https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/home daily 1.0 2025-08-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/e70c5956-7bca-4f23-b476-d22cbce87961/sidewalk+festival+poster+w+artist+names+11x17.png Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135544194-HC27Q53PPU7N1IZCHG37/Sidewalk+Map+Edit+1.png Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135554034-WL8UJKJRE2S6QYZRMI64/18+x+24back+.png Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Home - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/30f43d77-9d3a-45e7-bbb9-d40571a503eb/4Z2A0320.jpg Home - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1681339926160-7CZ3NBG14WV6ACSKU1OG/1733.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1681343946466-H85LOLP1TCDIFXL5XNWD/BalletFolkoricodeDetroit.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1681343979354-6LOSB8DPV1KJNGJJ02V9/lunar_Levon.jpg Home https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/schedule-artists daily 0.75 2025-02-21 https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/get-involved daily 0.75 2025-07-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562003761984-T7ZO3UTN3C8WI02FVB8R/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Get Involved https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1624983590426-0NRVPJFMRTZSFRK49VV4/icon1+.png Get Involved - 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Make it stand out Graphic Design by: Megan Rizzo https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/divider-2 daily 0.75 2019-07-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561613644253-31DAXJM0SA9POSSOA05V/14.jpg Divider https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/workshops-demos daily 0.75 2019-07-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561611994479-NIFYXEWPUI4YWQPLR5XE/202-03.png Workshops & Demos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561612125765-NDEL4USJ72JVZ5T7SR7Y/202-05.png Workshops & Demos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561612239076-A5LOL673C2B1Z32A52VK/202-04.png Workshops & Demos https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562038793386-DBZ93KQAYQM6713SZJ4Z/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Workshops & Demos https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/parking daily 0.75 2025-08-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561756873964-RKFBB8OYC31HOZDTKK56/059.jpg Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135836762-ZNOWV0OHY6QHCIV8SMK0/1.png Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135837111-PXKVL8FU5FQWIP69EAY3/2.png Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135843592-7BRHD6H6D9XTDDVSYJX1/3.png Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135844945-MXY6H906BIKK9XUTTAFQ/4.png Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135848243-RR489DN0R60XBKC8JURI/5.png Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135850457-XVJP5Q6T6EM9U2Z8I5HI/6.png Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562040198675-8SFRKQK08Z214DF5BCVS/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Parking https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/contact-us daily 0.75 2023-04-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/22814fa1-3f98-402c-b755-7b253321bbed/5d7f3c80-6326-41ac-9f88-fc214b62b76b.jpg Contact Us https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562040870082-12UJ5PEWSX689D8Y6J54/image-asset.jpeg Contact Us https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562011040924-NN8BXMV50KMX0SDOEV6M/356.jpg Contact Us https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/b3cca746-2d3a-4c3d-9b4c-9f2ad859b5db/Lamarreanddancers_livinforthemedia.jpg Contact Us https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Contact Us https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562011463311-XBNFDQYN10U71376EI21/372.jpg Contact Us https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562011126176-RBRSXPP2WOCLS1KT2V3C/283.jpg Contact Us https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/69e6b860-dffc-4cb4-91b4-6f63375bc2af/237.jpg Contact Us https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/artists daily 0.75 2025-07-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Featured Artists 2025 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Featured Artists 2025 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752103661104-UL0HL1OEG8F9L39OHV8W/abstract_jazz_blkwht_cleverbee_inc.png Featured Artists 2025 - ABSTRACT JAZZ Social Media: @abstract_jazz Master of Ceremonies Bio:Born in Detroit, MI, and raised in the humble city of Inkster, one superstar stands out—AbStract JazZ. While it's often said that superstars are born every day, AbStract JazZ shines brighter than the rest. Passion propelled her to Chicago, but purpose brought her back to Detroit, where she refined her artistic skills and discovered inner peace. With the remarkable ability to visualize melodies, she expresses emotions both verbally and sonically through her nostalgic production. Her dynamic style, filled with poetic metaphors and clever wordplay, captivates anyone who takes a moment to watch and listen https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752200356285-LEH153DE4NXKXWQ93TVU/A+Positive+Seed+Christiana+Smith.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - A Positive Seed Social Media: @apositiveseed Bio:A Positive Seed is a 501c3 Nonprofit organization rooted in skateboarding and mental health awareness. Our mission is to “plant positive seeds” in the world while encouraging others to do the same. We do this through community, skateboard programming/ events, and media. We currently facilitate monthly women's skate sessions/lessons for all ages and abilities, and free youth "learn to skate" programs throughout the summer for underserved youth in Detroit. Title: Learn to Skate Description: A Positive Seed provides a safe space in the skateboarding community that is welcoming to all. We want to encourage people from all walks of life and of all abilities to skate or learn how to skate with us! This Learn to Skate program will be focused on youth between the ages of 6-17yo. 30 minutes of skate instruction time for groups of up to 15 participants at a time throughout the festival. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752200422735-D0VTXDD2NIL5SUHS1V16/BRIGHTMOOR+MAKER+BUS+LAB+1.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Brightmoor Makers Lab Social Media: instagram: @brightmoor_makerspace, facebook: Brightmoor Maker Space Bio: The Brightmoor Makerspace is a hands-on educational program in Detroit founded by Bart Eddy, a passionate educator devoted to community transformation and experiential learning. What began in 2011 as a youth employment and neighborhood cleanup effort evolved into a vibrant makerspace that teaches woodworking, gardening, screenprinting, and bike mechanics. Initially focused on reclaiming abandoned lots through landscaping, the program expanded when students expressed interest in woodworking. With no shop class at their school, Bart and the students set up their own workshop in an abandoned garage and started making signs, eventually leading to real commissions and the foundation of a sustainable, entrepreneurial model. The makerspace began at Detroit Community High School, a charter school Bart co-founded in 1997, based on Eddy’s vision of a holistic, practical, and artistic education. Now located in a dedicated building, Brightmoor Makers equip students not only with skills, but with a “Developmental Pathway of Work”—guiding them from apprentices to potential entrepreneurs. The program addresses more than job readiness. Bart emphasizes the healing power of hands-on creation, especially in a community like Brightmoor, which faces deep trauma. By centering craft and entrepreneurship as essential, not elective, the program aims for both personal and community transformation. Title: DJ Booth & Carpentry for Kids Description: The bus will be booming with beats by RAED along with a carpentry workshop. Kids are welcome to learn the tools of the woodshop and make a bench with Bart Eddy at the Brightmoor Makers Lab Bus. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1753709588470-VD01XB507YA0VOHGOHTF/cecile.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Cecille Master of Ceremonies Bio: Cecille (formerly Supercoolwicked) is a multidisciplinary artist born and based in Detroit, MI. From her home studio she conceptualizes, produces, and writes new musical works; live performances; film concepts & music videos; choreography; and lesson plans with the intentions of honoring her inner child, finding freedom, and preserving and honoring the traditions, historical narratives, and genealogies of African American peoples. Cecille has performed and featured works in institutions like the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrook Museum of Art, Allied Media, Sidewalk Detroit, and The Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit. Most recently, she collaborated with UMMA to produce and star in the woman musical, ‘Negro, Spiritual’ which shares a title with her upcoming album. Cecille is an eager collaborator, citing working partnerships with local greats Ian Finkelstein, SALAKASTAR, and Sasha Kashperko, more widely known talents like Esperanza Spalding and Tunde Olaniran, and visual artists Gisela McDaniel and Susannah Pilar. Also a thespian, she has performed work on commercials and in plays. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752103810080-5N7RI6G7ANBU82WJ5RKI/cherise_morris.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Cherise Morris Social Media:www.cherisemorris.com, instagram:@ cherisemorris_ Bio: Cherise Morris is an award-winning writer, interdisciplinary artist, ritualist and spiritual worker born and raised in rural Virginia, living in Detroit, Michigan. Her interdisciplinary performance work and writing has been supported by several regional and national organizations and has received funding from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, Poets & Writers, and The Knight Foundation. Merging experimental writing, poetry and prayer with performance, movement, sound and ritual practices, Morris’ work creates transformative spaces that invite communities to explore, imagine and continue the infinite work of individual healing and collective transformation. Her writing has previously appeared in The Iowa Review, Longreads, Black Warrior Review, Truthout and elsewhere. Her essays have twice been recognized as notable works of literary nonfiction in The Best American Essays Series 2018 and 2019 and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is a 2019 Kresge Fellow. She is the winner of the 2024 Global Black Women’s Nonfiction Manuscript Prize and her debut book, the cosmic matter of Black lives, is forthcoming. Title: The Cosmic Matter of Black Lives Ritual-Performance Description:“The cosmic matter of Black lives” is a series of experimental ritual-performances exploring the intersections of Black liberation and environmental restoration through movement, sound and ancestral ritual practices. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752103934779-I045CZX2E0WOLVKJ7R5M/Cyrah+Dardas.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Cyrah Dardas Social Media: https://cyrah.art/ @cyrah_power Bio: Cyrah Dardas is a Queer, eco-romantic artist and care worker of the Persian diaspora living in Detroit /Waawiyaatanong, Anishinaabe territory. Dardas uses her art practice as a tool in remembering the lost relationships between humans and non-human beings by regulating and healing our collective nervous system and body to restore interdependency. Cyrah’s work is informed by their experience as a parent, her work in childcare, and in growing food, as a member of artist cooperatives and through their work with natural fibers, earth pigments, and botanical inks. Their practice is deeply rooted in ritualized art making, using the process as well as the work itself as a tool for grief composition, and collective healing. Title: Conversations with the Wind Description: Conversations with the wind It is an immersive installation inspired by Maple seeds' ability to “fly” due to their sacred geometry, each kinetic copper sculpture will be suspended from a tree along Eliza Howell’s nature trails and spin utilizing the power of wind, generating sound. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752104038903-C7RV82VL8FM4B8G6Q2A0/David+McGuffie.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - David McGuffie Social Media: www.birdchowart.com, instagram: @_birdchow_ Bio: I am an interdisciplinary artist working to deepen community engagement with Place. Title: Eliza Howell: A Sensory Exploration of Place Description: Eliza Howell: A Sensory Exploration of Place, is a book arts project reminding and encouraging park visitors to foster a deeper connection to place through poetry, prompts, stories, and illustration. The finished work would be a run of zines/books for park visitors to take, with the goal of encouraging them to discover and deepen their own personal connection with the land. Content wise, the work would be a collaborative effort with poets, storytellers, thinkers, and other interested community members with a shared common goal of inspiring connection to Place. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752104127677-9787TS77MD5VOZG38E5X/Billy+Mark+.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Detroit Soundmap Collective Social Media: billymark.space Bio: Billy Mark is a mystic performance poet and multidimensional songwriter who wades through the love of Christ flowing everywhere in the universe. He is an experimental artist whose work is rooted in the art of poetic freestyle. Based in poetry, his work extends to areas of music, theater, sculpture, movement and installation. Na Bonsai is a Detroit-based interdisciplinary artist and musician with over a decade of experience in songwriting, live performance, graphic scoring, and sound art, combining independent releases and experimental projects. Zekkereya El-magharbel is an Educator and Artist. Afro-futurism and visual/aural design are the tools I use to help myself and others when I can.. Natalie gallagher is a mother and defiant. Dancing, on the edge of the archive, where embodied histories linger and resist erasure. Her projects involve cartographies and storytelling- through play and pedagogy. Title: Eliza Howell Soundmap Description: Through soundmapping, music, and shared memory, we will build a living archive in Eliza Howell Park that is guided by community voices, rooted in place, and designed as an open, evolving soundscape for future generations. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1753123240423-S0M9LMB7Z6NHBHJGJ1AI/images-1.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - DOW Sustainability Fellows DOW Sustainability Fellows Description: Our team will host an interactive table focused on community education, engagement, and documentation around flooding and stormwater in Brightmoor. We’ll share information about local stormwater management through posters/engagement boards, infographics, and a printed zine. Attendees are invited to contribute their own experiences and ideas on an engagement board and complete the survey (paper or QR code) we designed. We’ll also be highlighting resident stories we’ve collected and offering the chance for new participants to share their experiences or record a brief interview. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752104201703-CJE9X6C3ABX5Q9VYZLYF/Drizzy+Dria.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Drizzy Dria Social Media: instagram: @drizzy.dria Master of Ceremonies Bio: model/poet/spoken word artist/painter/rapper/skater that one, never that two️ $drizzydriaaa inquiries: thedrizzydria@gmail.com YOU MATTER Title: Forecast Description: Forecast will perform love poems, expressive poems, Detroit poems, and self-empowerment songs to uplift the audience. There will also be a moment to connect with the crowd with a few call back pieces and calls to action. Drizzy Dria and CARD4 will perform both together and individually, allowing their lights to shine and facilitating a feeling of togetherness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752104271902-EMN6N35VIM23O4ZRNLQ3/Ecology+Center+1.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Ecology Center Social Media:https://www.instagram.com/ecology_center/ Bio: Ecology Center’s Mission: Fighting for a just and healthy future for people and the planet. Workshop leader, Salam joined the Ecology Center in September 2023 as the Environmental Justice Organizer. She has a background in organizing in Detroit and other parts of Southeast Michigan with partner EJ organizations. Through Ecology Center’s Ann Arbor and Detroit offices, Salam will collaborate with community members and our partner Environmental Justice organizations. Together, they will empower people to protect their air from industrial pollution through an Air Quality monitoring network and advocacy. She holds a Masters in Social Work from Wayne State University with a concentration in Innovation in Community, Policy, and Leadership. Title: DIY Indoor Air Purifier Workshop Description: Learn how to build your own low-cost indoor air purifier using simple materials in this hands-on workshop. We'll explore how air pollution affects our health, especially in underserved communities, and walk step-by-step through creating an effective DIY filter you can take home. No experience needed—just a desire to breathe cleaner air and protect your loved ones. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752104348256-HPC66WX0VVTUADOL36OP/Eli+Lae.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - EFE BES, LAE KMT Social Media: instagram(s): @EFEBES/@rememberingsacredtradition/@DOMINOLAE Bio: Eli Lae – Project Bio for Elemental Oasis Eli Lae is a Detroit-born guide and storyteller, who holds space for people to come home to themselves gently, fully, and without judgment. Lae’s practice is rooted in the belief that the breath holds memory, that the body knows the way, and that healing happens in community. With a background in performance, education, and body-based care, Lae supports individuals and groups in softening, listening, and remembering what’s been buried under survival. In Elemental Oasis, Lae offers guided somatic breathing woven with body and interactive voice storytelling expanding grounded presence. Their work helps people feel safe in their bodies, connected to the land beneath them, and open to the ancestral wisdom that breath can unlock. Whether someone comes to the oasis in joy, in grief, or in curiosity, Eli meets them where they are with warmth, reverence, and the tools to begin again. A space where your breath matters, where your story belongs, and where healing begins with something as simple and sacred as an exhale. In the rhythm of the land, in the silence between the drums, Eli invites each person to pause, listen, and remember: you are already whole. Kemit (Kmt ), born and raised in Detroit, is a healer rooted within the laws of the Elements. Here to help all within her reach in their journey of remembering the sacred tradition our society once knew. Kemit is a storyteller of many disciplines; sound, movement, dance, art installations, interior design, she is very passionate about the unveiling of health/healing that our bodies are calling for via body talk and energy work. Currently Kemit has been studying to become a home birth midwife since 2019. Where she serves as a gatekeeper of the in-between ushering new life into our world. While supporting rebirth and transformations emotionally, physically and mentally with many individuals in need. She also created a sacred event space inside of a greenhouse, that the community holds as a beautiful hidden oasis that fulfils ceremonial rituals/events for everyone. Kemit's ultimate goal is to affirm and restore the true meaning of mind body and soul connection via the breath within her community. Title: Elemental Oasis Description: Elemental Oasis, rooted in rhythm, resistance, and storytelling, invites participants into a living ritual of breathwork, drumming, movement, and voice activation. This immersive healing process connects participants with Eliza Howell Park as a sanctuary of wild restoration. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752104881662-3RR7YZPMLJLYEC016XGR/Every+Soul+Arts+_+Andrew+Morton.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Every Soul Arts Social Media:www.sofastoriesdetroit.com, Facebook+Instagram: @sofastoriesdetroit, Bio: Every Soul Arts is a Detroit-based collective of artists, care providers, housing activists, and people with lived experience of homelessness who believe every person should have access to safe and affordable housing and opportunities to explore and celebrate their creativity. Our work blends community-based storytelling, live performance, and multimedia to center voices often left out of traditional narratives. We believe imagination is a powerful form of resistance, and storytelling is a radical act of care. Originally conceived by 2020 Kresge Artist Fellow Andrew Morton, ongoing projects of Every Soul Arts include Sofa Stories, a project using live theatre and digital media to amplify the stories of young people impacted by homelessness or housing insecurity who may have resorted to couch-surfing as a means to survive, and free creative engagement workshops for young people impacted by homelessness delivered in collaboration with organizations including Covenant House and the Ruth Ellis Center. Title: The Sanctuary Description: The Sanctuary invites the public to co-create a house-shaped installation using cardboard panels covered in short poems, reflections, and drawings on the theme of sanctuary, contributing to a shared vision of safety, care, and belonging. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105033136-OMTRVFXXM9VP1A2Y0A3R/Sarah+Jane+Mark+.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Fashion Revolution Detroit Design Collective Social Media: www.sarahjanemark.com Bio: Sarah Jane Mark is a fiber artist, clothing designer, and educator based in Detroit, Michigan. Raised in the mountains of Northern California, her work is deeply rooted in nature, eco-spiritual awareness, and a commitment to sustainability and ethical fashion. She began her career designing for apparel manufacturers in Los Angeles before moving into the fair trade sector, where she collaborated with artisan communities and deepened her dedication to fashion that honors both people and the planet. Since relocating to Detroit in 2012, Sarah has focused on fiber art, circular fashion education, and community-centered creative practice. She currently serves as Director of Fashion Revolution Detroit, leading Detroit Fashion United—a collective of artists, designers, and educators advancing an equitable, regenerative fashion industry through public events, workshops, and advocacy. Alongside her husband, Billy Mark, she co-founded Neighborhood Art School, a nonprofit that continues to support lifelong creative practices through community-led classes and events. Sarah also helps steward Selah House, an intentional artist community rooted in spiritual grounding, art-making, and communal living. She lives in Detroit with her husband and two sons. Title: Deck'd Out Runway Description: Deck’d Out Runway is a fashion show on wheels that merges Detroit’s cutting-edge design talent with the bold energy of skate culture to celebrate self-expression, performance, and sustainability. Presented by Fashion Revolution Detroit and A Positive Seed, this dynamic showcase features original looks by local designers—including Blight Hernandez, Emery Jones, Ari Harris, Andrew Wilson, Sarah Jane Mark, and Edwin Geronimo—who will compete for a $500 prize. Designers will be judged on Creativity, Sustainability, and Functionality as they push fashion boundaries with garments made for movement, highlighting environmental equity and reimagining fashion as a force for justice, creativity, and bold self-expression. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752200569701-NGAX7IGP0BF9JZYJ8ODZ/Flying+Cardboard+TheatreLindsay+McCaw.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Flying Cardboard Theater/Feedom Freedom Growers Social Media: www.flyingcardboardtheater.com , instagram: @feedomfreedomgrowers Bio: Flying Cardboard Theater is a Detroit based puppetry and community art organization that seeks to create entertaining and enlightening live performances featuring local artists and activists with a focus on local social justice and environmental issues. Feedom Freedom Growers is a Detroit based community group committed to growing community relationships through the cultivation of food, hearts & minds. Grow a garden, grow a community! Flying Cardboard Theater and Feedom Freedom Growers collaborated to create a street-theater piece called “What Makes Us Safe” which tells the story of increasing police surveillance in Detroit and what Black Detroiters and low-income Detroiters are doing about it. Title: "What Makes Us Safe" Cantastoria Description: "What Makes Us Safe" is a cantastoria (street-theater performance) about increasing police surveillance in Detroit. A “Cantastoria” is a traditional form of street theater where narrators tell a story while interacting with painted banners. The “What Makes Us Safe” cantastoria is narrated by Mama https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752200664862-SLV5RGMLLKPM6DNVX3BN/glastonbury+collective_wind_chime_sample_2.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Glastonbury Collective Bio: Sean VandenBrink (he/him) is a Detroit based artist and maker. His work explores the intersection of art, ecology, and community. He founded the Glastonbury collective, where he enjoys being surrounded by animals and friends, who have carved out spaces to create and grow, in a big, old stone home on the Northwest side of Detroit. Title: songs in our soil Description: Join the Glastonbury Collective in a workshop forming clay wind chimes. Making wind chimes from wild clay from the park. Participants are invited to write stories on the underside of the clay disks. Members from the Glastonbury Collective will provide the technical instruction on creating the wind chime form using harvested clay over plaster molds, individuals are encouraged to leave their unique imprint on the surface texture https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752200727447-6XIPGCNRBMLFL6TPDP9C/Ideeyah.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Ideeyah Bio: IDEEYAH SUPREME moves like a whispered ritual—part soul, part pulse, part prayer. A Detroit-born vocalist, songwriter, and performance artist, her sound blurs the lines between house, meditation, and experimental soul, offering something less like music and more like a frequency you feel in your bones. With over 15 years of creative work behind her, IDEEYAH’s stage presence disarms and transforms—inviting audiences into a space where vulnerability is power and sound becomes a kind of medicine. Her latest release, Sweet Chariot (Sound Signature, 2025), is a small collection of sonic devotions: meditations, revelations, and transmissions for those listening between the lines. Title: Sweet Chariot Description: Her latest release, Sweet Chariot (Sound Signature, 2025), is a small collection of sonic devotions: meditations, revelations, and transmissions for those listening between the lines. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105164795-1N70OHO2CQ2V7PV8P996/Imani+Ma%E2%80%99at+AnkhmenRa+Amen+Taylor.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Imani Ma’at Social Media: https://imanimaatisevolving-com.webnode.page/ Bio: Imani Ma’at AknhmenRa Amen Taylor is a cultural guardian, artist-educator, and 2024 Kresge Arts Fellow whose work breathes at the crossroads of ancestral wisdom, rhythm, and resistance. As a traditional West African drum and dance practitioner, Imani weaves movement, ritual, and storytelling into immersive, intergenerational experiences rooted in cultural preservation, communal healing, and spiritual awakening. Through the language of the drum and the power of embodied prayer, Imani’s work reconnects Black communities to land, lineage, and liberation. Her practice transforms public and natural spaces into sacred sites of remembrance, where rhythm becomes medicine and dance becomes resistance. At the heart of her work is a commitment to spatial equity, environmental reverence, and radical imagination. Title: Rituals of the Wild: A Drum, A Dance, A Prayer Description: Imagine us outside, holding candles in a circle. A drum begins to beat. Songs rise. We sway, then move together—one rhythm, one body, one prayer. Rituals of the Wild is an ancestral portal of drum, dance, and story—a healing gathering rooted in spirit, land, and collective joy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752686335624-682ILJM33OASBH8QCKHU/JessieFeliz.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Jessie Feliz Jessie Feliz is a vibrant educator, creative spirit, and joyful soul with over 20 years of experience igniting young minds through language, culture, and the arts. Her passion for teaching goes far beyond the classroom - Jessie shares everything that brings her joy with children and families: Spanish and sign language, dancing, cooking, art, singing, geography, and even gardening. Her journey has taken her across the globe, including three transformative years living and teaching in Costa Rica, where she deepened her commitment to culturally responsive learning. Now rooted in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood, Jes sie is the founder and lead educator of the Jessie Feliz Learning Center, a safe and welcoming hub designed to celebrate diverse learning styles, nurture curiosity, and cultivate confidence in every learner. Her mission is simple: to spread joy in learning and growing- one child, one family, and one meaningful moment at a time. Title: Pico de Gallo Fun Description: Learn how to make fresh pico de gallo, and we'll eat it with tortilla chips. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105209694-E2GD1F0F5Q0WVRB9FMR0/juan+martinez.