of the performers and asked them to move one of their hands that was resting in their lap an inch to the right. I immediately wanted to know everything about that choice. The piece itself produced a sensation of chaos and complete abandon; the choices were hyper intentional.

Leila Tamari (she/her) is the kind of artist who just recently started calling herself an artist 😉 She has always been in the “in-between” – finding meaning and belonging in spaces where she isn’t limited by one way to define herself, or one way to make. Multi-disciplinary, culture worker, facilitator, strategist, wealth redistributor, coach, producer, and other titles, have all been used to describe her different roles and practices. She is the Founder + Principal of the creative consultancy This Place Works (TPW). You can find more about her past creative work via the TPW website and more about her professional roles via Linkedin.

Likes to talk to artists about: Ancestral legacies, experimenting our way out of capitalism, agreements (with ourselves, partners, and institutions), our creative wet dreams, and real life $h*!

Taja Will (they/them) is a non-binary, chronically ill, queer, Latine(Chilean) adoptee. They’re a choreographer, somatic therapist, and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatics, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Will’s artistic work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through a blend of ritual, dense multi-layered worldbuilding and everyday magic.

Taja’s coaching practice includes consulting with individuals, organizations, and communities in the context of workshops, conflict mediation, somatic sessions, disability justice and access training, and organizational culture process. Taja is committed to working for healing and liberation of Black, Indigenous and people of color and radical care work for folks with chronic illness and disabilities.

Likes to talk to artists about: Radical care webs, creative practice, tailoring projects to abundant and realistic scale, healing from oppression, rhythms of play-work-hustle-rest, plant medicine, talking to ancestors, somatic modalities for daily wellness, unapologetic queer realities, and all the ways we can reshape systems and art making!