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Juan Martinez Bio: Juan creates sculptures that live and work among us, drawing from his experience as a science illustrator and a fabricator working with large scale metal sculptures. His work has been exhibited at the DIA, MOCAD, Art Basel Miami, and in public and community spaces in Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, and beyond. Juan’s artistic practice is informed by his commitment to community with an emphasis on empowering and equipping Detroit youth for extraordinary futures. He is a co-founder of the Beehive Design Collective and the Austin Bike Zoo. Title: The Spirit of the Animals is in the Wheels Description: Take a ride around Eliza Howell Park with the animal bikes https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105277275-YTLFN07PEQT95WZAHOT7/Gabriela+Gibson.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Junepeace Rainbow Social Media: instagram: @junepeace_rainbow Bio: Gabi Gibson AKA Junepeace Rainbow is an inter-dimensional creative-being based in present-day Detroit. All art is made from a movement of liberation and divine love, and mostly from - or inspired by - trash, waste, and other discarded objects. Each piece is made in ritual union with Mother Nature - as an expression of presence and witness of emotion. Title: Botanical Cyanotype Creative Meditation Description: Cyanotype Printing and Walking Meditation https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752200784425-TQP0SW8RRG713M488F5H/King+Sophia+_+Sophia+Shelton.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - King Sophia Bio: King Sophia is a multi-disciplinary storyteller and world-builder. Classically trained with a degree from the Frost School of Music - University of Miami, King Sophia's cellistic and compositional skills are their main processors for the world around them. They’re also an electric guitarist, vocalist, conductor, educator, disc jockey and poet. As a creator with roots in many genres from blues to ambient to avant-garde, King Sophia offers versatile explorations of strategic resistance and radical joy. In addition to their solo projects, King takes alternating combinations of performer, arranger, and composer roles in various Detroit-based ensembles such as Autophysiopsychic Millenium, White Flowers, Sovereign Beat Unit, Ataraxia, and Banjo Ragtime Revival. They also arrange for and lead The King’s Trio in their ongoing lecture and performance series, Listening B(l)ack, which showcases historically under-discussed composers and compositions. Each new creation is grounded in their identities of Black Indigenous Queerness and a desire to preserve, showcase, and build upon non-hegemonic music history. Title: King Sophia and the Unbroken Circle Description: King Sophia and the Unbroken Circle is an immersive sonic experience that invites attendees to explore connections between self-love, radical joy, community action, and intersectional work overall. The project is a catalyst for analysis, meditation, dance, mental restoration and collective healing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105377082-X9CFKXSULJSLN57WIKUN/lisa+la+marre+photography_by_glenn_kujansuujpg.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - LaMarre and Dancers Bio: Lisa R. LaMarre Wilmot, M.A. Dance Teaching Artistry, Wayne State University (2018), B.A. Dance, Presidential Scholar, Western Michigan University (2005), enriches dialogs between the complex identities of artist, researcher, and teacher. Her expertise includes dance company artistic direction, integrated and special education dance art education curriculum, and dance for the community. Her work has been presented at conferences nationally and in Canada, and her research on “The Role of Teaching Artists in Postsecondary Education…” can be found in the Journal of Dance Education. LaMarre continues to test the boundaries of performance-based responsive artwork working to bring dance into the realm of everyday life. Artwork created with LaMarre and Dancers has focused on the utility of the human body in response to sites and sounds of the community. She has created over 100 original live art performances and dance films. In 2018, Lisa was selected as a panelist for the Kresge Arts in Detroit, LiveArts Kresge Artist Fellowships. Her work has been produced for Wayne State University, Grand Valley State University, Oakland University, ArtPrize7, Defibrillator Gallery, DDCdances, People Dancing, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit Contemporary, Detroit Institute of Arts, N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Detroit Music Hall, Sidewalk Detroit, ArtPeers, Multikulti, What You Will Festival, WNUR, Hatch Arts, Pubic Pool, Chicago Calling, Rapid Pulse, Access Arts, and numerous public and private spaces nationally. Lisa was a seed grant recipient for ArtPrize 7 premiering “They Were Displaced…And Again” curated by res345 at The Rumsey Street Project. Her community engagements also include work for Michigan Arts Access (formally VSA Michigan) where she shares dance making with special education classrooms. She is a member of both Michigan Dance Council and National Dance Education Organization. Title: Wild Description: A movement/dance live performance response to the pollination crisis on Earth. The dancers’ bodies reflect the spontaneity, transportation, and interactions wild pollinators, such as bees, birds, bats, flies, beetles, and butterflies, have on supporting a healthy ecosystem. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752263887830-5EAGCNVD9Q30W3N6ZBFL/Marcus+Elliot+January+29+2025+by+Doug+Coombe-55.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Marcus Elliot Bio: As a Joyce Award winner, DPC commissioned Detroit saxophonist and composer Marcus Elliot created Sounds from the Park, a suite of five site-specific compositional works celebrating Detroit’s parks and their neighborhoods. Sounds from The Park honors the stories of Detroit's parks and their communities by weaving together the memories and dreams of community leaders, elders, and youth. The pieces will be performed as the 2025 Freedom Arts Festival in the summer of 2025. Conceptual collaboration and community engagement for Sounds from the Park was managed by Sidewalk Detroit. Marcus Elliot’s curated performances pay tribute to Detroit’s parks and their stewards by showcasing themes that uniquely reflect each park’s heritage and neighborhood. Composed specifically for each location, the music celebrates the parks as vital spaces for rest, recreation, and community connection. Through these site-specific works, Elliot highlights the distinct character and spirit of each park while acknowledging their shared role in Detroit’s cultural landscape. Title: Sounds from the Park Description: The next performance in the series will take place at Eliza Howell Park. Known for its rich biodiversity and tranquil landscapes, Eliza Howell inspires a deep reverence for the natural world, making it a fitting backdrop for this musical celebration. The ensemble for this performance will feature a string quartet led by the acclaimed King Sophia, with Ian Finkelstein on piano and Caleb Robinson on drums. This collaboration promises to capture the park’s spirit—honoring not only its ecological treasures but also the strong sense of community fostered by those who gather to observe and care for this green space. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752686464496-6NJFYPPW7CFNWS97FT96/DSC04793+%281%29.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Maya Davis Davis's artistic practice explores the interconnected concepts of care, preservation, and resilience through diverse media and processes. They examine care as both an intimate act and a collective responsibility, drawing parallels between human experiences and natural systems. Central to their work is an investigation of transformation and endurance, particularly through materials that embody cyclical patterns of damage and repair. Through research-based approaches, Davis cultivates and transforms organic materials, creating works that embody histories of adaptation and survival. Their practice examines complex relationships between colonization, displacement, and belonging that shape both communities and ecosystems. By interweaving biological, historical, and personal narratives, Davis invites reflection on our collective responsibility to nurture shared environments and the human capacity for adaptation within a world marked by both trauma and healing. Davis has participated in residencies and fellowships with organizations such as Independent Curators International, Modern Ancient Brown, and Bulk Space. Their work has been featured in galleries including Good Weather (Chicago), White Columns (New York), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Davis has received support from organizations such as Culture Source (ARC Fellow), Red Bull Arts (Detroit Mini-grant Recipient), MdW Coalition (Artist Organizer Fellow), and Petty Propolis (Visionary Resistance Fellow). Title: Rain Chain Workshop Description: At this workshop, participants will make rain chains out of upcycled materials with Sidewalk Detroit’s eco-artist-in-residence, Maya Davis, and multidisciplinary artist Stevie Baka. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105467746-1S6ZKXFNWNCC9FW4RV3B/Ackeem_Salmonjpg.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Mirrored Glass Social Media: https://www.mirroredglass.org/ , instagram: @mirroredglassinc Bio: Ackeem Salmon is an art director, educator, and interdisciplinary artist from Kingston, Jamaica, now based in Detroit. His work spans photography, painting, music composition, harp performance, and site-specific installations, exploring themes of identity, postcolonial theory, and cultural history. A graduate of the College for Creative Studies, with additional studies at the Paris College of Art, Ackeem combines visual and musical storytelling to create immersive experiences. His harp compositions weave improvisation with structured narratives, reflecting on space, time, and emotion. His work has been featured at venues such as Sotheby’s New York, Galerie Joseph in Paris, Val de Vie Estate in South Africa, and the Charles H. Wright Museum in Detroit. He has also performed at spaces like the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall, Faena Forum in Miami, and Théâtre Douze in Paris. His contributions to the arts have earned him recognition including the 2024 Ashley Longshore Excellence in the Arts Award and the 2023 Gilda Snowden Award from the Kresge Foundation. Beyond his artistic practice, Ackeem is committed to expanding access to the arts and education. He serves as a National Teaching Artist for the University of South Florida’s R.E.A.C.H. initiative and is the founder of Mirrored Glass, Inc., a nonprofit that supports interdisciplinary artists and emerging professionals in using their creative work to foster community empowerment, cultural advocacy, and financial resilience through the arts. Title: Resonant Grounds: Picnic, Dance, Live Harp and DJ Description: Resonant Grounds invites the public to picnic, rest, and connect through live harp, DJ sets, dance, and soundscapes woven into Eliza Howell Park’s landscape, honoring Detroit’s rich sonic legacy from Techno to the traditions of Black harpists. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105522667-SRI89RL1RL9EN3MIBJ64/Matthew+Lemons.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Matt Lemons Social Media: facebook: Matt Lemons Bio: Matt Lemons is a veteran Detroit drummer who has performed at major venues across Detroit as well as with national Stars across America and overseas. Known for his technical skills and dynamic styling, Matt rocks the stage, keeps the beat and serves as the engine for the band whenever he performs. Title: Jam Session Description: Bring Your Instrument and jam with Matt Sessions and the house band. Anyone is welcome to join the stage and jam! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105571064-5XQH66IL0OXBVS4N0UAW/184451144_2024_motorcity_wellness_event_37.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Motor City Mobile Wellness Social Media:mcmw_detroit Bio:Motor City Mobile Wellness is an abolitionist healing co-op based in Waawiyaatanong who provide holistic care by meeting people where they are, increasing access to holistic wellness services, practices and resources. Our cooperative of healing practitioners operates outside of the medical industrial complex to address the spectrum of wellness needs of our communities. Title: “People Care Tent” Description: A “People Care Tent” is a physical and spiritual space for people to come to feel safe, practice heart-led conflict resolution, receive/trade healing and wellness services, locate trusted local resources and weave alternative care networks across Michigan. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752200870344-1JOVZUW9XOWW5Z5AG8CW/Olivia+Eshe.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Olivia Eshe Social Media: oliviaeholt.com Bio: Olivia Eshe (b. 1998) is a neurodivergent artist and designer native to the city of Detroit, Michigan. She is interested in self exploration, symbolism, connecting themes, “both/and” thinking and vulnerably sharing her work in hopes to relate with the collective community. Her artistry spans from traditional handcrafting techniques to technical 3D modeling and visualization. Through an interdisciplinary art practice, she spends time interpreting her inner world and externalizing intangible concepts into contemporary objects. Olivia received a BFA in Product Design with a minor in Craft & Material Studies at the College of Creative Studies. She currently holds a junior designer position at Urban Alterscape working with architects, engineers, and local business owners on commercial real estate projects that positively impact the city of Detroit. Olivia was most recently awarded 3rd in the FD23 Furniture Design Competition hosted by Better Block in Dallas, Texas. Her work has been exhibited at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History as a part of the D.Tree Studio: The Past, Present, and Future of Detroit Trees exhibition. Title: Body of Water: Water Feature Installation Description: “Body of Water” is a water feature installation inviting participants to tune into their senses. This ecosystem aid engages with wildlife on site and encourages participants to take a deeper look at their environment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752686340067-H9WHT2A0UN3ZTAH43EB3/OneSingleRose.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - One Single Rose®️ Rosemarie Wilson a.k.a. One Single Rose®️ is an award-winning author, poet and playwright, spoken word artist, singer/songwriter, actress and filmmaker. Rosemarie is the first poet to be filmed in Motown’s Studio A and the first Motown Mic Performance Artist of the Year. Debuting in Detroit as an actor, she has performed nationally and internationally in a few amazing productions such as singing the National Anthem at Detroit Pistons, Motor City Cruise and Michigan Avengerz games, performing on Motown Museum’s Tiny Porch, 116th NAACP Convention Act-So performance poetry masterclass facilitator and judge, TMZ Live commentary cast member, the Floacist’s Flovertex and Sidewalk Festivals of the Performing Arts in Detroit, MI, Kistrech Poetry Festival in Kisii and Nairobi, Kenya, Piton International Film Festival in St. Lucia, International Videopoetry Festival in Athens, Greece as well as a one-year tour in Europe. She is currently a featured artist and songwriter dubbed Queen Rose with Defected Records based in the UK. Find her streaming on all platforms as One Single Rose®️ or Queen Rose. As a poetry host, she has hosted various open mics as well as performed for local and international dignitaries. For more information on One Single Rose®️, visit www.onesinglerose.com to peek into her rose garden. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105652321-XAA79PEEWQGWCKABUEUI/Laura+Walker.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Other Work Social Media: other-work.com , instagram: @otherwork__ Bio: Laura Walker is an architect and artist based in Detroit, Michigan. She received the 2019 AIA Detroit Young Architect of the Year Award and was featured in Crain’s 2020 Notable Women in Design. She is a Lecturer at University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture. As a White, queer woman, she is interested in power struggle and alliance building in racialized territories and traditionally gendered spaces. Through inclusive collaboration, she designs participatory environments that radically affirm and celebrate marginalized human identities, expressions, and desires. Michael Styczynski is an architectural designer and city maker practicing in Detroit, Michigan. He is an adjunct faculty at Lawrence Technological University leading design studios focused on the spatial agency and role of the ‘Architect’ to construct social, cultural, and political change. He is interested in revealing the complex mechanisms of city making that construct cultural, political, and economic spatial inequalities. His work envisions design as a tool for critical spatial discourse. Tian Li is a designer and educator dedicated to community-centered architecture and fostering collaboration. She holds a graduate degree in architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design, where she seamlessly integrated her passion for art, architecture, and science. As an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, Tian combines her design expertise with a commitment to empowering students to push the boundaries of design. At Other Work, she leads community-driven initiatives, including the O’Hair and Farwell Park workshops, where she redefined engagement strategies to involve and uplift local residents. Tian believes architecture should be both accessible and transformative, and she is eager to continue exploring innovative, collaborative design solutions that create lasting impact. Title: WHISPER and shout Description: WHISPER and shout are a pilgrimage through curated prompts and structures that support collective and individual healing through sonic cleansing and discovery. Sounds of human voice, through individual and collective release, shape space and build relationships among the environment and each other. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105734964-UI6ULKOYH4706RAABTYL/Maro+Kariya.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Otodojo Social Media: marokariya.info , instagram: @otodojo Bio: Maro Kariya, PhD (Otodojo) is an audiovisual artist who wishes to use multimedia to connect and motivate people towards changing systems that threaten environments. They weave together sonic stories through field and object recordings, processed vocals, contact-miked materials, and layers of synthetic sounds inspired by the natural world and imagined bio-cybernetic futures. Their music has been released with labels such as Acid Camp, Mesma, Perimeter Junk, Qeone, Unimatrix Zero, and their album ‘Amphibious / Aural Spirits’ on The Bunker NY has been named one of the best albums of 2023 by MixMag. In 2018, they launched ‘Microtones’ (microtones.info), an electronic music collective in Ithaca, NY which aims to help community building through music. They have displayed immersive audiovisual works through Leipzig Kunstkraftwerk (2023), Tokyo Tower (2022), Imbue Detroit (2022), interactive exhibits for Waste to Wonder (2024), Cranbrook Art Museum (2022), Mix Gallery in Ithaca (2023), Artists for Plants (2021), The Soil Factory (2021), and a digital community built with Ryu Goto, Otodojo Nodes (2022). They graduated from Cornell University with a doctoral degree in chemistry & chemical biology and currently teach chemistry at WCCCD. Title: Park Echoes Description: Park Echoes: an immersive and interactive spatial sound experience where participants are invited to collaborate to reveal and contribute to a collective generative soundscape from Eliza Howell Park, evoking connections with other participants through sonic programs requiring collective action. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105783975-SJ6U8ONOFDOD8VUOP7Z5/RAED.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Raed Ransom Bio: Raed Ransom is a sound artist and curator whose work centers on preserving sonic histories and uplifting underrepresented voices. Raed cut their teeth on community radio where he explored every genre imaginable, and eventually landed on italodisco, new wave, house, and tek house while incorporating SWANA music elements in their style. Raed has played dancefloors at Heathers, Pyramid Club, Fringe Arts, The Dolphin, and Johnny Brenda’s. Description: DJ SET at the skatepark https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105826759-M5VQIMMBG9SPDMUVYB4L/StevieBakaSOB.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Stevie Baka Social Media: Nameingold Bio:Stevie is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist living on the eastside of Detroit. Much of their time is spent community building, resourcing, and redirecting items meant for the waste stream into materials for the art and maker community through their job, running the Arts & Scraps Community Store for almost a decade. Stevie’s own work uses salvaged materials to build interactive projects, favoring ancestral keepsake, ephemera, and pieces of history to tell a story. Using these materials Stevie creates playful and transportive pieces of work that portal you into their world through collage, miniature dioramas, tattooing, and community engaging installations. Title: Rain Chain Workshop Description: At this workshop, participants will make rain chains with artist Maya Davis, Stevie Baka, and Glastonbury Collective. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752200978980-JLI66RW4VOES3QAFZ92V/Queen+Carriage+Horse+Rides+Sabrina+Cesaire.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Queen Carriage House Rides Social Media: instagram: @queencarriagehorserides Bio: Queen Sabrina is a trailblazing horsewoman, social worker, and founder of Queen Carriage Horse Rides LLC and Simiya's Equine Services non-profit, based in Detroit, Michigan. As the only Black woman in Detroit breaking and training Percheron draft horses, she is a living legacy in the equine world. Of Haitian descent and fueled by a deep cultural pride, Queen Sabrina has dedicated over 23 years as a licensed social worker, intertwining her passion for horses with her commitment to healing communities. Despite living with severe scoliosis and facing systemic barriers, she continues to ride, train, and educate with unmatched purpose. Her equine programs have touched the lives of over 3,000 inner-city youth, using horsemanship as a tool for emotional growth, academic improvement, and resilience. Queen Sabrina is also a suicide survivor who credits horses with saving her life and helping her rediscover her purpose. She is an author of a children’s book titled, Life with King Solomon, inspired by her journey raising and training her colt, Solomon. Through her work, Queen Sabrina continues to break barriers, uplift voices, and inspire the next generation of riders and healers. Title: Healing Through Horsemanship Description: Renewal through Horsemanship invites participants to engage with horses in a workshop experience that nurtures emotional healing, builds trust, and develop personal growth. Techniques include hands on interactions, reflective activities and guided horsemanship activities. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105907367-5QEMK5F42DO3L4HO9TSX/Quinn+Faylor.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Quinn Faylor Social Media: https://www.deliciousgoldmakes.com/ Bio: Quinn Faylor (b. 1994, Petoskey, MI) is a queer non-binary multidisciplinary artist based in Detroit, Michigan. Working across painting, printmaking, installation, and sculpture, Faylor’s practice explores the porous boundaries between self and environment, uncovering the hidden networks of care that sustain us. Through vibrant color palettes, playful compositions, and a strong sense of movement, their work investigates relationships as creative endeavors — exploring themes of trust and transformation. Faylor experiences the natural current of their surroundings as a dance of shapes and dimensions. Colors become characters, distinguished by their motion and the boundaries they create with their environment. These elements engage in a conversation to create a sense of timeline, rhythm and space. Faylor’s compositions are imaginative acts of world-building: a practice rooted in curiosity, resistance, growth, and the physical sensation of color itself. Across many mediums, Faylor creates spaces that invite play, rest, and reflection, continually exploring how we inhabit and care for one another across boundaries. Originally from northern Michigan, Faylor earned a Bachelor of Arts and Ideas in the Humanities from the University of Michigan in 2016 before relocating to Detroit to establish their studio practice. They are a 2024 Emerging Artist Fellow with PLAYGROUND DETROIT and have exhibited their work widely, including their major solo exhibition Super Bloom at PLAYGROUND DETROIT. Their public and private murals can be found throughout Michigan, as well as in San Francisco and Tokyo. Faylor has also completed residencies with City Walls (Detroit, MI), the Glen Arbor Arts Center (Glen Arbor, MI), and the Salt Spring Arts Council (Salt Spring Island, BC). At its core, Faylor’s work reflects a belief in joy as an embodied, collective experience — a way of moving, building, and belonging together. Title: Amongst the Leaves Description: Amongst the Leaves is an immersive, floating installation of abstract forms suspended between trees. Made of lightweight cardboard and fishing line, it invites visitors to rest, reflect, and experience the rhythmic dance of light, color, and natural movement overhead. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752105955863-H6GCDDKNDLJZ2B2JEI7G/Shanzell+Page.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Shanzell Page Social Media:www.mindfulmovementwithshanzell.org , instagram/facebook:@mindfulmovementwithshanzell , @zelldoesitwell , https://shanzellqpage.tumblr.com Bio: Shanzell Page is a Flint-rooted, Detroit-based movement artist, choreographer, and educator whose work blends tap dance, Black vernacular movement, and ritual storytelling to celebrate rhythm as resistance while removing barriers that often prevent access to high-quality arts education. As the founder of Mindful Movement with Shanzell, she creates immersive, inclusive experiences that honor ancestral memory, collective joy, and the sacred bond between land, body, and sound. Her work centers Black women, youth, and marginalized voices, inviting healing, expression, and radical imagination through rhythm. She offers mentorship, performance opportunities, and collaborative projects that honor authenticity over perfection. Shanzell builds from lived experience, crafting spaces where artistry meets access and where performance becomes an act of testimony and trust. Her classes are adaptive, intergenerational, and always community-centered. Her practice is deeply grounded in witnessing, rebuilding, and creating space for the fullness of who we are. It is shaped by caregiving, cultural inheritance, and the belief that rhythm is both an art form and a practice of returning to ourselves. Title: Salt in the Soil: A Sonic Offering Inspired by Dorothy Ashby Description: Salt in the Soil is a site-responsive ritual featuring tap dancers and a live jazz ensemble inspired by Dorothy Ashby. Through rhythm, salt offerings, and live music, the work transforms Eliza Howell Park into a sacred space for cultural memory, ceremony, and liberation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752106018947-KEK8CD41TRW7LE7ENR0C/shua+group.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Shua Group Social Media: www.shuagroup.com , instagram: @shuagroup Bio: Shua Group is a performance group based in Detroit composed of Joshua Bisset, Laura Quattrocchi and Trishawna Woods. They create movement based performances and experience which seek to offer a state of radical presence. Their works are often interactive with audiences and places. Title: Grassy Presence Description: Grassy Presence invites participants into a direct sensory experience of their environment and each other through a guided tactile exploration with grass, leaves, bark, earth and each other. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752106062763-RIFUJOW2OQAO92ITGMD3/Stephanie+Onwenu+headshot.png Featured Artists 2025 - Stephanie Onwenu Social Media: https://www.ijeomalandartscapes.com , instagram, facebook, linkedin: @ijeomalandartscapes Bio: A visual artist, creative, educator, and landscape designer who integrates natural materials, 3D art, and modeling to convey expressive design concepts. As the founder of Ijeomalandartscapes LLC, she explores the intersections of art, design, history, and culture. The name "Ijeoma," derived from the Nigerian Igbo language, means "a wish of happiness or a safe journey in life,” reflecting her vision. Rooted in storytelling and design, her work emphasizes the connection between landscapes and art. She challenges norms, experiments with materials, and pushes the boundaries of traditional artistic approaches. Through her practice, Stephanie transforms spaces with intention and meaning, creating an artistic and cultural dialogue. Jessica Onwenu is a creative individual, photographer and videographer based in Detroit, MI. Title: up[ROOT]ed in PLAY_e Description: “up[ROOT]ed in PLAY_e” is an art installation exploring creativity in outdoor and public spaces. Participants will be invited to participate in responding to the question: What does having a park in your neighborhood mean to you? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752106148439-HJG31WIGT4CWB55RMVBG/Storm+Stokes+Portrait+by+Eden+Stokes+.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Stormwrks Social Media: instagram: @stormwrks Bio: As artistic director, choreographer, visual artist, and performer for project based dance- visual- and literary arts practice STORMWRKS, Storm Stokes combines eclectic movement, videodance, visual art, and installation to explore themes of spiritual liberation, sustainability, Afro- Futurism, and autoethnography. Storm received a B.A. in African American Studies & Dance at Princeton University, earning competitive departmental awards ‘The Toni Morrison Prize’ and ‘Alex Adams ‘07 Research Grant.’ She has trained and performed for artists Shamel Pitts, Jacob Jonas the Company, Rashaun Mitchell & Silas Riener, Yin Yue, Davalois Fearon, Samantha Spies, Chrysanthi Badeka, more. Storm performs with Turning Tables Dance under the direction of Camryn Stafford (NY); performs for Lauren Blair Smith Dance Company (MI); works with Shamel Pitts’ Afrofuturist and transdisciplinary collective TRIBE (NY); and writes for the Movement Research Performance Journal. She holds 5 years of improvisation and contemporary movement practice, 7 years of choreographic experience, and over 10 years of ballet, contemporary, modern, hip hop, and jazz technical and repertory experience. Title: There Can Be Angels Description: Transdisciplinary performance work ‘we are angels’ will combine soft sculpture, liberatory movement vocabulary, and interrogative, narrative soundscapes to invite audiences to embrace the spiritual restoration accessible to us when we reclaim our relationships to the natural world. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752690600298-D5914G1SJJL02KUYTMDZ/Stephanie+Kozak.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Huron-Clinton Metroparks Title: Ride the Rouge: A Stormwater Journey Through Our Urban Watershed Join us for an interactive demonstration exploring stormwater, water coming from heavy rain and snow. Using a watershed model, we’ll watch how stormwater moves across our urban landscape. Take a journey with a fish as it travels along the Rouge River. Along the way, we’ll experience the challenges it faces – from pollution to other human impacts – at each stage of the river. Discover how human actions affect our waterways downstream. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752201052764-RTRATX3Q84GCTXGD8V14/Re%28claim%29+Series+Chris+Woolfolk.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - The (Re)Claim Series Social Media: www.thereclaimseries.org/ , instagram+facebook: @thereclaimseries_ Bio: Ta’Rajee Omar , a Detroit native, is a dancer, educator, and choreographer. As a performer she has worked with choreographers Janis Brenner, Nathan Trice, Wanjiru Kamayu, Jennifer Archibald, Ronald K. Brown, and Francesca Harper, the visual artists Sameer Redy, Indigo Artists Collective, and Nick Cave, modeled for Rachel Comey’s New York Fashion Week collection and has been featured on Vogue.com. Since returning to Detroit, she has worked extensively with Aku Kadogo, Marlies Yearby, Cleveland Raw Artists Showcase. Together with Chris Woolfolk, she co-created the groundbreaking (RE)Claim Series, an innovative training platform that explores and imagines the future of Identity, Culture and Art as it relates to our daily lives. Chris Woolfolk Born and raised in Detroit, MI, Chris’ journey into the world of dance began at Wayne State University, where he switched from an engineering major to a dance education major and earned his Bachelor of Science in Dance Education. Woolfolk is a versatile artist, celebrated for his roles as a dancer, educator, and choreographer. His unwavering dedication to his craft led him to the prestigious Deeply Rooted Dance Theater in Chicago, where he honed his skills under the mentorship of dance luminaries Kevin Iega Jeff and Gary Abbott. Returning to his Detroit roots, Woolfolk discovered his artistic sanctuary at Body Rhythm Dance Theatre, forging a dynamic artistic connection with Shirley Bryant, a visionary choreographer, director, and teacher. Woolfolk has collaborated extensively with visionary artists such as Aku Kadogo, Marlies Yearby, Biba Bell, Nathan Trice and Ta’Rajee Omar. Woolfolk continues to explore opportunities to expand his artistic palette as he recently broke onto acting in a hit Afro futuristic Techno Choreopoem entitled Salt City created and written by Detroit poetry legend Jessica Care Moore and directed by Kadogo. Together with Ta’Rajee Omar, he co-founded the groundbreaking (Re)Claim Series, an innovative training platform delving into the multifaceted realms of identity, culture, and art and its importance and correlations to life. The Reclaim Series creates a space for community to dynamically inquire, explore and imagine the future of Identity, Culture and Art, as it relates to their daily lives. Our goal is to use dance/movement, text, restorative justice, investigation, and song to inspire a collaborative deep dive into how and what gives us an authentic sense of self, how we express those selves and how those selves can move into the future without exploiting others. Title: Wild Winds and the Stories They Tell Description: Wild Winds and the Stories They Tell is an interactive installation using wind chimes, movement, and community storytelling to create a sacred space for reflection. It invites connection with nature and explores the power of ancestral stories through sound, rhythm, and collective memory. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752106264770-RJC2S2FFSE8N7GFVU0WX/Ayman.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Thowra Dabke Social Media: @thowra.dabke Bio: Ayman Aboutaleb, a Detroit native, has been dedicated to the art of dabke—a traditional Arabic folkloric line dance—since the age of nine, when he first joined a youth dance team in elementary school. His professional teaching career began at the Arab American National Museum, where he instructs students across all levels, from beginner to advanced. In 2019, he founded the Thowra Dabke Troupe, composed of students who completed his comprehensive curriculum. Thowra is an all-inclusive, coeducational, community-based dance troupe that offers both classes and performances for a wide range of events. Ayman and his team perform locally and across the country at festivals, multicultural celebrations, fundraisers, and other events, showcasing his original choreographies that blend traditional dabke elements with modern influences. Through his work, he strives to deliver an authentic yet innovative dabke experience, aiming to make the dance form more accessible to diverse audiences. Beyond performance, Ayman leverages music and dance as platforms for cultural education, often incorporating talks and workshops to highlight contemporary and historical issues facing Arab communities. He has also contributed his expertise through panel discussions, lectures, and public speaking engagements focused on Arab culture, music, and dance. Title: Dabke As Unified Resistance Description: "Dabke as Unified Resistance" - Makes a statement and acknowledgement of Palestinian resistance in the form of dance and seeks to preserve the culture and educate the audience about the challenges that are faced. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752267474804-KDI60GUWLJV9NGD97VKJ/Trinitiwatson+headshot.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - iii Social Media: instagram: @__triniti , @midnightcarecollective Bio: iii as a Black femme writer, memory worker, and community culturalist. These self definitions have been shaped through my experiences as a Black American subject seeking to reclaim myself within and through the wreckage of colonialism. Such definitions also reflect my curiosity to better understand who I am and the many communities, both living and nonliving, that have made my existence possible . My art is shaped through the praxis of Black Quantum Futurism, an approach that seeks to define pathways towards alternative Black futures through the manipulation of Black space-times. Through mediums of sound, writing, and collage, my creative work serves as methods of self-definition, reclamation, and possibility within an anti-Black world; the production of my work serves as a map towards reshaping the Black creative subject through a return to intuitive guidance, and ancestral wisdom. Title: Rememory: Layers of the Self Description: Rememory: Layers of the Self is a spoken word and audio spatial performance that invites community members to reflect on their relationship to time, nature, and the stories that shape their sense of self. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752686265551-01AYWRLXXV0QOKMDHVVM/Screenshot+2025-07-16+at+10.31.48%E2%80%AFAM.png Featured Artists 2025 - Windjammers On almost any weekend at a small island park in the middle of the Detroit River, you may find the Windjammers Kite Team consisting of Gary, Nate, James, Mike, George, Jean, Jon, and Ronnie, practicing their craft. In 1983, these metro Detroiters, with members now in Indiana & Canada and their mutual interest in kites, established one of the oldest kite teams in the United States and possibly the world. On Belle Isle, they have become a regular attraction for island visitors, stopping traffic with their stunning display of aerial artistry that can only be described as phenomenal. Along with Belle Isle visitors, The Windjammers also have thrilled thousands of other sky-watchers. They have performed at many events worldwide, including the Selfridge Air Force Base and Detroit Air Shows, Singapore, France, and Canadian kite festivals, The Michigan Hot Air Balloon Challenge, Miami, Cleveland, and Milwaukee International Kite Festivals, to name a few. As a National Sport Kite Circuit team, they have won many awards. Choreographing their performances to music, they can design a version to fit your specific needs with a wide array of kites at their disposal. Besides performing, they can do kite-making workshops, large kite displays, and multimedia, and they can show the history of kites with plenty of kites from around the world. This last item is excellent for small groups. They specialize in flying trains of kites. Each pilot flies ten or more kites on long lines, often with streaming tails, presenting a sky filled with color as they dance across the field. Title: Make a kite, fly a kite! Description: Make your own kite and sail with the winds in Eliza Howell Park https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752264376265-J44P1IX86G17I13QJRSG/YMCA+2.png Featured Artists 2025 - YMCA YMCA Description: Sports and field games The YMCA's mission is to put Christian principles into practice by developing a healthy spirit, mind, and body for all. They aim to strengthen communities by fostering youth development, promoting healthy living, and encouraging social responsibility. The YMCA strives to provide inclusive and supportive environments where people of all ages and backgrounds can reach their full potential with dignity. Title: Field Sports for Youth https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1752106373376-B6HOHNCI852DXRP9R6Q6/Yvette+Rock.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Yvette Rock Social Media: www.yvetterock.com Bio: Yvette Rock is a painter, object-maker, photographer, and performer. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1997 and a Master of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Michigan in 1999. She is currently pursuing a K-12 Certificate in Visual Arts Education from College for Creative Studies. Yvette has been a teaching artist with InsideOut Literary Arts for 25 years and continues to partner with organizations to bring visual arts to children. In 2012 she founded Live Coal Gallery, LLC (now Rock Gallery of Art, LLC) – a small business in Detroit. LCG was a recipient of the 2017, 2019, and 2021 Knight Arts Challenge. Rock is the Founder and Executive Director of Live Coal, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization transforming lives and neighborhoods through art, community development, and education. She is a 2019 Facing Change: Documenting Detroit Fellow and a 2024 Seed and Bloom: Detroit Fellow. Rock lives in Detroit with her husband and five children. Title: What Comes from Dirt (Eliza Howell Park #1) Description: The Project is a live art-making and interactive experience where I will visually incorporate guests' answer to the question, "What Comes From Dirt?" https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688916368056-5CF0ZAFNHUQEOP274NAH/image0.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Queen Gabby Photo Credit: James Terry https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688912403947-HSA8S28X3YXPDAWKR1EF/shua+3.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Shua Group Shua Group - shuagroup.org - is performance based artist group founded by movement artist and choreographer Joshua Bisset and directed by Joshua and dancer and visual artist Laura Quattrocchi (@lauraquattrocchi). Currently the company is joined by dancer Trishawna Woods (@trishawna_w) a street dancer, improviser, and producer. Shua Group creates stage and site-specific performances, interactive installations and short film. Through movement, voice, and light Shua Group creates artworks which are at once formal and chaotic, accessible and difficult to describe. They reside in the present, offer our bodies and voices in direct raw states, get at details of who we are and offer audiences possibilities to transform themselves through action. Title: Something Together Social: @shuagroup for IG and FB Photo: Darrien Pope @darrienthepope Costume Design: Sarah Mark @sarahmarkdetroit https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689204274510-IFBQ4NEY7RHK2O5ARFUR/SISTAZ+2+.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Sophiyah E. & The S.O.L Tribe Detroit native, Sophiyah E. is a multi-sensory artist, sonic meditation practitioner + cultural conduit who uses sound and technology to encourage collective liberation and spiritual reverence. Through community organizing and production, her practice explores deepening connections for legacy building and overall wellness. She is the founder of Afro Moone, a Detroit-based holistic resource providing integrative wellness activations, advocacy design, production and accessible aides for community care. Sophiyah also impels a story-telling lens as artist relations and Director of programs for D.Cipher, a non-profit organization amplifying the Michigan music economy through artist development resources and event curation. Sophiyah's passion for integration honors ancestral influence and radical sound design to convey messages of empowerment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688916608936-4FM8W0I3972Z1OMRRD14/LCT+Promo+1.+Photo+by+C.+Weis.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Lis Chere Thomas and Linden Godlove "Sun Celebration" by Lis Chere Thomas and Linden Godlove Lis (she/they) Lis Chere Thomas is a performance artist, urban farmer, and environmental scientist, in no particular order. Lis' movement-focused practice incorporates elements of dance and circus arts around themes of climate change, urban ecosystems, and anthropogenic impacts to the natural world. Lis was a 2020 Gilda awardee and runs Bloomtown Detroit, a flower farm in East Poletown. IG: @art.hurts @bloomtown.detroit www.lischere.com www.bloomtowndetroit.com Linden (she/her): Linden Godlove's art strives to capture the ineffable: scattered notions, vague dreams, but also the endurance of beauty amidst the dark. Her art is a meditation on the symbiotic relationship of all life: humans, animals, plants and how they intertwine and have cohesion. Linden Godlove is a transplant to the Detroit area. She enjoys searching for the unexpected in the seemingly commonplace. instagram.com/lindenartworks facebook.com/lynzcreates lindenartworks.com Photo Credit: C. Weis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688912915224-RBME2LB3571ARSJKX6SM/RicanStruction23.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - RicanStruction Ozzie is a Latin drummer and leader of La Inspiracion (a full set Latin orchestra) and RicanStruction (Puerto Rican Bomba folkloric troupe). Although born in Puerto Rico, he has lived in Detroit most of his 60+ years, integrating the best of both worlds into his vocations. He is also an educator, consultant re: Latin Caribbean & Afro Latino culture and history. Ozzie has been playing percussion since the 1950's. He's performed with some of Detroit's greatest dancers and musicians over the years. RicanStruction is currently his main musical act. The group consists of 3-7 drummers, vocalists and 2-4 dancers. Our performances always get the crowd involved! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688913163150-6V8YBEV2IKBQLW713PZ3/120533691_10158977385061967_4684976163609890241_n.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Bryce Detroit Bryce Detroit is the multimodal Afrofuturist artist, activist, griot, designer, and pioneer of Entertainment Justice. As a national award-winning music producer and curator, Bryce Detroit utilizes his social practice to demonstrate the power of using music entertainment arts, sociocultural iconography, and native legacies to preserve, produce, and promote new Diasporic Afrikan narratives, cultural literacies, and cooperative neighborhood-based economies. Bryce Detroit is a 2023 Planetary Self artist-in-residence, a 2020 Harvard University Council of the Arts award recipient, 2019 New Museum Ideas Cities Fellow, a 2018 Race Forward - Rinku Sen Innovation Awardee, as well as a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge award winner. Bryce Detroit was also selected as music curator and lead performer for the 10th St Etienne International Design Biennale, representing Detroit as a UNESCO City of Design. Bryce Detroit curated and produced all live music programming for the event’s two-week opening, becoming the first music curator in the Biennale’s twenty-year history. A prominent activist and community advocate, Bryce Detroit grows intersectional self-determined communities as a founding member of Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition, founding organizer of Detroit Community Wealth Fund, consultant at Center for Community Based Enterprises (C2BE), board member for East Michigan Environmental Action Council, and founding member of the art-activism collective Frontline Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688913749187-IQ6T5YT5NGOLGY3JPP10/Kashira_Portriat.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Kashira Dowridge Kashira Dowridge is a Visual Artist based in Detroit, Her practice lies in researching social factors in psychology through textile, lens, film, audio, and painting that is represented throughout her works. As a survivor of sexual and traumatic experiences, Kashira’s work seeks to create a safe space for all individuals regardless of how they identify to elevate, process, and release spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical bonds that hinder a person’s path towards wholeness. Kashira’s visual pieces act as healing spaces that reflect social and emotional topics specific to the local communities they are displayed in. Her work encourages people to move within these spaces to encounter and define their own understanding of peace and vulnerability. Guided by her experiences, Kashira allows her heart to lead in creative ways to voice awareness in forms that are appropriate for the given topics in society or oneself. She does various forms of film and portraits of individuals, allowing her subjects to explore their vulnerability in a healing space. She is constantly inhabiting new disciplines to expand her ability to translate emotion into a broader visual language. This has led her to experiment with sounds, colors and visuals that demonstrate stillness with materials such as fabrics and elements from nature to form storytelling. Kashira’s perspective of wellness allows the human senses to embrace the depth of vulnerability in a sentimental way. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688914229839-VKKKOBI5ML1FQJ1ES5OD/Spirit_Plaza_Dorian.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Detroit Opera Detroit Opera is the premier multi-disciplined producer and presenter for opera, musical theatre, and dance in the Great Lakes Region. Based in the city of Detroit, the organization engages artists of national and international stature for stellar main stage and outreach performances, and provides compelling cultural enrichment programs for the diverse audiences and communities that it serves, making it one of Detroit’s pillars of arts and culture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688914621442-TYRSCIK3UFCTSNJOQTEN/solo.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Iman “Ayman“ Aboutaleb Iman “Ayman“ Aboutaleb has been performing a traditional Arabic folklore line dance called, dabke, since he was 10 years old on a youth dance team in elementary school. He started his teaching career at the Arab American National Museum where he teaches different levels from beginner to advanced. In 2019 he founded the Thowra Dabke Troupe with the students who completed the curriculum. Thowra is an all-inclusive coed community based dabke dance troupe that offers affordable classes and performances for all occasions. They use traditional and modern elements to give a fresh, exciting, and authentic dabke experience. Their goal is to make dabke more accessible to the community. Ayman and his team have travelled throughout Michigan and different states performing and teaching to share the culture and joy that dabke brings. Photo credit: Alex Flores https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688914795361-I5XPL0O2MWFY1L2KEMRR/Shin_Sidewalk_Headshot_1.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Amanda Shin Amanda Shin was born and raised in Detroit, and after years of living in Los Angeles, has returned to her hometown. With a background in architecture, she is interested in installations at the human scale, and how space informs moods. As an Asian American, her work shows her unique point of view of the blend of Asian and Midwestern American culture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688915311112-0Y4B71AK8DYWVRP2C2I6/DivineProvidence-54%2B%25281%2529.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - LuFuki and Divine Providence LuFuki and Divine Providence is a creative improvised music collective that combines elements of classical, rock, “jazz,” and world music. Each member brings their unique experiences and interpretations that bring about emotion and spontaneity for each performance. The intention of the group is to connect hearts and promote solidarity, freedom, and social action through their unique storytelling sonic sessions. Social Media Links: IG: @lufuki.divineprovidence FB: @lufukianddivineprovidence Website: www.lufuki.org Youtube: @Lufuki_Detroit https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688915615934-AOCYSTZ027IH3YNF3PWP/IMG_0317.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Flying Cardboard Theater Flying Cardboard Theater was formed in 2019 and is a collaboration between two puppeteer friends, Lindsay McCaw and Jason Hicks. As Flying Cardboard Theater, we write, build and perform puppet shows, produce the Detroit Cantastoria Festival (cantastoria: a form of street theater using painted banners), collaborate with many local artists and we use art and performance to support local social justice issues. We believe live puppet theater brings people together and keeps our imaginations alive. Website: www.flyingcardboardtheater.com IG: flyingcardboardtheater facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flyingcardboardtheater Photo by Lindsay McCaw (with cacti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688915975821-MMBZQZBXGPBWGWLGHI16/391+%282%29.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - One Single Rose Rosemarie Wilson a.k.a. One Single Rose is an award winning poet and playwright, spoken word artist, singer/songwriter, actress and filmmaker from Detroit who performs wherever her words are welcomed. Go to Onesinglerose.com to peek at her rose garden. Photo Credit: Trilogy Beats https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688916111833-HL7UTPP3T97QVC7870E1/IMG_7475.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Trishawna Woods Trishawna is a dancer and emerging choreographer from southwest Detroit. From an early age, she felt a divine connection to music and her body, which sparked a purpose in her as a movement artist. Trishawna is well versed in house dance, hip-hop, breaking, vogue, waacking, and contemporary dance styles. She explores this diversity of techniques through improvisation, letting her influences flow naturally, finding bridges between styles. Trishawna seeks to push the boundaries of dance culture through performances that respect and validate all forms. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688916827426-TNM8C3MMHFOZML4HTZY4/Photo+by+Dori+Sumter+2.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Emily Rogers (My Detroit Players) Emily Rogers is a multifaceted artist. Her diverse musical influences are apparent in her creative works as a Songwriter, musician, dancer and DJ. An adept band leader and dynamic bass player, she has traveled nationally and internationally performing original music. She is a cardinal force in building platforms that provide a fertile environment for many artists and ideas to foster and grow. Emily contributes to the vibrancy of the Detroit community by curating inclusive concerts, live recordings, jam sessions, micro festivals and multi-media events which bring a wide variety of people together to meet initially and experiment creatively while forging new projects, groups and friendships. Emily recognizes her responsibility as an artist seeking to inspire and empower with her gifts, intentionally cultivating space to construct a symbiotic platform that generates music with a mission, art with a purpose and shared value for all. Her work was recently awarded the 2020 Gilda Snowden Emerging Artist Award from the Kresge Arts Foundation. Emily Rogers has an eclectic catalog of original music, a plethora of performance chronicles, and tons of artistic adventures. Her universal outlook grounded in faith has bestowed her with the courage to boldly blaze new trails into uncharted artistic vision, lighting her path with the energy of a Rock Star! Photo Credit: Dori Sumter https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688917606342-V2UP62MC6TSGZ1WPF8ZT/001286410001.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - DAAY I was raised on the east side of Detroit. I began playing piano at age four and at the age of 17, I moved to England and pursued my bachelor’s degree in Popular Music at Falmouth University. While at school, I participated in a study abroad program at ArteZ in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, I studied Jazz Voice and pursued an internship at a local studio. At university, I began my practice in music production and sound art. In 2018, I moved back to Detroit, and I released my first EP October as a singer-songwriter/artist. In October of 2021, I put up my first sound art installation. In 2022, I won the Kresge Artist Fellowship for Music. I have two artistic practices which are related, and also parallel. My sound art practice is rooted in experimentation and my practice as a music producer/songwriter is rooted in expression. In my sound art practice, I like to use the negro spiritual as the raw material for experimentation, considering all American Popular music has derived from it. The music is wrought with a lot of history and pain and as someone who grew up in a Black Church, the negro spiritual was my first introduction to music. So, I like taking this heavy and dense sonic material and warping it. Through sound design, sampling, and sound synthesis I create this new piece of sound art that is rooted in form of music that is generations old but rendered in an abstract way – where the “blues” of the sound becomes peaceful, ethereal, and meditative. By using field recordings, samples, interviews, and composed scores, I aim to create soundscapes that sanctify our culture, voices, and experiences. As a music producer and songwriter, I simply want to create music and assist in the creation of music that moves people. Society doesn’t consider R&B, Rap, Hip-hop, techno, house, punk, blues, etc. high art especially when there are Black folks performing or creating it, but the amount of skill and talent it takes to create the music that has become the American popular music canon doesn’t elude me. As a music producer, I want to contribute and expand upon this in my own way. I’m a multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, and beat maker and these are all skills I employ when creating my own music and working with others. All my collaborators right now are other women in music, and I am proud of this. In an industry that is mostly male dominated, my goal is to nurture the work other women create and envision, so that our perspectives are shared honestly. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688915467637-58WEGIFX93X93BRDZLP9/TonjaTheDisruptorPhoto.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Tonja The Disruptor Tonja The Disruptor is a multidisciplinary community engaged artist who hails from the heart of Detroit. Spanning conceptual art, performance, writing and directing, her practice centers Black women and Black Detroit. Tonja’s honors include a New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship. Her features include CulturePop and the Afrofuturist Affair. Tonja is currently in residence with Inside Out Literary Arts. 2023 marks Tonja’s third activation at the Sidewalk Festival. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688917325811-KWBG737SSE7TIWPRDJCU/Sofa+Stories_2nd+shoot_6_web.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Sofa Stories Sofa Stories: OUTside uses live theatre & digital media to amplify the stories of young LGBTQ+ people impacted by housing insecurity or homelessness who may have resorted to couch-surfing as a means to survive. Featuring monologues created in collaboration with LGTBQ+ youth who have experienced homelessness, the project aims to bring attention to an often-invisible crisis and imagine a world without youth homelessness. Originally conceived by 2020 Kresge Artist Fellow Andrew Morton, Sofa Stories is an ongoing project of the recently formed Every Soul Arts, a Detroit-based collective of artists, care providers, housing activists, and people with lived experience of homelessness who believe every person should have access to safe and affordable housing and opportunities to explore and celebrate their own creativity. Instagram: @sofastoriesdetroit Facebook: www.facebook.com/sofastoriesdetroit Photo Credit: Shekinah Shazaam Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688917580942-LYUMQVWU9JD6BWGJLR37/IMG-0546.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - House of Jit House of Jit is a collective group of artists specializing in Detroit's footwork style known as Jit. The company was founded in 2019, by three dancers who share a passion for this unique style. Over the years, members have held Jit workshops nationally and internationally in France, Bolivia, Canada, Los Angeles, New York, and many more. They have also been featured on platforms such as Red Bull, Footlocker, Snipes, So You Think You Can Dance, the NBA, and Forbes Magazine. Our mission is to make Detroit Jit a style welcome to many homes and atmospheres and to spread the heart of the city with it. We welcome you to the House of Jit, where Jit Happens. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689205072113-31MSEZ5A7Q0Q8KFJEABW/FM_AliAllanColding-e1675793207888-200x200.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Allan Colding Allan Colding is a seasoned professional jazz musician with national and international experiences, living and practicing in Detroit. He has performed at most of Detroit’s major music venues and has played with world class musicians and singers such as James “Blood” Ulmer, John Dana, Ron English, Ken Cox, Marcus Belgrave, Leon Henderson, Charles Moore, Ed Pickens, Sam Sanders, Harold and Ray McKinney, Wendell Harrison, Dorothy Ashby, Gloria Lynn, Kim Weston, Fred Anderson, Noah Howard, Faruq Z. Bey, Hakim Jami, and more. Colding received his musical education from drummers Rudy Tucich, Sr., Doug Hammond, Roy Brooks, J.C. Herd, Jimmy Allen, Ron Johnson, Danny Spencer, and George Davidson, as well as through conversations with Elvin Jones and private lessons with Robert Pangborn Sr., percussionists with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Jack Luddingham at the Teal School of Music. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689206454162-UHH2JXNPZ56YAGXK0HC8/ED943DA4-15AB-4F27-945C-449F74C4C477_1_105_c.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Celia Benvenutti Celia Benvenutti is an Afro-Latina dance artist, native Detroiter, and Howard University alumna. She has been studying dance for the past 25 years under the tutelage of Madame Penny Godboldo, former professor of dance at Marygrove College and certified Dunham Technique dance instructor. Benvenutti’s background includes extensive training in the Dunham Technique, classical ballet, modern (Horton), jazz, traditional African, and Afro-Caribbean dances. She focuses on creating choreography centered in the Afro-Caribbean fused with Dunham Technique. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689207152122-QOHKZ31KOK55M6HLTH92/9DD48F3F-4DFB-4A4E-9157-2C7B81DAEF84.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Gabriela Gibson I am a visual artist who is inspired by the endless possibilities of nature. I work with found materials to reimagine the world around us. I teach workshops on “up-cycling,” create immersive instillations from trash art, design textiles with plant-based natural dye techniques, and Cyanotype solar photo prints from foraged plants and the sun. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689286333729-5LVHFCKY0IMA9G1PNRU8/342070172_950163949459196_5260070741596753551_n+%281%29.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - JRGotTheHiTS & Master Student Divine restraint and manifest destiny have become the definitive marks of JRGotTheHiTS’ career as an artist, producer, and composer. JRGotTheHiTS channels his upbringing in a family of musicians and ministers, (as well as ancestral wisdom), into layered experiences that blend seamlessly across genre or platform. Following in the tradition of his bloodline, he fuses music and spirituality into creative works that raises the consciousness of listeners and collaborators without sacrificing showmanship. Instead, he satisfies his taste for organic sounds that induce nostalgic warmth and timeless reverence by enlisting the help of fellow musicians that comprise the loose collective & publishing company AGiLE SOCiETY. JRGotTheHiTS process of capturing the sampled feel of golden-era hip-hop through recreating those sounds live in-studio is featured across the AGiLE SOCiETY album GOLDEN RATiO and is signature to his admittedly diverse production style. Driven by his intuitive understanding of rhythm and arithmetic as a drummer and percussionist, JRGotTheHiTS fuses his textbook agility with master level improvisation that rewards listeners for their attention. This is most evident on collaborations with artists like emerging icon Yuneer Gainz and hip-hop legend Royce Da 5’9 alike. Providing executive production for independent artists like KID VISHIS and Boog Brown, JRGotTheHiTS also continues to prepare his Summer 2023 album RETURN of the PEOPLE MOVER. The independent-jazz album explores nonverbal communication, spreading 13 instrumental vignettes across a listening experience that mimics riding the historic Detroit People Mover, a novelty mass-transit project that was meant to bring the motor city into the future of public transportation. Though it homages late 80’s Detroit culture, RotPM is inspired by events in JRGotTheHiTS’ personal life ranging from the growth of his family to his spiritual awakening as a Moslem. Each of these details drives JRGotTheHiTS to take seriously his commitment to uplifting others through music and vibration. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689286775925-VY939OICKZ3YRIBGVGBW/Glownival_Nightime_LizaLewis2021.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Liza Lewis & Carolyn Catlos Liza Lewis is a floral designer and botanical installation artist living and working in Detroit. She uses fresh and dried flora, lighting, and sculptural components in her work to explore the elements of the nature. Carolyn Catlos is a Detroit artist, educator, and natural builder. Her work uses natural materials to explore concepts of identity and relationships. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689705249640-5O367L7NWY2DYSPN179Y/001410510011.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Bakpak Durden Bakpak Durden, born and raised in Detroit, is a self-taught multi-hyphenate antidisciplinary artist, alchemist, and mystic. Pulling from various figurative art techniques and styles [i.e. hyperrealism, baroque, and surrealism] Bakpak employs a wide range of mediums—oil and acrylic paint, graphite, film photography, and the written word —to construct their hyper-surrealistic and conceptual works of art. Durden’s artworks illuminate the complexity and precarity of human emotion, Universal existence, Spiritual existence, and identity by conscientiously examining their own. Bakpak is focused on continuing their work within community; highlighting black trans, postgender, and queer resiliency; in addition to mental health, neurodiversity, and disability advocacy/accessibility as a native to Detroit, in its enduring and compelling art scene. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689705434808-WXBSP34C05P1X794F388/cranbrook+cyantupeIMG_6437.png Featured Artists 2025 - Cranbrook Art Museum Cranbrook Art Museum presents: The Finding Freedom: Cyanotype Workshops are a drop-in photography activity rooted in the artwork Finding Freedom by Sonya Clark (http://sonyaclark.com/). Participants will make their own cyanotype constellation to take home using a blue quilt square that is light reactive (via the sun) and seeds arranged to create white, star-like spots on the fabric. By creating our own constellation with seeds we are reminded of all that makes up the universe. We are each a seed and a representation of the ancestors of the past and the future. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689818423688-M6FQAJWA45RQCSDHI3EP/unnamed.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Layali Ali Layali is a Yemeni-American creative excavating with, beside, & beneath her life’s experiences and ever changing states of being. Through raw dance, music, & word she hopes to learn, divulge, and atone with the galaxies of vulnerability. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689973644306-KK9ONG7T7BYET3GYNN81/Ali+Gali+portrait.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Ali Gali Ali Gali is a queer, Middle Eastern artist, scholar, and cultural organizer, focusing their practice on abolitionist space-making and art processes as methodologies for organizing. Their writing, visual and performative practices merge histories of migration and displacement with futures of queer becoming, care and earthen languages to articulate the nuances in which we become free. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689973853771-CAKQJJTWWRU9OX44A0KY/Adrienne%2BHeadshot.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Adrienne Ayers Adrienne Ayers is a African, non binary & queer, Reiki Teacher, wellness practitioner, and student of revolution. Their offerings merge socialist revolution and wellness, informed by African ancestral practices and guidance, political education, and ideological process. They are the Founder & Lead Practitioner of Heal in the Waters Wellness and Founder and Director of Afrofuture Youth in Detroit, which both create experiences as portals to touch the futures of African liberation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689973793553-9CGYV8KT6NRHRPSMGT0O/12-41_headshot.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - 12:41 12:41 is a poet, healer, and a facilitator. Their practice centers Black, trans existence as a guiding light for space-making, for cultivating "home" spaces for community members to come in, sprawl, and dream. As a facilitator, they cultivate relationships of facing ourselves, sitting with conflict, and building sustainable connections that can keep our movements alive. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1690208077226-IILRHN5DD1AEZ6A0YEGH/image0+%282%29.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Drizzy Dria Drizzy Dria is a mental health advocate, model, skater, host, poet, spoken word artist and a rapper that performs all around the city of Detroit. She provides enlightenment and a sense of community to people of all backgrounds through her intersectional identity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1691076109802-DQ171UOAK4L0RXPLTMOO/bernal_headshot.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Peter Daniel Bernal Peter Daniel Bernal originates from Houston, Texas and graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2000 with a BFA in painting. He received additional education at the Rhode Island School of Design and trained in printmaking and drawing in Weimar, Germany, where he lived from 2010 to 2015. In 2015, he relocated from Germany to Detroit. Peter is a 2021 Kresge Artist Fellow. His primary focus is on storytelling-based oil painting but he also creates polychromed ceramic, linoleum prints, and pastels. In the past few years, he has completed several murals around Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Featured Artists 2025 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626135739821-3E7HZ18SHCYVTBCGJ7M1/Lorena+Cruz+Santiago_2021.JPG Featured Artists 2025 - Lorena Cruz Lorena Cruz Santiago is a Mexican-American artist from Northern California currently based in Detroit, Michigan. She received her BFA in Photography from Sonoma State University in 2016 and her MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2019. Cruz Santiago has attended residencies like ACRE (Steuben, WI), Tesselate (Pontiac, MI), and most recently Pocoapoco Residency in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, MX. Her work has been included in shows at El Comalito Collective (Vallejo, CA), Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (Grand Rapids, MI), Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), and in ArtMile Detroit 2020. Through an interdisciplinary practice that includes photography, video, and printmaking her work illustrates post-colonial themes of migration and assimilation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136088584-COEZG6KBR2ZNDLO3WRPL/MarsaeMitchell.JPG Featured Artists 2025 - Marsae Mitchell I am a creator, performer and educator devoted to fortifying my pedagogical skills and producing art that not just entertains, but engages, educates and empowers audiences and artists. Creating and Performing gives me the ability to transcend my humanity; to move my body in interesting and athletic ways to communicate complex concepts and ideas without traditional language and to escape into movement and music and reemerge as I please. The most skilled creators and performers can teleport entire audiences into the movement, music and concepts. Artists have supernatural abilities; we are proverbial X-men. Prior to enrolling in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Michigan I was a certified dance teacher at Mumford High School in Detroit. Recently, I was commissioned by Kresge Arts Detroit and The Side Walk Festival to write and choreograph a dance film titled Reflect. Black. Times which premiered in August 2020. I first began working with Kresge in 2016 when I received the Gilda Snowden Award for my work in My Hair, My Story, My Glory a musical about the history and culture of black hair. I am also a Center for World Performance Studies Fellow. My current research explores the impacts of water on the mind, body and spirit of African Diasporic performance. The study of dance and the performing arts have been a lifelong pursuit to hone my "supernatural abilities” and improve technique and artistry. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136085181-XSXKZC0XZVVGYPC487T6/HouseofJitt_credit_AmbroseJas.JPG.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - House of Jit House of Jit is a collective group of artists specializing in Detroit's footwork style known as Jit. The company was created this year of 2019 and founded by three dancers who share a common passion for Jit. Our mission as a company is to plant Detroit Jit into the mainstream world. Two of the members have been jitting for a very long time and showcased Jit all around the state. Michael Manson and James Broxton showcased Jit to the sports world as NBA dancers where they danced alongside with artists such as Flo’Rida, Bell Biv Devoe, Bobby Brown, Mc Hammer, Jay Sean, Morris Day, T-Pain, Salt N’ Pepa, 112, Sheila E, Debbie Gibson, and Robyn S. Michael Manson, our leader, was featured on a television show called So You Think You Can Dance performing the Detroit Jit. He was also able to take Jit around the world such as Paris and Bolivia. Michael Mandon was recently nominated as a 2020 Kresge Fellowship grant winner for his visual arts of the Detroit Jit. Recently, Lilanie Karunanayake (Lily) has become a member of the team and she has been jitting for over two years now. The three artists want to make a difference in the dance community, as well as continue to spread the Detroit Jit culture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136083654-10BXU2I5PAXAGP7ZCE1Y/AjaraAlgahli.png Featured Artists 2025 - Ajara Algahli Detroit native, Ajara Alghali is a performance artist and thought leader at the intersection of dance and representation. A self-proclaimed global citizen, Ajara, has spent much of her adult life traveling the globe, witnessing life across many cultures. Holding a Bachelors of Public Affairs and a Master of Urban Planning from Wayne State University, Ajara is a cultural worker, urban planner, and anthropologist all in one. Her work is a fusion of life experiences from her Sierra Leonean-American roots and focuses on the connection between African people throughout the diaspora. Her cultural identities and perspectives define her guiding philosophy: ”There is inherent value in traditional practices and the informal ways people build community and share their history.” Studio M Detroit is a boutique event design and production studio, that creates bold and courageous event experiences for 2 to 20,000. We are masters of event logistics, design, and execution, with over 15 years in the events industry. We use art and design to lift up the city of Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136085100-N73CO0TD3SYXY6NCLHOH/Chloe+Whiting+Stevenson+Promo+Photo.JPG Featured Artists 2025 - Chloe Whiting Chloe Whiting Stevenson is a physical theatre performance artist, director, and instructor based out of MI and OH. She specializes in butoh dance, circus arts, stage combat, and mask work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626903906273-PMGDGY2OPM8ZWKVQ5FT2/Kaleigh_Everett.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Wilder/Reid Duo Kaleigh Wilder formed this burgeoning new baritone saxophone and drum duo with Everett Reid. They each embody distinct musical upbringings: Everett’s foundation on the drums is embedded within the jazz tradition, but he also has roots in electronic music; Kaleigh’s musical roots are mostly classical, but she diverged to embrace free improvisation. While their musical upbringings are different, they share common threads that make for a rich collaboration. The diversity in their backgrounds creates a spontaneous, melodic, raw, rhythmic, and spacious sound, which they continuously discover and rediscover. Their process involves deeply engaged listening, musical trust, discussion, and ample free play in order to synthesize this wholly new sound. The two musicians together reach depths of extreme vulnerability as their musical expressions are laid bare. Kaleigh composes works for the duo that are set against completely free improvised pieces. Her compositional style is still evolving, but this duo has allowed her to experiment with through-composed pieces, compositions that deal with orchestration rather than notation, and pieces that take on jazz compositional forms yet have the element of completely free improvised solo sections. Kaleigh is continuing to compose for the group so they can perform in Detroit and, eventually, beyond. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626218572586-1OT838VV6FZ2TXTCCP31/Hinterlands+Open+Singing+photo+credit+Livia+Chesley.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - The Hinterlands The Hinterlands is a Detroit-based company creating performances and public events equal parts playful and surreal. Through an ongoing physical and vocal practice that undergirds our collaborative process and catapults across disciplines and contexts, our work pushes into the unknown parts of personal and collective history with fearless physicality and a sense of humor. The Hinterlands was founded in 2009 by Richard Newman and Liza Bielby. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136330725-ONJQICUDLWVGYXMQL2B7/YvetteRock_MR.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Yvette Rock Through social engagement and personal reflections, I explore the underlying notions that shape my audience’s expectations of society and urge them to consider my art as part of a broader commentary on society. I address issues such as injustice, loss, poverty, motherhood, race, and other topics revolving around the human experience, choosing the most appropriate media for the subject or message. Since 1999, I have mainly been exploring these issues in the context of living in the city of Detroit. Bodies of work I have made include: Money Head, Motherhood, 400, Community Conversations, reDetroit, and Ten Plagues of Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626218722144-1K5TAHJDEWUUZT7LWLAT/StudioDetroit.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Studio Detroit Studio Detroit Dance Center is a multipurpose dance studio that offers a myriad of dance services to the Detroit community and its surrounding metro areas. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136077312-TU4Z9DU8RHZ1B793MZ22/One+Single+Rose+_Rosemarie+Wilson_+.JPG Featured Artists 2025 - Rosemarie Wilson "One Single Rose" Rosemarie Wilson a.k.a. One Single Rose is an award-winning poet and playwright, spoken word artist, singer, actress, filmmaker, author of three self-published poetry collections, nice and naughty chapbooks. Rosemarie is a Davenport University graduate, National Poetry Award (NPA) 2010 New & Upcoming Poet and Poetry Author of the Year award, her CD Poetic Truth was voted 2015 Spoken Word/Poetry Album of the Year and she was named Best Female Poet in the 2019 National Spoken Word Awards. She is a first place and three-time honorable mention recipient of the Detroit Writers’ Guild Paul Laurence Dunbar Poetry Contest, Detroit Metro Times’ reader’s choice 2014/2015 Best Local Poet and Hour Detroit Magazine’s 2019 Up-And-Coming Performer. Upon entering a slam competition for the first time at the Motown Museum in Detroit, Rosemarie was named Motown Mic 2014 Performance Artist of the Year. In 2021 she became the first poet to record in Motown’s infamous Studio A. Her notable performances include the Floacist’s Flovertex and Sidewalk Festivals of the Performing Arts in Detroit, MI, Kistrech Poetry Festival in Kisii and Nairobi, Kenya, Piton International Film Festival in St. Lucia as well as touring Europe in 2012. She is currently a featured artist and songwriter with Defected Records and her poetry has found homes with various publishers such as Broadside-Lotus Press, two of the oldest African-American presses in the United States. 2014 marked the official launch of her non-profit motivational workshop series One Single Roses Bloom, workshops centered on inspiring bright youngSTARS and seasoned adults to fearlessly follow their passions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626218862464-7W3G1GW17RO2I8ZHUEZT/TraeIsaac.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Trae IsAAc I Am Trae IsAAc; driven by a genuine passion for manifesting awe-inspiring and psychologically empowering pieces of art. Based on my life as person who has had to find power through loss and peace through discomfort. Primarily raised by my grandparents, losing my youngest brother and mother to cancer in my mid-teens were and still is the primary fuel to the fire that I use to push myself to create and provide for my family through art. What inspires my psyche is a need to do and be greater for myself and those around me who I in-turn inspire and motivate. My artistic inspiration derives https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136557353-IIJVO99YY8JZYVXCQOSC/KiaixRegalia.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Kia I'x Arts Kia i'x Arriaga is an Aztec Dancer and multidisciplinary artist from Mexico. She works as a visual artist and cultural educator and she's known for her multimedia installations, which include ceramics, drawing, traditional sand painting, and metalsmithing. For the past 20 years, Arriaga has installed Día de Muertos ofrendas in prestigious venues, including the Detroit Institute of Arts and the MOCAD. Arriaga is currently merging her skills as an installation artist and Aztec dancer, to develop educational programs that explore Aztec culture through performance, music, art-making, and storytelling. An essay on her work was featured in the book “Essay’d 2: 30 Detroit Artists” (2017, Wayne State University Press) and in 2020, she was awarded with a Kresge Fellowship in Live Arts, for interdisciplinary arts. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626904151162-4OAJUZ8KK5FEJ8C6KGAA/4d604a5b564fa7bd38f51dc3312758c874f8e981-350x420-1.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - RAFT Our objective is to attract and retain local, regional & non-regional Creatives, and their entrepreneurial capacities, to the metropolitan Detroit area. Founded in 2015, R A F T is a nonprofit organization and is a collective of creatives whose aim is to curate and incubate other creatives in the Detroit area and worldwide. We offer an apprentice/mentoring programming for youth, creative consultation for cities and municipalities, event planning and curatorial services.. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136560912-EB0OU7REW6FAE18K48FU/JoshKochisselfie_2021_green.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Josh Kochis Joshua Kochis grew up in the suburban forests of Southeast Michigan. He has always had busy hands. He can often be found wandering in the woods, climbing trees and digging things up from the ground. His practice is focused on creating images, objects, and installations in collaboration with the natural world. He received his BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design in 2015, and is currently based in Detroit, MI. JAK VISTA puts trees back together. Makes forest where there was concrete, where there was forest before that. Brings nature inside. Moves dirt around, stacks wood and collects rocks. Digs holes to plant landmarks where they will stay awhile. Builds vistas out of small horizons. Really looks around hard. Wants to leave something good out there. Considers our role as natural beings in a mediated landscape and tries to split the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136558399-45SPIYKWS7A9RLIOTJSQ/Deon+Jamar+%28bio+pic%29.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Deon Jamar DJ & Record Player https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1627051940196-FEK67WOMUXQ6FYLTPQ9Q/Mandisa+at+AKOMA+2021.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Mandisa Smith Fiber artist and social entrepreneur, Mandisa Smith enjoys making art accessible to all people. She is an art-based workshop leader and founder of AKOMA, a cooperative gallery space for black women artists and makers. As founder and co-owner of Detroit Fiber Works, Mandisa provided opportunities for Detroit artists to show and sell their work, some for the very first time. Her work has been exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Art, the Scarab Club, Collected Detroit Gallery, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (in Grand Rapids), and other galleries locally and nationally. With a focus on felting, Mandisa's hands are her tools, pulling and rolling wool fibers until they become masterpieces that are decorative, functional and wearable https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626219265995-N6Z4EVCAH2SRP0EXPB9O/Karilu+Forshee+photo+credit+Gabriela+Gabinski.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Karilú Alarcón Forshee My name is Karilu Alarcon Forshee. I am an interdisciplinary artist who finds joy creating performances that blend experimental theatre and music. My work is influenced by the entireLatin American Diaspora, especially Mexican Ranchera music, Cuban Trova and Nueva Canción, a folk inspired musical genre with socially committed lyrics. I find profound inspiration in my roots, and the women in my family. I create from there, and hope for trees to grow. My work creates environments that inspire and nurture human connection. Through performances that are culturally rich, poignant and true to my identity, I expose audiences to realities that call for relatedness and empathy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1627571791667-VI3MFOEJAPG7TOKU3A52/PaulaSchubatis-Studio_5942_2400px.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Paula Schubatis Paula Schubatis is a Detroit-based artist, textile designer, and Art Teacher at Emerson Elementary-Middle School with a curiosity for the ritualistic and performative aspects of making and using objects. She defines her multifaceted practice as “a series of failed attempts at regulating excessive existential thoughts around material, object and experience”. Schubatis challenges herself to employ unconventional, overlooked, and often wasted materials to create singular objects which have the capacity to fulfil multiple functions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626219344116-QJHA4V0CJDWHTNEUZ3RZ/MotorCityStreetDanceAcademy.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Motorcity Street Dance Academy Tapping into the creative economy blossoming in Detroit, Fresh Classics exists to provide a dancing experience unlike any other in the city. Hailing from different cities and crews, Fresh Classics consists of Mav-One(Team Gurren), Just, Seoul(61syx Teknique/Crooks Crew), Roy Da 5’5(Vertical Ambition), and Shane-T. Knowing what it takes to succeed as performing artists they would need to work with the best of the best, which is why every member is a teacher, mentor, or director who has spent years traveling in the competitive street dance scene. The group formed in 2016 rallied around raising the bar for street dance in Detroit & challenging themselves to bring a fresh style of movement to the forefront while carrying on the classic traditions they spent years training in. Fresh Classics bridges multiple styles with dynamic movements over a wide array of genres of music. Supporting many local artists and performing for some of the biggest names to come into Detroit, Fresh Classics always delivers! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626219409618-Y3JMTGCQL2HOIWYYUGGR/BalletFolklorico.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Ballet de Folklorico A Detroit based community group of passionate dancers who dedicate their time, passion and talent to showcase traditional dances in an effort to preserve Mexican culture and traditions through dance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136830324-AS3LL62D52YGWN8UGTJR/StephanieHowells.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Stephanie Howells Stephanie Mae RichWell is a visual artist and educator with a focus on the healing arts. When not teaching in the classroom, she enjoys facilitating community arts activities including Pendulum Painting and Hula-Hoop Making workshops https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136828097-GNBWEPARXBAITA6T9XUK/TalkingDolls_Andrea.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Talking Dolls + One Custom City Talking Dolls is an artist studio and gallery, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The mission of Talking Dolls is to empower our Northeast Detroit neighborhood through justice-focused initiatives. We create a nexus of progressive art and community-led activism through access to our shop and exhibition facilities, the use of our infrastructure for performance and celebration, as well as experimental art workshops. Andrea Cardinal is representing Talking Dolls in this collaboration. One Custom City was founded in 2008, One Custom City offers screen-printed products that merge craft, creativity, and a deep connection to community. We all want to show the world who we are and what we care about. Everyone has passions and One Custom City wants to empower you to express yours. Andrea Cardinal is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Bowling Green State University, Principle of Tooth & Rag Design, and Co-Director of Talking Dolls Studio in Detroit. Talking Dolls is We are also home to a Banner and Poster Lending Library, from which the public can borrow oversize banners and hand-held placards for actions, to then be returned and re-used. Cardinal has run numerous workshops to add to the archive in support of some of the following organizations: Black Youth Project 100, The School for Poetic Computation with the Detroit Community Technology Project, Detroit Democratic Socialists of America, and the Summer Scholars program at the University of Notre Dame. In addition to this work, Cardinal is also the sole proprietor of Tooth & Rag, LLC, a freelance design company with over 15 years experience designing and concepting for clients at a variety of scales. Clients include The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Museum of the American Indian in New York, The Seidman College of Business, and Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. She has designed and developed all aspects of print, packaging, web, publication, exhibition, and user-experience design. Ron Watters is a product designer, artist, educator, and Detroiter. He is the owner and founder of One Custom City and SCIDE Design (Systems Combining Industrial Design and Engineering). Ron holds a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design from the University of Michigan. He has taught socially-minded entrepreneurship and graphic design as an instructor with Detroit Future Media, an initiative of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition and Allied Media Projects. He is also a member of the Move the Crowd True+Paid+Good Academy, a rigorous training founded by Rha Goddess to create a conscious entrepreneurial movement. Ron was a 2014 artist-in-residence at Detroit Community Schools as part of Detroit Connections, an initiative of the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design and has served on the Advisory Board for the Detroit Design Festival https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136827161-NCVYYMPUC6RML7T8QE2N/Ian+Fink+Photo+credit+Cy+Abdelnour.JPG Featured Artists 2025 - Ian Fink I am a pianist, composer, producer and educator, based in the Detroit area. My practice is rooted in jazz piano, and I have performed as a soloist and as a sideman since the age of 14 when I began to perform with, and be mentored by, members of the Detroit jazz scene. My longtime mentors include Marcus Belgrave, Geri Allen and Tad Weed. I have performed with such artists as Marcus Belgrave, Benny Golson, Terri Lyne Carrington, Esperanza Spalding, Karriem Riggins, Robert Hurst, Shigeto and Savion Glover, and have been featured on recordings by Shigeto, Scott Groove, Omar-S, Black Milk, Waajeed, Robert Hurst, and many others. I perform solo and collaborate with other musicians regularly in and around the Detroit area, and tour nationally as well as internationally. (All of which have lessened dramatically since the pandemic.) I compose, produce and self-release music on my own label Freak Press. My productions are informed by the wide range of music that I consume as well as being heavily influenced by Detroit techno and house music. My craft is based in the traditions of Detroit jazz piano, and is focused on continuing the lineage of jazz music in Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136827217-SIG7C1AYOFMDJKYNDO3Z/LevonKafafian.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Levon Kafafian Levon Kafafian tells stories of hybridity, healing and transition, weaving the worlds they envision into tangible objects and ephemeral experiences. Their practice is fluid and playful, employing textile processes and ancestral traditions to build characters, worlds and scenarios that live beyond modern day borders, gender norms and time. Levon has been a 5 year returning artist at Sidewalk, bringing experimental installations and performances to the festival in hybrid forms, exploring the magical, mystical and textile. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1627052051206-HT8KMAZSXPTKYT50US4K/Halima-Cassells-headshot.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Halima Afi Cassells Halima Afi Cassells is an interdisciplinary community-engaged artist/ facilitator/ mom/ urban gardener who calls Waawiiyaataanong (often referred to as Detroit, MI) home. She credits gardening as inspiring her move away from painting to a practice where she aspires to use materials and processes that lead to the thriving of all (human and non-human) communities. Halima is the founder and co-director of the Free Market of Detroit, which explores notions of freedom, work, value, and disposability in a participatory context. As an advocate for all artists and cultural practitioners, she has spearheaded many community processes that uplift cultural capital from often-marginalized communities. Over the past 15 years, Halima has facilitated diverse groups of people through conversations, workshops, and collaborative creation, with an intention of deepening relationships and strengthening our collective power. She is a founding member of the Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition, and facilitator with PeoplesHub. Within her work in the Detroit community, Halima often facilitates conversations that intersect culture and justice. She often works with Allied Media Conference, Detroit Narrative Agency, and leads training on the Cultural Community Benefits Toolkit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136825963-SI3768RKBZQ9284EY1UR/Lara+Sarkissian+headshot+3.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Lara Sarkissian Lara Sarkissian is a sound artist, electronic composer and DJ based in San Francisco. She explores familial narratives, diasporic intimacy, and social issues both in her music and visuals. Her electronic music weaves experimental approaches from dance and ambient along with Armenian instrumentation and sampling. She produces scores for spatial, multi-channel sound installations and video which have been exhibited internationally. Sarkissian is co-founder of CLUB CHAI in Oakland,CA ; a record label and curatorial project that artistically hybridizes non western sonic and visual worlds among contemporary western culture. Under the project, she has produced community sound workshops, broadcasts with Boiler Room TV, and events highlighting local artists in the Bay Area, Detroit, Chicago, New York - creating musical dialogue between artists across communities and cities. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1627572578507-IWXHI2OWFNS6B0PZI8QR/123_1-2.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Lisa McCall Lisa McCall is a Producer, Choreographer, & CEO of LM Productions Entertainment Group & the former Choreographer and dance road manager for Aretha Franklin Group Booking Agent. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136823571-VAJR82OGWCHOS1A09EKG/Phil+Simpson.JPG Featured Artists 2025 - Art by Phillip Simpson Phillip Simpson is a proclaimed painter and muralist, practicing for over 20 years. Working primarily with acrylic, spray paint and pencil, Simpson creates both private and public artwork with the relentless intention to make its viewers smile. Instinctively so, Simpson produces special 'smile-branded' paintings, murals and clothing. Simpson has over 8 public murals throughout the City of Detroit. Simpson currently resides in Detroit with his wife 2 daughters. He lives by motto One World, One Smile. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220415259-08LIRKGYQXK8G0707LT5/Olivia_Guterson_Headshot_12.2020.png Featured Artists 2025 - Olive Rae Gutterson Olivia Guterson (b. 1990, Gallup, NM) lives and works in Detroit, MI. In 2020, she curated her first exhibition, The Space Between at the Ann Arbor Art Center. She presently is a resident at Sibyls Shrine and AS220’s Practice//Practice. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Arab American National Museum, Art Week Miami, JADA Art Fair, Norwest Gallery, Detroit Artist Market, Ann Arbor Art Center, The Scarab Club and more. She is a founding member of Art Mamas Alliance. Primarily through black ink, I create works that are a healing and truth-seeking investigation. In conversation with the materials I am marking, I layer ink as a means of mapping the present conditions and environment through the lens of my lived experience. My interest in pattern as language stems from my multiracial heritage, which inspires how the patterns relate to one another and stand alone. Accentuating the balance of black and white, busy and still, negative and positive, and the valid in-betweens, my linework is embedded in meticulous, instinctive wisdom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220477964-KKF0DWIGH6JU3VSIY8RG/ROnaldFordQWNTYMredFestival.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Ronald Ford Ronald Ford Jr., also known as QWNTYM (Quantum), is a dancer, choreographer, and music producer/artist. QWNTYM excels in a contemporary variation of the Detroit original dance called Funkateer and along with his dance collective, Unstoppables, has shared the stage with world renowned acts such as Afrika Bambaataa, Run DMC, Los Hermanos, and AUX 88. As a music producer, QWNTYM’s Detroit Techno song, We R Unstoppable, has been played in venues that stretch from the Palace of Auburn to Romania. A driving force behind his art is to uplift the Detroit dance community as well as the local music scene. QWNTYM is a 2018 Kresge’s Fellow for dance and choreography, 2019 Knights Art Challenge recipient, as well as a 2019 AXD grant winner for his half concert, half dance showcase: Jit the Funk Up and Dance! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220536361-GJDT2080ZOTQTIYX87S3/TeneDismuke.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Tene Dismuke/House of Bastet A cultural dance assemble of the six-member Detroit based company, led by Artistic Director Tene’ Dismuke, compares and contrasts all forms of ancient sacred women’s’ dances and healing movements with authentic human content to create an emotionally moving dance masterpieces, which are both visually beautiful and physically demanding. Wild Spirit Dance Company performs and educates audiences on the sacred and powerful divine feminine through the art of dance. Watching them will leave you feeling inspired, motivated with creative enthusiasm to move and expand your view on what hidden powers lie within the human form. The company was founded in June 2009 by the dance instructors at the House of Bastet LLC., an empowerment center focusing on healing through all forms of dance & movement with the purpose of reeducating minds of the connectedness of movement and the original intent behind it. Energy is moved wherever they perform and the choreography is infused with cultural and sacred history and knowledge which blends Modern, Samba, North African, West African, Afro-Haitian, Cuban, Hip Hop, Jazz and Hatha Yoga. You are sure to be delighted and your spirit will be moved as you watch Wild Spirit Dance Company radiate and dance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136823535-U94CKM01NJ6DN3SZZEOQ/EricScottBakerphoto+by+slumgullion+thousandaire.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Eric Scott Baker Eric Scott Baker (the Facemaker) is a high-energy entertainer who is fun for all ages! He will add exciting circus-style performance with stilt walking, juggling, fascinating object manipulation, giant bubbles, LED performance, and more. Come to Sidewalk Festival and join Baker as he adds some extra color and excitement to the great city of Detroit! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626902626726-8NUUZUGXLYI9N7FHP5NV/Brandon+B%26W.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Brandon Waddles Dr. Brandon Waddles, a Detroit native, is no stranger to the city’s rich legacy of vocal music in schools. An alumnus of Renaissance High School, he was a member of the Renaissance High School Varsity Chorus, under the direction of renowned music educator Nina Scott. Waddles credits Scott and the late Dr. Brazeal Dennard as founding influences on his work in choral music. He went on to receive his B.A. in Music from Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA) and an M.M. in Voice Performance & Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University (Princeton, NJ). Dr. Waddles earned his Ph.D. in Music Education with a Choral Conducting emphasis at Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL). Before pursuing his doctorate, he served on the Conducting and Sacred Music faculty at Westminster as conductor of the Westminster Jubilee Singers. As a composer, conductor, educator and music director, Dr. Waddles enjoys a multifaceted career spanning the musical gamut. His choral compositions and arrangements have been published and performed by choral ensembles around the world, including the Morehouse College and University of Michigan Glee Clubs, Oakwood Aeolians, Westminster Choir, Brigham Young University Singers and the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir. In 2019, he was awarded as the inaugural recipient of the ACDA Diverse Voices Collaborative Grant. For years, Dr. Waddles has worked as a transcriber of Black gospel music for numerous choral octavos, hymnals and hymnal supplements published by GIA, including his recent work as a contributor editor for the One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism hymnal. He recently released Just In Case You’ve Forgotten, the first selected compendium of works by the late Thomas Whitfield, the subject of his dissertation. Dr. Waddles has worked with a diverse array of artists, most recently serving as music director for Grammy-nominated recording artist Ledisi, collaborating with the celebrated singer on multiple occasions, including her Nina & Me concert series and the LEDISI: THE LEGEND OF LITTLE GIRL BLUE show-run at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. At the heart of Dr. Waddles’s work is his unwavering passion for Black sacred music, instilled within him at a very young age by his father, Alvin Waddles, one of Detroit’s most beloved musicians. His areas of research focus on Negro spirituals, the evolution of contemporary gospel music, and the life and work of Thomas Whitfield. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220748675-OLX20UBU7XQIIKGVZ6EY/UMS_Logo_Tagline_Black.png Featured Artists 2025 - UMS A recipient of the 2014 National Medal of Arts, UMS (also known as the University Musical Society) contributes to a vibrant cultural community by connecting audiences with performing artists from around the world in uncommon and engaging experiences. One of the oldest performing arts presenters in the country, UMS is an independent non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Michigan, presenting over 70 music, theater, and dance performances by professional touring artists each season, along with over 100 free educational activities. UMS is committed to bold artistic leadership, engaged learning through the arts, and access and inclusiveness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220805403-RIRKLUYE04QQTH6V59M9/DJ+Jungle.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - DJ Jungle Ron "DJ JUNGLE313"Johnson is a native Detroit DJ and educator who recognized a vital need to fill the creative gaps left by the public-school system’s abandonment of an arts curricula. He has a passion for music and sharing that with our next generation. Ron is committed to empowering disadvantaged youth and at-risk communities with music that inspires, rather than contributing to being a genre that perpetuates negative stereotypes of our youth. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220864500-D1TDBRRMMD12WRNK5ZST/ArcPrep.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - ARC Prep The University of Michigan Architecture Preparatory Program (ArcPrep) provides Detroit Public School juniors with an immersive, semester-long college preparatory course in architecture, urbanism and studio design. Meeting three hours per day, five days a week over the course of a semester, U-M ArcPrep works to broaden career horizons, meet future demand, and bring diverse voices into the fields of architecture, planning and design by serving students typically underrepresented in American architecture schools and thus the profession of architecture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626135740150-0N1NN89AXO4Z7RVXCB0K/Sarah+Mark.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Sarah Mark Sarah Mark is an artist, designer and co-founder of the Neighborhood Arts School in Detroit. She has over a decade of industry experience designing for apparel manufacturers in the fashion industry, she produced her own boutique clothing line in Los Angeles, has run a non-profit art gallery and helped launch an ethical social business working with artisans in India & East Africa. Since moving to Detroit in 2012, she has immersed herself into fiber art and has exhibited her work throughout Michigan. Her dedication to ethical design informs her work as she uses almost entirely repurposed materials and is thoughtful about the impact of her work on people and the planet. Her husband, Billy Mark, is a performance artist and they have two sons named Silas and Nekoda. They are deeply invested in their community and together they run the Neighborhood Arts School out of a duplex in their North End neighborhood, blocks from their house. The Neighborhood Art School (N.A.S.) Is dedicated to offering affordable arts programming to residents of Detroit with a place-based, mentorship education model. The school is set up as a maker space for education focused on clothing design, music, recording, book making, and music lessons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137115343-G1MO1HM1XPBC9QQA7RX5/CheriseMorris.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Cherise Morris Cherise Morris is spirit worker, poet, multidisciplinary artist and ritualist born and raised in rural Virginia and based in Detroit, MI. Her work merges experimental writing, poetry and prayer with performance, movement, sound and ritual practices to open loving, audacious and transformative spaces that invite us to explore, imagine and continu the individual and collective healing that enables us to create the world of our dreams, our future, free. Morris is currently at work on her ongoing project, "Visions of the Evolution: The Ritual-Performance Series." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137119236-6CQAH50YU7CUVO8DKHZN/CyrahDurdas.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Cyrah Durdas Cyrah Dardas (b.1990) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, educator and community organizer based in Detroit, MI. Her work, inspired by themes of Queer identity and ecofeminism, includes drawing, painting, and installation. Dardas uses her art practice as a tool in remembering the forgotten networks between humans and the earth otherwise suppressed by colonialism and gender based trauma. She holds a BFA in painting from Wayne State University. Her work has been presented in 30+ exhibitions in Detroit, Chicago and New York. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626221025429-HTR7U6DIC3URJPO5O6HJ/DAM-JENNIFER+HARGE-PERORMANCE_-10.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Jennifer Harge Jennifer Harge is an interdisciplinary choreographer, performance artist, and educator based in Highland Park, MI. Her work utilizes movement based performance and community gathering to center Black and queer vernacular movement practices, codes, and rituals. Harge’s most recent creative research is anchored in embodied archives, ancestral knowledge, Black fellowship, and Black churchicality. In 2014 she founded Harge Dance Stories to create a movement and performance platform centering Black subjectivity. Harge is the inaugural recipient of Queer|Art’s 2019 Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists, and the 2019 Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists. Her work has also been recognized by various institutions and foundations in the form of grant support, fellowships, performance and residency invitations, including: Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Kresge Arts in Detroit, Knight Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Yaddo, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, The Philadelphia Thing, Washington National Cathedral, and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137114423-Y1SYK2H6NBHJIJOF1IPB/JooriJung.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - ArtLabJ Joori Jung is the Founder of ArtLab J and Artistic Director, and Choreographer of ArtLab J. Originally from Seoul, Korea, She danced with various dance companies in Korea and New York, she moved to Detroit to achieve her goal to expand contemporary dance as well as the arts community in Detroit and decided to establish ArtLab J in 2012. She strives to create spaces where people of all ages and abilities can learn, grow and connect through dance and culture. She believes that dance is for everyone. Founded in 2012 by Artistic Director Joori Jung, ArtLab J, as a 501(C)(3) non-profit organization, develops a robust set of programming under its three core branches: Dance, Lab, and Education of which function to advance the dance arts and connect people. Using the power of dance to not only bare our life stories but bridge them, ArtLab J unites persons across divides of race, age, sex, class, gender, religion, status, and experience. ArtLab J produces and directs the Detroit Dance City Festival (DDCF) - an annual community-building event in partnership with the Detroit Institute of Arts that celebrates dance in its various forms and disciplines to celebrate dance and culture diversity further https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137114120-YBESSIYFC3T1IF3LSLUS/Headshot_Meg_Unknown.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Meg Heeres A native Michigander, Megan Heeres returned home from the West Coast in 2007 to study at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and settled in Detroit where she has been involved in the local arts community as an advocate, volunteer, and teacher. Megan has maintained an active studio art practice in the City and is a represented artist at Simone DeSousa Gallery. Megan’s art practice evolved along with her understanding and relationships in the City, professional endeavors and her art have connected into a collaborative way of working with community outside of the studio. These collaborations typically involve place, people, art and plants. They have ranged from large scale green space projects (Lafayette Greens Urban Garden, Beacon Park) that engage with a range of stakeholders, to the Invasive Paper Project which addresses invasive plants not as things to be cast-off, but rather as potential assets to our communities if managed carefully. Participants make their own paper and generate new ideas about how to treat our landscapes more holistically. She participates in projects locally and nationally, most recently at the Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center in Maryland and the Max M. Fisher Center in Detroit. Megan has been an artist-in- residence at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, the Michele Schara Residency at the Brightmoor Makerspace in Detroit, the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois, and the Santa Fe Art Institute and Women’s International Study Center in New Mexico. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626221130725-N0GFTKBWY2S12AX7NTQS/Thornetta+David+photo+cedit+Trilogy+Beats.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Thornetta Davis Thornetta Davis is a 2018 Kresge Fellowship Awardee and The Official “Detroit’s Queen of Blues”. Thornetta’s lastest CD Honest Woman, which she wrote and produced, has won numerous awards including eight Detroit Music Awards, 2 BLUES MUSIC AWARDS 2017 Nominations for "Best Song" and "Best Blues Album Emerging Artist" also Blues Blast Magazine Music Award for “Best Soul/Blues Album, Thornetta was also nominated for a 2019 and 2020 Blues Music Award for best Soul/ Blues artist female. Thornetta also received a French 2017 La Academie du Jazz Award for Best Blues Album. Thornetta’s live performances will leave you feeling uplifted and asking for more. New York Music Daily "What better place than Lincoln Center for Thornetta Davis" “In an era where the blues has become a legacy style, like bluegrass and roots reggae – and a lot of bands play it like it’s an artifact in a museum – Davis and her band are a blast of fresh air.” AXS Gary Schwind says “Thornetta Davis is a Blues Powerhouse" Down Beat Magazine 2018 Monterey Jazz Fest performance “Thornetta, sang with no-nonsense sass, fearless in her missives against lovers, as she preached the blues” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626902495853-3FYMKBHO9UB4W2QEB3M3/AshleyLightseyThompson_Headshot1.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Ashley Lightsey Ashley Lightsey-Thompson is a Certified Reiki Master Healer + Teacher, Crystal Lover, Intuitive, Voyager, Star Child, Tarot + Oracle Feeler, Tattoo Addict, Visionary, Herb + Plant Medicine + Tea Enthusiast. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Child Development from Michigan State University, and has 15 years of social work and healing experience. http://lightseyreikiworks.com/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137107405-4GR668HGQ6Q8OVDP82V3/Matthew+Daher+Headshot+with+PC.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Matthew Daher Matthew Daher is a Musician, Multimedia Artist, and Counselor/Expressive Arts Therapist, and one of the creators and co-organizers of Spectral Slumber. His creative work is an exploration of mental health, empathy, masculinity, spirituality, and healing. His practices are informed by 15 years of experimentation in ambient, electroacoustic, jazz, hip-hop, and folk music, meditation practice, and Authentic Movement practices. He holds a BMus in Jazz Performance from McGill University and a M.A. in Counseling and Expressive Arts Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies. IG: @matthewdahermusic https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136084656-SSNCKOW63JD51XZWAW6V/Paulette+CU+by+Leslie+Bryan.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Paulette Brockington Paulette Brockington currently holds 2 positions at Michigan State University as an Assistant Professor of Dance in the Theatre Department and as a Master Teacher in the Michigan Traditional Arts Program. She is a former Arts Educator of the Year and Michigan Heritage Award Fellow. She directs A Company of Dancers, The American Lindy Hop Championships and has an online and downloadable dance app called Savoy Dance Bums. Additionally, she is a Fulbright Specialist for World Learning in the US State Department with a 3-year appointment ending in 2025. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626218640151-IXO4HEJ0FGE3DVW2NN1S/Ollie-4.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Ollie Dodt Ollie Dodt is an interdisciplinary artist and flower farmer. They founded Villekulla Flora in 2018. Villekulla Flora is an urban flower and herb farm, a perennial work in progress and a social space striving for intersectional queer sanctuary. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626221556068-XZPWXXPSBIUQ9H297DEY/SonyaClark+-+Cranbrook+_+Riverfront.png Featured Artists 2025 - The Healing Memorial Project The Riverfront Conservancy and Cranbrook Art Museum present he Healing Memorial by Sonya Clark. The creation of The Healing Memorial will be a summer-long engagement at the public sites programmed by the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, such as Valade Park and the Dequindre Cut, as well as various stakeholder sites throughout the metro area. Pop-up making stations will be organized throughout Wayne, Oakland, and Malcomb counties. An instructional video will be available for individual and group participation in creating contributions to the memorial that will be collected at designated drop-off locations. The first phase of the memorial will premiere on August 31, 2021, but the project will continue to take submissions and expand its physical footprint at the TCF Center. The project was conceived by world-renowned and Cranbrook-educated artist Sonya Clark as an interpretation of her Beaded Prayer exhibit, which has traveled the world for more than a decade. For this project, residents will be encouraged to create small memorial pouch (fits in the palm of the hand) using fabric from their loved ones or donated material. These fabric pouch will be gathered by the thousands to create a tapestry of memories to be displayed at Detroit’s TCF Center downtown. Learn more about the project and how to get involved: https://detroitriverfront.org/thehealingmemorial https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626304468973-F033BU64RUP0Z2XKPX24/Credit_+LaMarre+And+Dancers+featuring+the+James+Cornish+Ensemble.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 Lisa Rose LaMarre Wilmot is a choreographer testing the boundaries of performance-based responsive artwork and screen dance: working to bring dance away from the stage and into the realm of everyday life. Lisa has created over 100 original live art performances, 6 dance films, and was a 2018 Kresge LiveArts Panelist. Her focus is on the utility of the human body in response to sites, sounds, and surrounding stimulates. She is the director of LaMarre and Dancers, teaches at Wayne State University, and is a teaching artist for Michigan Arts Access where she shares dance making with special education classrooms. Lisa holds a Master in Arts in Teaching Artistry, in Theater and Dance, from Wayne State University and a Bachelor of Arts from Western Michigan University where she was a Presidential Scholar. She is a member of both Michigan Dance Council and National Dance Education Organization. Her work has been produced for Wayne State University, Grand Valley State University, Oakland University, ArtPrize7, Defibrillator Gallery, DDCdances, People Dancing, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit Contemporary, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Music Hall, Sidewalk Detroit, ArtPeers, Multikulti, What You Will Festival, WNUR, Hatch Arts, Pubic Pool, Chicago Calling, Rapid Pulse, Access Arts, and numerous public and private spaces nationally. Lisa has been a seed grant recipient for ArtPrize 7 premiering “They Were Displaced...And Again” in an unused house curated by res345 at The Rumsey Street Project. Her film “mechanical response” was exhibited at N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, and most recently she’s been investigating intergenerational exchanges and how authentic movement can generate vulnerable, honest dance in response to the environment and the people sharing energy in that space at the same time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626905561565-MMV37H1DQJ0T0R8NZONG/4883r8x10-naimashamborguer-2.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Naima Shamborguer With the sultry, smooth style reminiscent of Sarah Vaughan, jazz aficionados call her the last of a dying breed whose sensuous, clear vocals are a voice for the 21st Century. Naima Shamborguer was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Born to a musical family, professional musicians surrounded her. From her early days of musical training, Naima developed highly artistic and finely polished vocal abilities through extensive training in classical and jazz music, but jazz music is where Naima has made a successful career. On two occasions Naima received The Spirit of Detroit award from the City Council of Detroit In recognition of exceptional achievement, outstanding leadership and dedication to improving the quality of life educationally and “The Women in Jazz.” The late Hugh Lawson deemed her “the closest that he has ever heard to Sarah Vaughan, all she needs is to be heard.” A “Motown “ treasure, Naima has performed nationwide with the finest jazz greats known to the world, including Freddie Hubbard, Marcus Belgrave, James Carter, Geri Allen, Kenny Burrell, Barry Harris, Donald Byrd, Steve Turre, Larry Willis, Rodney Whitaker, Donald Walden, Marion Hayden and Wendell Harrison, Ken Cox and Charlie Gabriel, Sean Dobbins, and Tad Weed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626902107280-NAGVTRD5JSFKP9DR0NWO/DetroitAudobon.png Featured Artists 2025 - Detroit Audubon At Detroit Audubon, our mission is to foster appreciation and conservation of birds and the environment we share. We Strive to bring nature and people together, in a way that serves both. Detroit Audubon functions with three passionate part-time staff members that work diligently to run our public and in-class education programs, field trips, citizen science projects, bird population monitoring research efforts, and office administration. We are proud to work closely with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Detroit Parks and Recreation Department, and especially local community leaders and members. We offer assistance to any neighborhood or group interested in supporting and embracing wildlife in Detroit. In effort to fulfill our mission, Detroit Audubon has three goals: 1) Expand bird and nature appreciation and understanding for all metro-Detroit residents, 2) Increase actions and decisions by metro-Detroit communities and city officials that support healthy bird and wildlife populations, 3) Expand and improve bird habitat within and around Detroit. Detroit Audubon uses several effective strategies to accomplish our goals. We provide regular field trips that are open to everyone, provided for little to no cost. We host regular, free informational webinars on topics such as Beginner Birding, Attracting Birds, and Native Plants for Wildlife. We provide programs for schools and children that function with place- and exploration-based learning and allow children to develop their interests. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626902140022-U4HQF7OV70OJWISRBHV6/Reshounn+Foster+Photo+CreditTinisha+Brugnone.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Reshounn 'Sun' Foster Legacy Detroiter Reshounn “Sun” Foster is a community-oriented Healing Artist, Creative Citizen, and Professional Butterfly whose work intersects healing arts, mental and emotional hygiene, creative writing, hospitality, architecture, design, and activism according to her family legacy, African American culture and neighboring. Her cultural organizing in the North End began when deepening her 30 year spiritual connection to a familial home and the land. In 2012, she themed the home Hip n Zen Northend, a healing arts dojo and creative incubator that has become translocational. Extending comforting vibes beyond home, she found passion for community engagement. Ideating events, synthesizing information, and solving problems with neighbors projects enthuse her. Co-founding the Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition (OAAC) lead her to the path of artivism with her co-founders, neighbors, and community leaders. She’s played integral roles co-developing The Northend Urban Expressions Community Arts Festival: The Healing (2013-2014), ONE Mile (2014), The Legacy of Funk Concert (2014), The Garage, the OAUF Detroit Month of Design (2017), the King St. Block LLC (2020) and other neighborhood experiences. Reshounn is a featured storyteller in North End Storytellers, N.E.S.T., a documentary produced by the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm (2017), the “Urban Biographies: Ancient and Modern” online exhibit at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (2018), and Coffee Break, hosted by award-winning podcast producer Sarah Werner (2016). She is a 2020-21 Artist in Residence at POETIC SOCIETIES Transmedia Arts & Healing Technologies Global Network where she explores the natural connections between the ancestral and digital technologies in participatory and celebratory modes. Her personal essay “Live Up to Your naME” appears in the anthology Destined to Win by Mary Segars (June 2021). Her recent and ongoing collaborative community projects include: American Riad/North End Woodward Community Land Trust (2020-Present) and CommunityLibrary, Oakland Avenue Urban Farm (2021-Present). Reshounn was Sidewalk Detroit’s Production + Artist Relationships Manager (2017-2018). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628789816401-M3GCSWH18DZ2ICXGC3D9/unnamed.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Ahya Simone Ahya Simone is a Detroit-based harpist, singer, artist, and organizer. She earned her degree from Wayne State University, where she was the principal harpist for the Wayne State University Wind Symphony in 2011. She has performed extensively in Detroit, and internationally in Scotland and Canada. Ahya’s versatile approach to harp and vocal artistry includes classical, jazz, and soul. She is also an emerging filmmaker, and was awarded a Knight Sundance Fellowhip in 2018. She is in the midst of developing “Femme Queen Chronicles,” a web-series sponsored by the Trans Sistas of Color Project and the Detroit Narrative Agency 2.0 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628695899890-RQZEDGXAAP9R80JSNYMZ/IMG_4870.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Gabriel Brass Band This Brass Band honors the rich history of New Orleans music while bringing fun and funk to you live and direct! Spear headed by 5th generation musician Dameon Gabriel, with a few Gabriel family members and a host of close friends, continues the New Orleans flavor that the Gabriel family brought to the Motor City in the 1940’s via New Orleans. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628877455898-0EJ6Z6I1WHNQYUJNHCO7/logo_whitebg.jpg Featured Artists 2025 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628877263192-8DXTMXUCH0YLXJNTQH16/MOT+Concert+2.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Olivia Johnson, Michigan Opera Theatre Olivia Johnson, born in Jacksonville, NC, is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she earned her Master’s degree while studying under Professor George Shirley. Last year she was the resident mezzo-soprano at Toledo Opera in Toledo, Ohio for the 20/21 season. In October 2020, Ms. Johnson appeared with Michigan Opera Theatre as the second Rheinmaiden, Wellgunde, under the direction of Sharon Yuval in his re-imagining of Wagner’s Ring Cycle in the modern adaptation, Twilight: Gods. After performing the comprimario role of the Girlfriend in Daniel Sonenberg’s The Summer King at MOT in 2018, Ms. Johnson made her second appearance with MOT in the role of La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi) followed by Buoso’s Ghost by Michael Ching. Wherein she was reviewed in Opera News as “…the intriguing mezzo-soprano Olivia Johnson and her cool, stylish demeanor as La Ciesca.” She performed Mathilde in Opera MODO’s innovative re-telling of Poulenc’s Dialogue of Carmelites. Ms. Johnson made her soloist appearance with the Rackham Choir in Richard Einhorn’s “Voices of Light” at the Detroit Institute of the Arts and her solo debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in their annual Classical Roots Gala. Ms. Johnson was the first-place winner of the 2017 National Vocal Arts Competition for Emerging Artists sponsored by the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club, Inc. She also appeared in the role of Mercédès (Carmen) at the Martina Arroyo Foundation, Prelude to Performance. Ms. Johnson attended the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria making two solo appearances with their orchestra. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628877267937-LB7OYLSHL592DTCNTQ9N/Davone+Tines+HS.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Davóne Tines Michigan Opera Theatre’s Artist-in-Residence and Curator of the 8th Annual Sidewalk Festival MOT performance. Heralded as “[one] of the most powerful voices of our time” by the Los Angeles Times, the “immensely gifted American bass-baritone Davóne Tines has won acclaim, and advanced the field of classical music” (The New York Times) as a path-breaking artist whose work not only encompasses a diverse repertoire but also explores the social issues of today. As a Black, gay, classically trained performer at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics, his work blends opera, art song, contemporary classical, spirituals, gospel, and songs of protest, as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance that connects to all of humanity. Mr. Tines is Artist-in-Residence at Michigan Opera Theatre—an appointment that culminates in his performance in the title role of Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X in the spring of 2022—and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale’s first-ever Creative Partner. His ongoing projects include Recital No. 1: MASS, a program exploring the Mass woven through Western European, African-American, and 21st-century traditions, with performances this season at the Ravinia Festival, in Washington, DC presented by WPA, and at the Barbican in London. He also performs Concerto No. 1: SERMON—a program he conceived for voice and orchestra that weaves arias by John Adams, Anthony Davis, Igee Dieudonné and Mr. Tines himself, with texts by James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou—with the Philadelphia Orchestra and BBC Symphony. Mr. Tines is a member of AMOC and co-creator of The Black Clown, a music theater experience commissioned and premiered by The American Repertory Theater and presented at Lincoln Center. He has premiered works by today’s leading composers, including John Adams, Terence Blanchard, and Matthew Aucoin, and his concert appearances include performances of works ranging from Beethoven’s Ninth with the San Francisco Symphony to Kaija Saariaho’s True Fire with the Orchestre national de France. Davóne Tines is a winner of the 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, recognizing extraordinary classical musicians of color. He also received the 2018 Emerging Artists Award from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and is a graduate of Harvard University and The Juilliard School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079048131-MOCCUCSPP52A6S33TIOQ/Supercoolwicked.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - Supercoolwicked Morgan Hutson: Supercoolwicked is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on freedom. Originating from Detroit’s west side, a place rich in community, she utilizes the power of the collective in her work by tapping into the various roots that have nourished her growth. She maintains presence by honoring the past and looking toward the future. As a creator, Supercoolwicked is a shape-shifter – able to be who ever she decides to be at the moment. Her complex and layered identities have manifested into various forms of the arts in diverse spaces ranging from the Detroit Institute of Arts to the Foundation Hotel, the Kindred Festival held in Detroit’s historic Roosevelt Park, The Waking Windows fest with Moodymann and Dam Funk, and the Earthworks Harvest Gathering at Earthworks farm. Supercoolwicked’s current passion project and debut EP, High Gloss, will be released this summer. Follow the fire and get to know her on Instagram @supercoolwicked. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079071650-UX7QV3Q9AIT3V2FYWM3K/Karilu+Forshee+photo+credit+Gabriela+Gabinski.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Karilu Forshee: I am a Mexican performer and teaching artist, raised in the border town of Ciudad Juárez. I started taking singing, dance and acting classes when I was 8, appeared in my first show at age 11 and I never stopped. I graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2009, with a degree in theater arts and English-Spanish translation. I have been a Detroit based artist since 2011 and a company member of the theater company A Host of People. I consider myself a multidisciplinary artist who finds joy in making theater, singing and creating performance art. My artistic work is influenced by the entire Latin American Diaspora and I find profound inspiration in my roots and the women in my familia. I create from there, and hope for trees to grow. My practice as a performer and teaching artist often meet along the route. Through my work I strive to create environments that inspire and nurture human connection and self-worth. This being the path to cultural voice and presence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563240510791-3AFSA1ZYBR6KU4MB2KTP/Audrey+Johnson+photo+credit+Carlos+Funn.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Audrey Johnson: Audrey Johnson is a queer movement artist with roots from Detroit, MI. Her work centers black and queer futurity and joyous survival. Audrey has danced in Harge Dance Stories (Detroit) for 3 years, and has additionally performed and collaborated in work by Biba Bell (Detroit & St. Louis), Dafi Altabeb (American Dance Festival), and Stephanie Hewett (San Francisco). She has shown her work in Detroit and the San Francisco Bay Area, and was recently an artist in residence at 2727 California Street in Berkeley, CA, holding a month long class series and a solo performance evening of her project [opening]. Audrey is also a co-founding member of Collective Sweat Detroit. She believes that movement is transformative justice, and she performs, writes, teaches, and lives centering this belief. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079140751-RLCS7RIM79EOOWG8M8SK/Durst.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Katelyn Durst: Is a warrior poet, community organizer, teaching artist and freedom dreamer living in Detroit, MI. While finishing her graduate thesis in Radical Self-Care for Black Women, Katelyn imagined a world that celebrated, amplified and provided space for black women’s voices and stories. From there the idea of a black feminist mobile bike library was born which is a trading and borrowing library and biblio installation featuring literature written by black women and femme https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079379929-EOSB0NR7TF833JE6GIGH/FringeSocietySidewalk1.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Fringe Society https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563240944481-9E23N05YJKN3Q9BOX1HD/Photographs+of+QWNTYM+were+taken+by+Kurt+Norris%281%29.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - House of Jit: A collective group of entertainers specializing in Detroit’s footwork style known as Jit. Ronald "QWNTYM (Quantum)" Ford is a music producer, choreographer, dancer, and visionary. QWNTYM was born and raised in Detroit and has spent 35 years of his life performing a Detroit authentic dance style called Funkateer. He has personally evolved the dance to its current state and even has plans to reveal a futuristic form soon. He is a 2018 Fellow and Awardee for the Kresge Grant for dance and choreography. Simultaneously, QWNTYM, creates dance music that compliments both Funkateer and Jit with speeds averaging 160 beats per minute (bpm). He has been Jitting for 35 years as this is Detroit's native, urban dance. His latest project follows up on his dance song and music video, We R Unstoppable! This is a multi-layered creation as on one hand, it's a Detroit Techno-ish dance track, and on the other hand it is a movement of motivation and inspiration for all who could use it a little "oomph!" in their life. The aggressive sound of the song stems from growing up in the, sometimes, unforgiving surroundings of not only Detroit, but the world at large. Over and over, one is told what they can and cannot achieve via of the status quo and social perception. QWNTYM looked around and announced that nothing can stop his aspirations nor should it halt the imagination and goals of anyone else, including all artists as a whole. As a dancer, QWNTYM has performed for World of Dance, America's Best Dance Crew, and Detroit's Electronic Movement Festival among other locations both domestic and international. Dreaming big has transformed one song into two songs and an LP has become the focal point for QWNTYM as he desires to motivate, inspire, and physically move others who could benefit from some high-speed, sound waves with a call of action: Never stay defeated...Be Unstoppable. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079245631-N0NLT775287B7EMCC7AO/osrsidewalk.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Rosemarie Wilson: a.k.a. One Single RoseTM is an award winning poet and playwright, spoken word artist, singer, actress and filmmaker from Detroit. She is currently a featured artist and songwriter with Defected Records, the United Kingdom’s #1 house music record label and she’s one of the first poets published under the Broadside-Lotus Press merger, two of the oldest African-American presses in the United States. One Single RoseTM performs nationally and internationally wherever her words are welcomed. For more information on One Single RoseTM, please visit www.onesinglerose.com. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562210879505-SZ0E03HASSWH6KBHG2UG/FreshClassics_x_FreestyleSessions-7750.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Benito Vasquez: Tapping into the creative economy blossoming in Detroit, Fresh Classics exists to provide a dancing experience unlike any other in the city. Hailing from different cities and crews, Fresh Classics consists of Mav-One(Team Gurren), Just, Seoul(61syx Teknique/Crooks Crew), Roy Da 5’5(Vertical Ambition), and Shane-T. Knowing what it takes to succeed as performing artists they would need to work with the best of the best, which is why every member is a teacher, mentor, or director who has spent years traveling in the competitive street dance scene. The group formed in 2016 rallied around raising the bar for street dance in Detroit & challenging themselves to bring a fresh style of movement to the forefront while carrying on the classic traditions they spent years training in. Fresh Classics bridges multiple styles with dynamic movements over a wide array of genres of music. Supporting many local artists and performing for some of the biggest names to come into Detroit, Fresh Classics always delivers! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562211064276-WKSWIN4QZYJW8Y70D2EH/IMG_6454.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Zaynab Wilson: A Montréal-born Trinidadian-Canadian, Zaynab Wilson brings a wealth of cultural and musical diversity to her sound which draws from her Caribbean roots mixed with folk, her heart and soul. The Live Video EP (2018) is the debut to her emergence as a singer-songwriter and showcases Zaynab is her most comfortable and natural state as a performer. As a multi-instrumentalist, Zaynab has performed with artists in Canada, Trinidad, Mexico, Australia, UK and Europe. She has independently toured her original music on both Canadian coasts in 2018 and, continuing with the flow in 2019, will be releasing her first studio EP, Unconditional, touring North American and remaining open to the possibilities and opportunities that will meld her worlds of community-bridging, music, education and travel. Set features Zaynab Wilson on Cuatro, vocals and percussion, alongside Kyle Skillman on guitar and vocals https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562211205609-EYZN4GAAQMAHB5KHYRUD/Alex+Way+3.JPG Featured Artists 2025 - Alex Way: was born on February 28, 1993 in her hometown, Detroit, MI. From the day she was born, she has been immersed in music through her family, which was filled with talented musicians and singers. She began singing when she was 4 years old in her church choir and loved it. She discovered her other love, the violin, when she was 11 years old. She gave her first performance singing and playing violin in a camp talent show. From then on, she knew she wanted to be a performer. Alex began violin studies in the Detroit studio of Michelle May and continued with Hai Xin Wu of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She received additional training through musical programs with Cass Tech High School, the Sphinx Organization, the Arts League of Michigan, Wayne State University, and other private coaching, all of which have helped her to develop as a singer and violinist. She has performed in venues and events across the country, which includes the Music Hall, Arts, Beats, and Eats, Orchestra Hall, and the Fox Theatre. She has performed with such nationally and internationally renowned musicians as Al McKenzie and Marcus Belgrave. Alex has received prestigious awards such as the Theodore Edward Harris, Jr. Scholarship and Achievement Awards and WSU/DSO Scholarship Award. Most recently, she was awarded the Kresge Arts in Detroit grant and Fellowship. Alex is a recent graduate of Wayne State with a Bachelor of Arts in Music. She is a proud alum of Cass Technical High School and Detroit Country Day. She enjoys volunteering, teaching in the community, and most of all, sharing her music with the world. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563241198375-IQ70MB5BDTPERU8BV55C/Arturo+Herrera+image+2-larger.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Arturo Herrera: Having begun my training in the theatre arts, I discovered a love of self-expression through abstract painting, installation art, and sculpture. With my art I explore my endless fascination of human emotions, connections, and experiences, especially my own. My process is often organic and free flowing because of this. While I may have a plan to how a certain project may turn out, by the project completion it will always be at least a tiny bit different due to what the project may need. It is important to my art practice that I explore a different emotion or experience with each piece, though often straying away from dark colors and rather focusing on the vibrancy of each experience, which is reflected in my color palette. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563241564122-4SZUDQWWH7E039B0OL9R/Credit_+LaMarre+And+Dancers+featuring+the+James+Cornish+Ensemble-larger.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - LaMarre and Dancers feat. James Cornish Ensemble: Together LaMarre and Cornish have developed over 60 original movement and sound collaborations in Detroit and across the Great Lakes Rustbelt Region working with diverse dancers and musicians to reveal reflective narratives of the past, present, and future. Their work began as collaboration in support of rejuvenating local Detroit parks, waterways, and neighborhoods with live-breathing dancers and musicians. From the DSO Cube and the DIA to our friend’s front porch, our art exists in all spaces with our community and for our community. Lisa Rose LaMarre Wilmot is a choreographer testing the boundaries of performance-based responsive artwork and screen dance: working to bring dance away from the stage and into the realm of everyday life. Lisa has created over 100 original live art performances, 6 dance films, and was a 2018 Kresge LiveArts Panelist. James Cornish is a third-generation Detroiter, multi-instrumentalist and composer. He has written three operas, and is one Detroit’s most prolific creative musicians and new music composers. In 2009, he was a recipient of the NEA grant American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius for his ensemble work. James recently curated a series at Detroit Contemporary called Radical Music Detroit focused on nurturing experimental music in the city. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563242785342-AVDNLMQNRUMKGHAMY0WX/The+Move+image.jpeg Featured Artists 2025 - The Move Brinni Kellom The MOVE program focuses on building resilience in our youth against childhood trauma. Dance and movement are proven to build socio-emotional skills while strengthening the body. We assess sensory skills and improve the health and productivity of our youth using dance as an art form. It is a discipline, art, social skills, and a pathway for youth to express themselves. We hope to expand the program to include all dance skill levels allowing those with advanced skills to compete. The CORE dance team is a part of MOVE and has performed in various venues in Metro-Detroit, including securing first and second place in the 2019 Winter Wishes Pom and Dance Competition. As a new dance team, CORE is dedicated to challenging their physical and mental capabilities, and uplifting communities through the art of dance expression. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625485968-UFHMH5BNE4OU029GTPK2/AaronJones-V2.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Aaron Jones: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625713728-02OZTUMQG187NA5MX87X/BryceDetroit.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Bryce: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625487121-JEFZQHNCFVN13VCCAL4B/SiclyNora.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Sicily McRaven: Sicily McRaven BFA Fibers, I've always been inspired by the natural world; bodies, Flora, fauna, and the social structures we create for them. I create installation and drawings that draw the two together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625800098-C0HSM82DUXK93BO8DP70/ChelseaC.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Chelsea Criger Having begun my training in the theatre arts, I discovered a love of self-expression through abstract painting, installation art, and sculpture. With my art I explore my endless fascination of human emotions, connections, and experiences, especially my own. My process is often organic and free flowing because of this. While I may have a plan to how a certain project may turn out, by the project completion it will always be at least a tiny bit different due to what the project may need. It is important to my art practice that I explore a different emotion or experience with each piece, though often straying away from dark colors and rather focusing on the vibrancy of each experience, which is reflected in my color palette. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625715439-ET2RO8K0F20G2OR8301G/C2.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Chloe Stevenson C-Squared is a performance group that performs throughout the midwest. Our work incorporates Physical Theatre, Dance, Circus, Object Manipulation, Acrobatics, and Storytelling. We seek to engage audiences with conversations revolving around current relevant topics within society. Such topics explored include community, collaboration, and equality within society. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626346495-J287B0OHYNRB657N6MZ0/houseofbastet.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - House of Bastet: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625971360-ZKNOPXH3SRM6FK3UNN63/ChrisJakob.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Chris Jakob: Chris Jakob is a queer actor and playwright born, raised, and living the dream in Detroit, MI. Holding a BA in Theatre from University of Detroit Mercy, he is an interdisciplinary performance artist focused on the creation of fresh, thought-provoking, experimental work. Chris is a proud ensemble member of A Host of People (AHOP) and Shakespeare in Detroit. He has also performed at Detroit Repertory Theatre, The Ringwald Theatre, the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, Planet Ant and Matrix Theatre (where he is also a teaching artist). Recent work includes the previews of Cleopatra Boy with AHOP at FURY Factory Festival 2018 in San Francisco and Test Flight at Cleveland Public Theatre March 2019, and anagoge. at Sidewalk Festival 2018, the world premiere of Neither There, Nor Here with AHOP, the tour of his play I, Too, Sing America, produced by the Michigan Opera Theatre, as well as an artist residency at Cleveland Public Theatre and the North American Cultural Lab (New York). Art is long, life is short. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626418705-H3YNU8H0TE40P2HNI4U8/JillGoven.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Jill Govan: Born and raised in Motown Detroit, an epicenter for music innovation, singer-songwriter Jill Govan brings a fresh perspective to soul music. Jill's eclectic sound blends sultry vocals, compelling stories, and acoustic-driven grooves reminiscent of great artists like Lauryn Hill, John Legend and Norah Jones. As a 19 year old, she picked up the guitar and has honed her gifts performing at venues across Metro Detroit. Jill is passionate about creating real music with a message and seeks to share God's love with the world through song. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626563280-9CAJ6GCRA97Z8WLWU1DS/KevEKev.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Kevin Morris: Kev E. Kev Musician, Composer, Producer, Performer R & B, Smooth Jazz, Funk, Classic Rock, Blues, Reggae Began performing as a self taught drummer in Detroit bands & venues in 1972, inspired by Motown (more directly, The Jackson 5). Various tours & performances in Canada & Midwest states. Detroit venues included Cobo Center, Gem Theater, Bakers Keyboard Lounge, Campus Martius, Wayne State University, and Detroit's Thanksgiving Parade. Currently has 2 albums available for download on CDBaby.com- "Street Corner Symphony", featuring the talents of artists at Artist Village and poet Black Maria's "Rhythm & Words, Vol. 1" Currently redeveloping the 2 year old Jazz At Java music series co-created with Alicia George at Motor City Java House. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626562796-IFEHF4EK1IC8MVL37SFF/Malis.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Michael Malis: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626685144-U5WWFWRKY7TLP7UBV726/Stephanie+Howells.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Stephanie: Howells: Stephanie is a teaching artist and installation artist. Her work focuses on interactive, collaborative creative processes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626791037-U559ZP0SPY22HJIXDAY0/Tonja.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Tonja The Disruptor (Tonja Warren): Tonja is an award winning writer, performer, and conceptual artist. A Detroit-bred soul stirrer, Tonja creates interdisciplinary stories, interrogations, and constructive conjures. Her artistry spans performance and text-based art, music, theater, African American and African dance, screenwriting and poetry, where she trains a signature lens on memory, Black identity, Black women's trajectories and Black Detroit narratives. Her honors include: New York Foundation for the Arts Screenwriting Fellowship, CulturePop Grantee, Revolve Detroit/Art Place in America Grantee, Detroit Future Media Grantee, IFP- New York Project Involve Mentee, Urbanworld Film Festival Screenwriting Finalist. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626863950-DYIPWYEE1XAKGL56TD0L/Vangaurd.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Vagabond Inventions (Jen Davis): Vagabond Inventions is an association of physical theater artists who share a language of ensemble-devised theater. The company’s work, described as “Beckett-meets-Fellini” by the Montreal Gazette, explores worlds in disequilibrium. Based in New Orleans since 2014 after many years in NYC, Vagabond Inventions has created five full-length productions and over a dozen short pieces which have toured across the US and to six countries. The company’s work has appeared at leading experimental venues in NYC including The Chocolate Factory, The Brick Theater, Dixon Place, and The Bushwick Starr. Examples of the company’s short work and other events include New Vaudeville acts between music sets at Webster Hall, an interactive Artist Salon that took over the Tigermen Den in New Orleans, hosting numerous clown variety shows including the opening Cabaret of the 2011 NY Clown Theater Festival – and many other experimental projects. The company’s current production, A Kingdom, A Chasm received a 2018 Deep Space residency at the North American Cultural Laboratory and a 2016 grant from the Network of Ensemble Theaters to collaborate with co-writer Zina Camblin, celebrated playwright and current writer for Hulu’s upcoming series, “Wu-Tang: An American Saga”. This past fall and spring, Kingdom performed a series of pop-up shows as an experiment in mobile “Rough Theater”, visiting a junkyard, a backyard, a parking strip under an overpass. Vagabond Director Jennifer Sargent, a graduate of the 2-year training program at École Jacques Lecoq in Paris, works with project-based teams on Vagabond’s productions. The talented Kingdom ensemble that has created the show together over the course of 3 years includes: actor-devisors Khiry Armstead, Owen Ever, and Lisa Shattuck - all skilled comic, physical performers; set designer and car mechanic Adam Tourek; and a production crew that includes Stage Manager Tricia Anderson and Co-Producer Jen Davis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563628157819-Z07CV225W5UHI6CVP1BL/NLR.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Nique Love Rhodes: if N.E.R.D, The Roots, and Rage Against the Machine had a band baby, it would be Nique Love Rhodes & The NLR Experience. This multi-faceted ensemble of musicians, led by dynamic performer and hip-hop artist Nique Love Rhodes, fuse hip-hop with funk, rock with jazz, and conscious lyrics with pop hooks and melodies to provide positive vibes, elevate social consciousness, and keep people jamming one song at a time. The band has performed at numerous festivals throughout Michigan and the country including South by Southwest Festival (Texas), Dally in the Alley (Detroit), North by Northeast Music Festival (Toronto), Sidewalk Festival (Detroit), Buckham Alley Fest (Flint), and has become known as one of the best live acts coming out of Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563748443657-B9GQA8Y95UART740BRAE/MarionHayden.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Marion Hayden and Saffel Gardner: I grew up in Detroit during a time when music was intricately and inexorably woven into the fabric of the city. My near west side neighborhood, just off Dexter Avenue, was home to at least 4 jazz clubs- including one that was on the second floor of a bowling alley on the next block. I used to sneak up the stairs of that bowling alley and peak in to the club through the window- listening for the music and looking for the musicians. In my neighborhood, TRANE oozed from Vaughn's Book Store, ARETHA blasted from the record shop and MAHALIA wafted from Prophet Jones headquarters. My Detroit was steeped in music. My home was full of jazz records, Gershwin and Rachmaninoff Playing hopscotch- Miles Davis floated from the basement. Catching butterflies- Monk was on the speakers outside. I began playing cello at 9, falling in love with the low notes and the sound of the orchestra. Then at 12, I decided the bass was my voice. I would speak through the bass and use the instrument to express the full range of emotion. I learned jazz from the master musicians in the Detroit community-Marcus Belgrave, Wendell Harrison, Donald Walden, Ursula Walker, Kenn Cox, Roy Brooks, Will Austin, Charles Boles. HEARING their life stories, LEARNING their original music, VISITING their homes, TRAVELING with them. This was an amazing opportunity to learn and experience music in a very personal and intimate way. Now, I experience my musical practice as a full vessel- a repository of village knowledge. Seeking opportunities to pour out and share this knowledge. I synthesize my musical experiences through the bass. I weave a rhythmic and harmonic platform upon which the ensemble sits. I create bass lines that bind a song together AND generations of musical traditions. My creative process is informed and enriched by the music traditions I have experienced and musicians I have known. These traditions and musicians live on, in new perspective, through my music. Awards, Grants and Commissions 2019 Premiere of 7 X12 with a Cha Cha. Music and Dance collaboration with Prof. Robin Wilson, Univ. of MI School of Dance 2018 Knight Arts Foundation Grant for Women in Jazz Concert and Symposium, Summer 2019 2017 Premiere of Reflections of '67. Original musical score to accompany Eulogy for Detroit 1967 by poet Melba Joyce Boyd. Charles Wright Museum. Detroit Premiere of Original music score for "The Flying Ace", rare 1926 Silent Film featuring an all Black cast. Detroit Institute of Arts 2016 Kresge Artist Fellowship Detroit Jazz Hero Award, Jazz Journalist Assn. Premiere of "I Sell the Shadow" Original composition in response to artist Glenn Ligon, the 30 Americans Exhibit: The Rubell Collection. National Conference of Artists 2015 Special Recognition Award, Wayne County Council for the Arts, History and the Humanities 2014 Vision and Excellence in the Arts Award. National Conference of Artists Touring Ensembles Marion Hayden Detroit Legacy Ensemble Straight Ahead (co-founder) Detroit Jazz Festival All Stars Ellen Rowe Octet https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749326613-05J6LFKKLFWV22143AFU/Sala%CC%84kastar+%28Aja+Dier%29-+.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Salākastar (Aja Dier): Salākastar (aka Aja Salākastar Dier) is a Detroit-based multidisciplinary performance artist. She earned her BFA and completed her classical acting training at the acting conservatory at the State University of New York at Purchase College. She made her professional debut as Clementine Hunter in the workshop production of Zinnias: The Life of Clementine Hunter directed by Robert Wilson with music direction by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock. After living and working in New York City, she moved to her hometown of Detroit and was (re)embraced by Detroit’s arts community. Formerly a member of the Detroit-based music collective Video7, she is currently recording her debut solo album ALL BLUE:PART ONE (MAJORELLE!). She is an ensemble member at A HOST OF PEOPLE theatre company. She is also a founder and member of iii Sisters, a Detroit-based black feminist writing ensemble. Film credits include Listen Up Philip and Hunter and Game. She is a 2018 Gilda Award winner for Live Arts awarded by the Kresge Foundation and a 2018 University Musical Society Artist in Residence (University of Michigan). She is in the touring company of I Too, Sing America at the Michigan Opera Theatre. She was most recently featured on the HBO series Random Acts of Flyness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749094099-HELTXOARHY4T9FGE3MDI/LG.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Lawrence Gabriel: I am a poet, writer and musician with a primary focus on American roots, New Orleans traditional jazz, and African American culture. I am a fourth generation musician playing mostly acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin and bass. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749369978-WQF1J884POT9XHEQKJCQ/PennyG.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Penny Godboldo: “Dance is Life” Penny Godboldo is a dance artist who believes that Dance is Life! Dance is movement in time through space with force. It creates balance which has the power to heal--mentally, spiritually, physically. Informed by her research in dances of the African Diaspora, and inspired by her 20+ year relationship with dance anthropologist Katheriine Dunham, she is compelled by her desire to create life-changing experiences for both the artists she works with and her audiences. “My travels reinforced the world view that Dunham says is based in self-examination, self-knowledge and love. I realized that I had been practicing/teaching this philosophy all my life and began to purposefully articulate it through my dance vocabulary, which is enhanced by Dunham Technique. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749538148-UANRSDLZPG1HF5IVW77J/HouseOfPeople.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - A Host of People (Sherrine Azab): A Host of People is a Detroit-based ensemble theater company creating original work that celebrates complexity, imagination, and the synthesis of seemingly disparate elements—at once epic and intimate, political and personal, poetic and approachable. AHOP exists to create aesthetically rigorous, intellectually challenging theatre that is also warm, welcoming, and inspiring to people from all walks of life. All of our programming moves the company in this direction. We choose our subject matter and themes very carefully with an eye to stories, topics, and aesthetic approaches that will be equally thrilling to the most adventurous theatre fans as well as those with less exposure to the form. The company is led by co-directors Sherrine Azab and Jake Hooker, whose work has been seen, together and separately, in New York (The Bushwick Starr, The Chocolate Factory Theater, The Kitchen, HERE, Dixon Place, etc.), Berlin (Ida Nowhere, The Lyn-Lin), San Francisco (Intersection for the Arts, Z Below), Cleveland (Cleveland Public Theatre), New Orleans (Catapult), Detroit (HomeBase, The Play House, ArtlabJ, The Sidewalk Festival For the Performing Arts, The Jam Handy, Light Box, N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art) and elsewhere. Since 2012, the company has created and produced five original evening-length works, curated/presented multiple installments of two distinct performance series, toured to several U.S. cities, and developed an in-school "arts-forward" educational program that is closely tied to our productions. In 2014 and 2016 A Host of People was a recipient of the Knight Arts Challenge Award. Co-directors Sherrine Azab and Jake Hooker are 2018 Kresge Artist Fellows. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749692373-4E5DIZMVB7NCXX3SLYSJ/DariusBarber.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Darius Baber: is a multidisciplinary artist inspired by light, form, color, and the human condition. Baber’s work has afforded him many opportunities and exhibitions at institutions which include the Charles H. Wright Museum and the Motown Marauders exhibit curated by Sydney James and Tylonn Sawyer. Baber's paintings are found in many fine art collections including the home collection of Detroit Institute of Arts director, Salvador Salort-Pons and Alex May. He is also a member of the National Conference of Artists, Detroit Fine Art Breakfast Club, teaches community arts, and builds archival supports for his artistic community. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563808953605-ZGXX5CJEQBP39A9H0Z5D/Miz.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - Miz Korona: If award-winning Detroit emcee Miz Korona had followed the rigid rules she’s been given since her childhood, she would have never opened up for hiphop icons like Scarface and Run-DMC, or free-styled alongside Eminem and Xzibit in a blockbuster film that was monumental for the rap genre and her city. Her father—a member of 70s R&B group The Floaters—wanted her to sing, but she decided to rhyme. A cowardly music industry would prefer she either rap about sex or keep her lips sealed, but she spits blistering bars without compromise. Good thing she doesn’t listen. “I have a no-holds-barred approach: ‘You’re going to respect me,’” Korona insists. “If you stand firm, you make people pay attention. It’s about being assertive and letting your voice come out.” After going into “retirement” for nearly 2 years Miz Korona not only returned in 2017 with her EP entitled Set Fire she also came with a band (The Korona Effect). The wordplay and metaphors on the lead single Most Slept on proves that this MC still has the ability to compete with the big dogs. In 2017 Miz Korona was hand selected to headline the 8 Mile 15 year Anniversary celebration concert at Saint Andrews Hall and Friday Night Live at the Detroit Institute of Arts. More recently she and her band The Korona Effect were scouted to headline the HAU Music Festival in Berlin, Germany, Allied Media Conference and Light Up Livernois Music Festival. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563816372950-K9CP0MICHRV1I6YUQYTJ/MOT.jpg Featured Artists 2025 - MOT: https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/schedule daily 0.75 2023-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/f2651c8b-c1f8-4e8e-809a-ac20762c74a9/FESTIVAL+MAP+%282%29.png Schedule - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Schedule - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562953090752-D71VADKIMDKM5QNS72VY/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Schedule https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/2ba84603-97a9-4625-8731-7007123e7e6f/FESTIVAL+MAP+%284%29.png Schedule - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Schedule - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/featured-artists daily 0.75 2019-07-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562012218719-7PNOOZ7HCV8FJAAZKNJU/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Copy of Featured Artists https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079048131-MOCCUCSPP52A6S33TIOQ/Supercoolwicked.jpeg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of SUPERCOOLWICKED (MORGAN HUTSON): Supercoolwicked is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on freedom. Originating from Detroit’s west side, a place rich in community, she utilizes the power of the collective in her work by tapping into the various roots that have nourished her growth. She maintains presence by honoring the past and looking toward the future. As a creator, Supercoolwicked is a shape-shifter – able to be who ever she decides to be at the moment. Her complex and layered identities have manifested into various forms of the arts in diverse spaces ranging from the Detroit Institute of Arts to the Foundation Hotel, the Kindred Festival held in Detroit’s historic Roosevelt Park, The Waking Windows fest with Moodymann and Dam Funk, and the Earthworks Harvest Gathering at Earthworks farm. Supercoolwicked’s current passion project and debut EP, High Gloss, will be released this summer. Follow the fire and get to know her on Instagram @supercoolwicked. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079071650-UX7QV3Q9AIT3V2FYWM3K/Karilu+Forshee+photo+credit+Gabriela+Gabinski.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of KARILU FORSHEE: I am a Mexican performer and teaching artist, raised in the border town of Ciudad Juárez. I started taking singing, dance and acting classes when I was 8, appeared in my first show at age 11 and I never stopped. I graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2009, with a degree in theater arts and English-Spanish translation. I have been a Detroit based artist since 2011 and a company member of the theater company A Host of People. I consider myself a multidisciplinary artist who finds joy in making theater, singing and creating performance art. My artistic work is influenced by the entire Latin American Diaspora and I find profound inspiration in my roots and the women in my familia. I create from there, and hope for trees to grow. My practice as a performer and teaching artist often meet along the route. Through my work I strive to create environments that inspire and nurture human connection and self-worth. This being the path to cultural voice and presence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563240472402-05U5O88Y4F2C0CH38EIG/Arturo+Herrera+image+2.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of Arturo Herrera: Having begun my training in the theatre arts, I discovered a love of self-expression through abstract painting, installation art, and sculpture. With my art I explore my endless fascination of human emotions, connections, and experiences, especially my own. My process is often organic and free flowing because of this. While I may have a plan to how a certain project may turn out, by the project completion it will always be at least a tiny bit different due to what the project may need. It is important to my art practice that I explore a different emotion or experience with each piece, though often straying away from dark colors and rather focusing on the vibrancy of each experience, which is reflected in my color palette. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563240510791-3AFSA1ZYBR6KU4MB2KTP/Audrey+Johnson+photo+credit+Carlos+Funn.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of Audrey Johnson: Audrey Johnson is a queer movement artist with roots from Detroit, MI. Her work centers black and queer futurity and joyous survival. Audrey has danced in Harge Dance Stories (Detroit) for 3 years, and has additionally performed and collaborated in work by Biba Bell (Detroit & St. Louis), Dafi Altabeb (American Dance Festival), and Stephanie Hewett (San Francisco). She has shown her work in Detroit and the San Francisco Bay Area, and was recently an artist in residence at 2727 California Street in Berkeley, CA, holding a month long class series and a solo performance evening of her project [opening]. Audrey is also a co-founding member of Collective Sweat Detroit. She believes that movement is transformative justice, and she performs, writes, teaches, and lives centering this belief. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079140751-RLCS7RIM79EOOWG8M8SK/Durst.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of Katelyn Durst: Is a warrior poet, community organizer, teaching artist and freedom dreamer living in Detroit, MI. While finishing her graduate thesis in Radical Self-Care for Black Women, Katelyn imagined a world that celebrated, amplified and provided space for black women’s voices and stories. From there the idea of a black feminist mobile bike library was born which is a trading and borrowing library and biblio installation featuring literature written by black women and femme https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563240872357-W38C2SMQZC20E3KUP9O4/Credit_+LaMarre+And+Dancers+featuring+the+James+Cornish+Ensemble.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of LaMarre and Dancers feat. James Cornish Ensemble: Together LaMarre and Cornish have developed over 60 original movement and sound collaborations in Detroit and across the Great Lakes Rustbelt Region working with diverse dancers and musicians to reveal reflective narratives of the past, present, and future. Their work began as collaboration in support of rejuvenating local Detroit parks, waterways, and neighborhoods with live-breathing dancers and musicians. From the DSO Cube and the DIA to our friend’s front porch, our art exists in all spaces with our community and for our community. “I'm is driven by the resiliency of women, the parallel of human struggle with trust, and spontaneous free-form. My film and performance artwork is less about who I am and more about the identity of my environment telling me how and why to move; which in response becomes a new part of me. I form visual art displays using acute kinesthetic sensing, extracting narratives expressed by the physical world. Confrontation - Destruction - Hardship - Freedom - Pulse.” Lisa Rose LaMarre Wilmot is a choreographer testing the boundaries of performance-based responsive artwork and screen dance: working to bring dance away from the stage and into the realm of everyday life. Lisa has created over 100 original live art performances, 6 dance films, and was a 2018 Kresge LiveArts Panelist. Her focus is on the utility of the human body in response to sites, sounds, and surrounding stimulates. She is the director of LaMarre and Dancers, teaches at Wayne State University, and is a teaching artist for VSA Michigan where she shares dance making with special education classrooms. Lisa holds a Master in Arts in Teaching Artistry, in Theater and Dance, from Wayne State University and a Bachelor of Arts from Western Michigan University where she was a Presidential Scholar. She is a member of both Michigan Dance Council and National Dance Education Organization. Her work has been produced for Wayne State University, Grand Valley State University, Oakland University, ArtPrize7, Defibrillator Gallery, DDCdances, People Dancing, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit Contemporary, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Music Hall, Sidewalk Detroit, ArtPeers, Multikulti, What You Will Festival, WNUR, Hatch Arts, Pubic Pool, Chicago Calling, Rapid Pulse, Access Arts, and numerous public and private spaces nationally. Lisa has been a seed grant recipient for ArtPrize 7 premiering “They Were Displaced…And Again” in an unused house curated by res345 at The Rumsey Street Project. Her film “mechanical response” was exhibited at N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, and most recently she’s been investigating intergenerational exchanges and how authentic movement can generate vulnerable, honest dance in response to the environment and the people sharing energy in that space at the same time. JAMES CORNISH is a third-generation Detroiter, multi-instrumentalist and composer. He has written three operas, and is one Detroit’s most prolific creative musicians and new music composers. In 2009, he was a recipient of the NEA grant American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius for his ensemble work. In 2011 he was commissioned to compose a series of works for dance in public spaces in Detroit parks. He is the composer of three operas, and is is a co-founder of The Great Lakes Ensemble, a cutting-edge music and movement performance ensemble. His work has been featured at the Edgefest creative music festival, the MoDe Sound and Dance Project, Chicago Calling Festival, Rapid Pulse performance art festival, and Access Art’s Belle Isle Art Exhibits. James recently curated a series at Detroit Contemporary called Radical Music Detroit focused on nurturing experimental music in the city. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079379929-EOSB0NR7TF833JE6GIGH/FringeSocietySidewalk1.jpg Copy of Featured Artists https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563240944481-9E23N05YJKN3Q9BOX1HD/Photographs+of+QWNTYM+were+taken+by+Kurt+Norris%281%29.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of House of Jit: A collective group of entertainers specializing in Detroit’s footwork style known as Jit. Ronald "QWNTYM (Quantum)" Ford is a music producer, choreographer, dancer, and visionary. QWNTYM was born and raised in Detroit and has spent 35 years of his life performing a Detroit authentic dance style called Funkateer. He has personally evolved the dance to its current state and even has plans to reveal a futuristic form soon. He is a 2018 Fellow and Awardee for the Kresge Grant for dance and choreography. Simultaneously, QWNTYM, creates dance music that compliments both Funkateer and Jit with speeds averaging 160 beats per minute (bpm). He has been Jitting for 35 years as this is Detroit's native, urban dance. His latest project follows up on his dance song and music video, We R Unstoppable! This is a multi-layered creation as on one hand, it's a Detroit Techno-ish dance track, and on the other hand it is a movement of motivation and inspiration for all who could use it a little "oomph!" in their life. The aggressive sound of the song stems from growing up in the, sometimes, unforgiving surroundings of not only Detroit, but the world at large. Over and over, one is told what they can and cannot achieve via of the status quo and social perception. QWNTYM looked around and announced that nothing can stop his aspirations nor should it halt the imagination and goals of anyone else, including all artists as a whole. As a dancer, QWNTYM has performed for World of Dance, America's Best Dance Crew, and Detroit's Electronic Movement Festival among other locations both domestic and international. As a music performer, he has shared the stage with international acts such as AUX 88 & Egyptian Lover. Dreaming big has transformed one song into two songs and an LP has become the focal point for QWNTYM as he desires to motivate, inspire, and physically move others who could benefit from some high-speed, sound waves with a call of action: Never stay defeated...Be Unstoppable https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079245631-N0NLT775287B7EMCC7AO/osrsidewalk.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of Rosemarie Wilson: a.k.a. One Single RoseTM is an award winning poet and playwright, spoken word artist, singer, actress and filmmaker from Detroit. She is currently a featured artist and songwriter with Defected Records, the United Kingdom’s #1 house music record label and she’s one of the first poets published under the Broadside-Lotus Press merger, two of the oldest African-American presses in the United States. One Single RoseTM performs nationally and internationally wherever her words are welcomed. For more information on One Single RoseTM, please visit www.onesinglerose.com. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562210879505-SZ0E03HASSWH6KBHG2UG/FreshClassics_x_FreestyleSessions-7750.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of Fresh Classics: Tapping into the creative economy blossoming in Detroit, Fresh Classics exists to provide a dancing experience unlike any other in the city. Hailing from different cities and crews, Fresh Classics consists of Mav-One(Team Gurren), Just, Seoul(61syx Teknique/Crooks Crew), Roy Da 5’5(Vertical Ambition), and Shane-T. Knowing what it takes to succeed as performing artists they would need to work with the best of the best, which is why every member is a teacher, mentor, or director who has spent years traveling in the competitive street dance scene. The group formed in 2016 rallied around raising the bar for street dance in Detroit & challenging themselves to bring a fresh style of movement to the forefront while carrying on the classic traditions they spent years training in. Fresh Classics bridges multiple styles with dynamic movements over a wide array of genres of music. Supporting many local artists and performing for some of the biggest names to come into Detroit, Fresh Classics always delivers! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562211064276-WKSWIN4QZYJW8Y70D2EH/IMG_6454.jpg Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of Zaynab Wilson: A Montréal-born Trinidadian-Canadian, Zaynab Wilson brings a wealth of cultural and musical diversity to her sound which draws from her Caribbean roots mixed with folk, her heart and soul. The Live Video EP (2018) is the debut to her emergence as a singer-songwriter and showcases Zaynab is her most comfortable and natural state as a performer. As a multi-instrumentalist, Zaynab has performed with artists in Canada, Trinidad, Mexico, Australia, UK and Europe. She has independently toured her original music on both Canadian coasts in 2018 and, continuing with the flow in 2019, will be releasing her first studio EP, Unconditional, touring North American and remaining open to the possibilities and opportunities that will meld her worlds of community-bridging, music, education and travel. Set features Zaynab Wilson on Cuatro, vocals and percussion, alongside Kyle Skillman on guitar and vocals https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562211205609-EYZN4GAAQMAHB5KHYRUD/Alex+Way+3.JPG Copy of Featured Artists - Copy of Alex Way: https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/get-involved-1 daily 0.75 2025-02-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562343522445-G5UADZ5K8F0SP4WSK7K9/vendors_02+copy.png Apply Here - Get involved https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562343497403-4OXDN67JIIBE2GUBT3KF/vendors_03+copy.png Apply Here - Get involved https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562343460256-CFQEKHEW1CV0PMD8PHUB/Artboard%2B22+copy.png Apply Here - Get involved https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562003761984-T7ZO3UTN3C8WI02FVB8R/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Apply Here - Get involved https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562343421068-IF1H5X60AZ7OKP0Y9LPA/Artboard%2B12+copy.png Apply Here - Get involved https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/feature-2 daily 0.75 2021-04-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563207346391-DLI2A7OM82I8FB9N5PRS/SidewalkFestival-Banner-v2_SF-ArtWork-Banner.jpg Feature (2020) https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/about-2 daily 0.75 2021-04-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561936486769-TY0GYPM1Y7RJTJ3G7P76/dashed-line-graphic-green.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563206275284-OJQKJLAJDYPEMT4DMRGB/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562040633209-U2YR27TO1G8C7BK67NUQ/150.jpg About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561935474192-GPMAGN37RCV9N6SCPX9M/image-asset.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561937657958-KRH33YAE34XD0BXT7L9S/dashed-line-graphic-blue+%281%29.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562614820638-ZDADZWA7PKFIUKY7Q0S6/Detroit+Blight+Busters+New+Logo.jpg About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562615291044-Q7ZP7J5EJBCMNCAN30IL/KF-Logo-05.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562614819908-B0IO5S74PUF5WWI91KS9/ARISE+Detroit_1499378978270_62344279_ver1.0_900_675.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562615158315-UDLDMEPMXXN97MIG4JH5/SD-Support-Logos-04.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562614820570-8T68166TCAO4BUJTAWKZ/ErbFF_Logo_vert.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562727076550-0I8XE1WS1NKSFYATOTJ6/java+logo.jpg About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562615157845-EU76FWHZIA07JJKYM687/SD-Support-Logos-01.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562615157875-1WDXCTLD2XW5ZOZJMITG/SD-Support-Logos-02.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562615158063-PDM6ZHFBNX280CPIG44P/SD-Support-Logos-03.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561937779073-IX09250JKDHIETAWG8Y4/dashed-line-graphic-blue+%281%29.png About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562011947091-4686E6KW74O1H4AYMPU9/286.jpg About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562011778926-E8W8K4XIYO4JB5NIDKUU/507.jpg About (2020) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561938403034-ZWT69YKT58N6S4MY89XY/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png About (2020) https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/partners daily 0.75 2025-07-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Partners - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Partners https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/schedule-1 daily 0.75 2021-07-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562953090752-D71VADKIMDKM5QNS72VY/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Schedule (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563206972446-49VSY5NKC7TAYUYS2XG8/dashed-line-graphic-green.png Schedule (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562911023829-TUA2UP48KNNDHOB6XTDC/dashed-line-graphic-green.png Schedule (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562952991122-GK2TTP9BJZ3PKQ089VRD/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Schedule (Copy) https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/about-archive daily 0.75 2023-04-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626741172614-LBXCUQ86ASL7VWV0P8AM/dexter.jpeg About (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561935474192-GPMAGN37RCV9N6SCPX9M/image-asset.png About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562011778926-E8W8K4XIYO4JB5NIDKUU/507.jpg About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562011947091-4686E6KW74O1H4AYMPU9/286.jpg About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563206275284-OJQKJLAJDYPEMT4DMRGB/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562614820570-8T68166TCAO4BUJTAWKZ/ErbFF_Logo_vert.png About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626135049119-QNJ60X57I4Z4XUNSKJSV/NianticLogo-Large+%282%29.png About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626135178592-HWUVTMBVOQOQGPDZMKW6/kresge_logo.png About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561937657958-KRH33YAE34XD0BXT7L9S/dashed-line-graphic-blue+%281%29.png About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562040633209-U2YR27TO1G8C7BK67NUQ/150.jpg About (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626741208806-ALAKYPSFNFT9SXVREJMM/manistique+2.jpeg About (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626741134052-FDD79LY8S3OE6581FZAP/chadsey.jpeg About (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/schedule-2021 daily 0.75 2023-04-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562952991122-GK2TTP9BJZ3PKQ089VRD/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Schedule (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562952991122-GK2TTP9BJZ3PKQ089VRD/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Schedule (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561938403034-ZWT69YKT58N6S4MY89XY/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Schedule (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881423160-NG4IGEGZUY8866D0JMRX/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Schedule (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562953090752-D71VADKIMDKM5QNS72VY/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Schedule (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563206972446-49VSY5NKC7TAYUYS2XG8/dashed-line-graphic-green.png Schedule (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628882706452-Z60O590DYVUZI9LVN2EN/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Schedule (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628883724138-E4UFTSPZJGB9VNWNQZBK/dashed-line-graphic-green.png Schedule (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563206275284-OJQKJLAJDYPEMT4DMRGB/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Schedule (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563206972446-49VSY5NKC7TAYUYS2XG8/dashed-line-graphic-green.png Schedule (2021) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/partners-2021 daily 0.75 2023-04-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626139477786-FA37S3ISL87A8O6KSYMP/Youthworks+Detroit_LOGO.png Partners (2021) Partner: Youthworks Detroit Date: July 24, 2-8pm Neighborhood: Dexter-Linwood / 12041 Dexter Ave, Detroit, MI 48206 Community Leaders: Kyle Cascarelli, Executive Director I Crista Cuffie, Bezalel Director About: YouthWorks-Detroit (YWD) unites diverse people to accompany our city’s youth through committed mentoring relationships, intentional after school programming, and focused prayer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626139477187-X3C8QG0EDK60YNE1C916/Bridging+Community_BC+Logo+2015+smaller+file.jpg Partners (2021) Partner: Bridging Communities Date: July 31, 2-8pm Neighborhood: Chadsey- Condon / 6900 McGraw Ave, Detroit, MI 48210 Leader: Dan Commer, Neighborhood Stabilization Project Manager About:Bridging Communities is a nonprofit community development organization that has been serving residents of Detroit for more than 40 years. Our work is deeply rooted in the understanding that everyone has value and deserves to live in age-friendly, inclusive neighborhoods where they can live to their fullest potential and age in place with dignity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626139476959-Z3H1N9B8BFVUQRS19JFG/Joy-SouthfieldJSCDC+logo_color.jpg Partners (2021) Organization name: Joy Southfield CDC Date: August 7, 4-10pm Neighborhood:Joy-Southfield / 18917 Joy Rd, Detroit, MI 48228, USA Community Leader: Gary Ringer, Director of Community & Economic Development About: The mission of Joy Southfield CDC is to support residents and businesses alike in building a healthy and thriving community. The community that we serve is located on the far west side of Detroit, Michigan and home to beautiful parks, including the incredible Rouge Park, a 1,184 acre urban oasis which features 12 playgrounds, 3 swimming pools, multiple ball fields & more. It is primarily a family-oriented residential community, with thriving, multicultural neighborhoods and homes of a wide variety of architectural styles built primarily between 1920 and 1950 to house employees of the city’s booming manufacturing industries. Active and accomplished community organizations from all corners of District 7 take part in making our part of Detroit a better place to live. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626139476551-IWSZSSBUV2DWXH3M24IE/ManistiqueTreeHouse_+JeffersonChalmers.png Partners (2021) Organization Name: Community Tree House Center - Manistique Creative Empowerment Garden Date: August 14, 2-8pm Neighborhood: Jefferson- Chalmers / 259 Manistique St, Detroit, MI 48215 Community Leader: Tammy Black About: To promote the diversity of individuals in our community, the mental and physical well-being of our youth, and inclusion of people of all ages and abilities using holistic interventions . Our purpose is providing programs with a unique focus on inclusion for Persons with Disabilities, the promotion of collaboration with multicultural understanding, and diversity in the counseling process. We plan to provide a safe, creative, supportive, learning environment in this outstanding natural structure. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626139469240-1LPGA5OQY3RIPSMVQXI5/Arts%26Scraps.jpg Partners (2021) Organization Name: Arts and Scraps Address: 16135 Harper Ave, Detroit, 48224 Date: July 10 + August 14, 11am-5pm About: Arts & Scraps uses recycled materials to help people of all ages and abilities think, learn and create. Reconnect Reuse Days is a 4-part outdoor summer event series at Arts & Scraps that will promote sustainability in the community through socially distanced STEM activities with recycled materials, sidewalk sale, opportunities for creative learning, and more. The events are on the second Saturday of the month (June, July, August and September), 11am-5pm. There will also be a food truck, a DJ, and local artist performances. Arts & Scraps community store will also be open. Sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626903542511-F6OTAR4XQ7UCUBRY7EYN/The-Healing-Memorial-Horizontal%CE%93C%CC%A7o%CC%82RGB.jpg Partners (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626903558619-O42JHHN9QPMEJIUKM421/CAM-LOGO-NEW.png Partners (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626903558277-CRYIQU91RD800E8K9CYN/DRFC+color+eps+copy.png Partners (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626903607659-BZ9FC10JEX6GA4P6SS2X/spd_text_logo_blk.png Partners (2021) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562012218719-7PNOOZ7HCV8FJAAZKNJU/dashed-line-graphic-orange.png Partners (2021) https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/featured-artists-2025 daily 0.75 2025-07-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Featured Artists (2025) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626135739821-3E7HZ18SHCYVTBCGJ7M1/Lorena+Cruz+Santiago_2021.JPG Featured Artists (2025) - Lorena Cruz (Copy) Lorena Cruz Santiago is a Mexican-American artist from Northern California currently based in Detroit, Michigan. She received her BFA in Photography from Sonoma State University in 2016 and her MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2019. Cruz Santiago has attended residencies like ACRE (Steuben, WI), Tesselate (Pontiac, MI), and most recently Pocoapoco Residency in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, MX. Her work has been included in shows at El Comalito Collective (Vallejo, CA), Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (Grand Rapids, MI), Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), and in ArtMile Detroit 2020. Through an interdisciplinary practice that includes photography, video, and printmaking her work illustrates post-colonial themes of migration and assimilation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136088584-COEZG6KBR2ZNDLO3WRPL/MarsaeMitchell.JPG Featured Artists (2025) - Marsae Mitchell (Copy) I am a creator, performer and educator devoted to fortifying my pedagogical skills and producing art that not just entertains, but engages, educates and empowers audiences and artists. Creating and Performing gives me the ability to transcend my humanity; to move my body in interesting and athletic ways to communicate complex concepts and ideas without traditional language and to escape into movement and music and reemerge as I please. The most skilled creators and performers can teleport entire audiences into the movement, music and concepts. Artists have supernatural abilities; we are proverbial X-men. Prior to enrolling in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Michigan I was a certified dance teacher at Mumford High School in Detroit. Recently, I was commissioned by Kresge Arts Detroit and The Side Walk Festival to write and choreograph a dance film titled Reflect. Black. Times which premiered in August 2020. I first began working with Kresge in 2016 when I received the Gilda Snowden Award for my work in My Hair, My Story, My Glory a musical about the history and culture of black hair. I am also a Center for World Performance Studies Fellow. My current research explores the impacts of water on the mind, body and spirit of African Diasporic performance. The study of dance and the performing arts have been a lifelong pursuit to hone my "supernatural abilities” and improve technique and artistry. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136085181-XSXKZC0XZVVGYPC487T6/HouseofJitt_credit_AmbroseJas.JPG.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - House of Jit (Copy) House of Jit is a collective group of artists specializing in Detroit's footwork style known as Jit. The company was created this year of 2019 and founded by three dancers who share a common passion for Jit. Our mission as a company is to plant Detroit Jit into the mainstream world. Two of the members have been jitting for a very long time and showcased Jit all around the state. Michael Manson and James Broxton showcased Jit to the sports world as NBA dancers where they danced alongside with artists such as Flo’Rida, Bell Biv Devoe, Bobby Brown, Mc Hammer, Jay Sean, Morris Day, T-Pain, Salt N’ Pepa, 112, Sheila E, Debbie Gibson, and Robyn S. Michael Manson, our leader, was featured on a television show called So You Think You Can Dance performing the Detroit Jit. He was also able to take Jit around the world such as Paris and Bolivia. Michael Mandon was recently nominated as a 2020 Kresge Fellowship grant winner for his visual arts of the Detroit Jit. Recently, Lilanie Karunanayake (Lily) has become a member of the team and she has been jitting for over two years now. The three artists want to make a difference in the dance community, as well as continue to spread the Detroit Jit culture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136083654-10BXU2I5PAXAGP7ZCE1Y/AjaraAlgahli.png Featured Artists (2025) - Ajara Algahli (Copy) Detroit native, Ajara Alghali is a performance artist and thought leader at the intersection of dance and representation. A self-proclaimed global citizen, Ajara, has spent much of her adult life traveling the globe, witnessing life across many cultures. Holding a Bachelors of Public Affairs and a Master of Urban Planning from Wayne State University, Ajara is a cultural worker, urban planner, and anthropologist all in one. Her work is a fusion of life experiences from her Sierra Leonean-American roots and focuses on the connection between African people throughout the diaspora. Her cultural identities and perspectives define her guiding philosophy: ”There is inherent value in traditional practices and the informal ways people build community and share their history.” Studio M Detroit is a boutique event design and production studio, that creates bold and courageous event experiences for 2 to 20,000. We are masters of event logistics, design, and execution, with over 15 years in the events industry. We use art and design to lift up the city of Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136085100-N73CO0TD3SYXY6NCLHOH/Chloe+Whiting+Stevenson+Promo+Photo.JPG Featured Artists (2025) - Chloe Whiting (Copy) Chloe Whiting Stevenson is a physical theatre performance artist, director, and instructor based out of MI and OH. She specializes in butoh dance, circus arts, stage combat, and mask work. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626903906273-PMGDGY2OPM8ZWKVQ5FT2/Kaleigh_Everett.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Wilder/Reid Duo (Copy) Kaleigh Wilder formed this burgeoning new baritone saxophone and drum duo with Everett Reid. They each embody distinct musical upbringings: Everett’s foundation on the drums is embedded within the jazz tradition, but he also has roots in electronic music; Kaleigh’s musical roots are mostly classical, but she diverged to embrace free improvisation. While their musical upbringings are different, they share common threads that make for a rich collaboration. The diversity in their backgrounds creates a spontaneous, melodic, raw, rhythmic, and spacious sound, which they continuously discover and rediscover. Their process involves deeply engaged listening, musical trust, discussion, and ample free play in order to synthesize this wholly new sound. The two musicians together reach depths of extreme vulnerability as their musical expressions are laid bare. Kaleigh composes works for the duo that are set against completely free improvised pieces. Her compositional style is still evolving, but this duo has allowed her to experiment with through-composed pieces, compositions that deal with orchestration rather than notation, and pieces that take on jazz compositional forms yet have the element of completely free improvised solo sections. Kaleigh is continuing to compose for the group so they can perform in Detroit and, eventually, beyond. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626218572586-1OT838VV6FZ2TXTCCP31/Hinterlands+Open+Singing+photo+credit+Livia+Chesley.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - The Hinterlands (Copy) The Hinterlands is a Detroit-based company creating performances and public events equal parts playful and surreal. Through an ongoing physical and vocal practice that undergirds our collaborative process and catapults across disciplines and contexts, our work pushes into the unknown parts of personal and collective history with fearless physicality and a sense of humor. The Hinterlands was founded in 2009 by Richard Newman and Liza Bielby. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136330725-ONJQICUDLWVGYXMQL2B7/YvetteRock_MR.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Yvette Rock (Copy) Through social engagement and personal reflections, I explore the underlying notions that shape my audience’s expectations of society and urge them to consider my art as part of a broader commentary on society. I address issues such as injustice, loss, poverty, motherhood, race, and other topics revolving around the human experience, choosing the most appropriate media for the subject or message. Since 1999, I have mainly been exploring these issues in the context of living in the city of Detroit. Bodies of work I have made include: Money Head, Motherhood, 400, Community Conversations, reDetroit, and Ten Plagues of Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626218722144-1K5TAHJDEWUUZT7LWLAT/StudioDetroit.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Studio Detroit (Copy) Studio Detroit Dance Center is a multipurpose dance studio that offers a myriad of dance services to the Detroit community and its surrounding metro areas. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136077312-TU4Z9DU8RHZ1B793MZ22/One+Single+Rose+_Rosemarie+Wilson_+.JPG Featured Artists (2025) - Rosemarie Wilson "One Single Rose" (Copy) Rosemarie Wilson a.k.a. One Single Rose is an award-winning poet and playwright, spoken word artist, singer, actress, filmmaker, author of three self-published poetry collections, nice and naughty chapbooks. Rosemarie is a Davenport University graduate, National Poetry Award (NPA) 2010 New & Upcoming Poet and Poetry Author of the Year award, her CD Poetic Truth was voted 2015 Spoken Word/Poetry Album of the Year and she was named Best Female Poet in the 2019 National Spoken Word Awards. She is a first place and three-time honorable mention recipient of the Detroit Writers’ Guild Paul Laurence Dunbar Poetry Contest, Detroit Metro Times’ reader’s choice 2014/2015 Best Local Poet and Hour Detroit Magazine’s 2019 Up-And-Coming Performer. Upon entering a slam competition for the first time at the Motown Museum in Detroit, Rosemarie was named Motown Mic 2014 Performance Artist of the Year. In 2021 she became the first poet to record in Motown’s infamous Studio A. Her notable performances include the Floacist’s Flovertex and Sidewalk Festivals of the Performing Arts in Detroit, MI, Kistrech Poetry Festival in Kisii and Nairobi, Kenya, Piton International Film Festival in St. Lucia as well as touring Europe in 2012. She is currently a featured artist and songwriter with Defected Records and her poetry has found homes with various publishers such as Broadside-Lotus Press, two of the oldest African-American presses in the United States. 2014 marked the official launch of her non-profit motivational workshop series One Single Roses Bloom, workshops centered on inspiring bright youngSTARS and seasoned adults to fearlessly follow their passions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626218862464-7W3G1GW17RO2I8ZHUEZT/TraeIsaac.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Trae IsAAc (Copy) I Am Trae IsAAc; driven by a genuine passion for manifesting awe-inspiring and psychologically empowering pieces of art. Based on my life as person who has had to find power through loss and peace through discomfort. Primarily raised by my grandparents, losing my youngest brother and mother to cancer in my mid-teens were and still is the primary fuel to the fire that I use to push myself to create and provide for my family through art. What inspires my psyche is a need to do and be greater for myself and those around me who I in-turn inspire and motivate. My artistic inspiration derives https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136557353-IIJVO99YY8JZYVXCQOSC/KiaixRegalia.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Kia I'x Arts (Copy) Kia i'x Arriaga is an Aztec Dancer and multidisciplinary artist from Mexico. She works as a visual artist and cultural educator and she's known for her multimedia installations, which include ceramics, drawing, traditional sand painting, and metalsmithing. For the past 20 years, Arriaga has installed Día de Muertos ofrendas in prestigious venues, including the Detroit Institute of Arts and the MOCAD. Arriaga is currently merging her skills as an installation artist and Aztec dancer, to develop educational programs that explore Aztec culture through performance, music, art-making, and storytelling. An essay on her work was featured in the book “Essay’d 2: 30 Detroit Artists” (2017, Wayne State University Press) and in 2020, she was awarded with a Kresge Fellowship in Live Arts, for interdisciplinary arts. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626904151162-4OAJUZ8KK5FEJ8C6KGAA/4d604a5b564fa7bd38f51dc3312758c874f8e981-350x420-1.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - RAFT (Copy) Our objective is to attract and retain local, regional & non-regional Creatives, and their entrepreneurial capacities, to the metropolitan Detroit area. Founded in 2015, R A F T is a nonprofit organization and is a collective of creatives whose aim is to curate and incubate other creatives in the Detroit area and worldwide. We offer an apprentice/mentoring programming for youth, creative consultation for cities and municipalities, event planning and curatorial services.. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136560912-EB0OU7REW6FAE18K48FU/JoshKochisselfie_2021_green.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Josh Kochis (Copy) Joshua Kochis grew up in the suburban forests of Southeast Michigan. He has always had busy hands. He can often be found wandering in the woods, climbing trees and digging things up from the ground. His practice is focused on creating images, objects, and installations in collaboration with the natural world. He received his BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design in 2015, and is currently based in Detroit, MI. JAK VISTA puts trees back together. Makes forest where there was concrete, where there was forest before that. Brings nature inside. Moves dirt around, stacks wood and collects rocks. Digs holes to plant landmarks where they will stay awhile. Builds vistas out of small horizons. Really looks around hard. Wants to leave something good out there. Considers our role as natural beings in a mediated landscape and tries to split the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136558399-45SPIYKWS7A9RLIOTJSQ/Deon+Jamar+%28bio+pic%29.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Deon Jamar (Copy) DJ & Record Player https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1627051940196-FEK67WOMUXQ6FYLTPQ9Q/Mandisa+at+AKOMA+2021.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Mandisa Smith (Copy) Fiber artist and social entrepreneur, Mandisa Smith enjoys making art accessible to all people. She is an art-based workshop leader and founder of AKOMA, a cooperative gallery space for black women artists and makers. As founder and co-owner of Detroit Fiber Works, Mandisa provided opportunities for Detroit artists to show and sell their work, some for the very first time. Her work has been exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Art, the Scarab Club, Collected Detroit Gallery, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (in Grand Rapids), and other galleries locally and nationally. With a focus on felting, Mandisa's hands are her tools, pulling and rolling wool fibers until they become masterpieces that are decorative, functional and wearable https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626219265995-N6Z4EVCAH2SRP0EXPB9O/Karilu+Forshee+photo+credit+Gabriela+Gabinski.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Karilú Alarcón Forshee (Copy) My name is Karilu Alarcon Forshee. I am an interdisciplinary artist who finds joy creating performances that blend experimental theatre and music. My work is influenced by the entireLatin American Diaspora, especially Mexican Ranchera music, Cuban Trova and Nueva Canción, a folk inspired musical genre with socially committed lyrics. I find profound inspiration in my roots, and the women in my family. I create from there, and hope for trees to grow. My work creates environments that inspire and nurture human connection. Through performances that are culturally rich, poignant and true to my identity, I expose audiences to realities that call for relatedness and empathy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1627571791667-VI3MFOEJAPG7TOKU3A52/PaulaSchubatis-Studio_5942_2400px.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Paula Schubatis (Copy) Paula Schubatis is a Detroit-based artist, textile designer, and Art Teacher at Emerson Elementary-Middle School with a curiosity for the ritualistic and performative aspects of making and using objects. She defines her multifaceted practice as “a series of failed attempts at regulating excessive existential thoughts around material, object and experience”. Schubatis challenges herself to employ unconventional, overlooked, and often wasted materials to create singular objects which have the capacity to fulfil multiple functions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626219344116-QJHA4V0CJDWHTNEUZ3RZ/MotorCityStreetDanceAcademy.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Motorcity Street Dance Academy (Copy) Tapping into the creative economy blossoming in Detroit, Fresh Classics exists to provide a dancing experience unlike any other in the city. Hailing from different cities and crews, Fresh Classics consists of Mav-One(Team Gurren), Just, Seoul(61syx Teknique/Crooks Crew), Roy Da 5’5(Vertical Ambition), and Shane-T. Knowing what it takes to succeed as performing artists they would need to work with the best of the best, which is why every member is a teacher, mentor, or director who has spent years traveling in the competitive street dance scene. The group formed in 2016 rallied around raising the bar for street dance in Detroit & challenging themselves to bring a fresh style of movement to the forefront while carrying on the classic traditions they spent years training in. Fresh Classics bridges multiple styles with dynamic movements over a wide array of genres of music. Supporting many local artists and performing for some of the biggest names to come into Detroit, Fresh Classics always delivers! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626219409618-Y3JMTGCQL2HOIWYYUGGR/BalletFolklorico.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Ballet de Folklorico (Copy) A Detroit based community group of passionate dancers who dedicate their time, passion and talent to showcase traditional dances in an effort to preserve Mexican culture and traditions through dance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136830324-AS3LL62D52YGWN8UGTJR/StephanieHowells.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Stephanie Howells (Copy) Stephanie Mae RichWell is a visual artist and educator with a focus on the healing arts. When not teaching in the classroom, she enjoys facilitating community arts activities including Pendulum Painting and Hula-Hoop Making workshops https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136828097-GNBWEPARXBAITA6T9XUK/TalkingDolls_Andrea.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Talking Dolls + One Custom City (Copy) Talking Dolls is an artist studio and gallery, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The mission of Talking Dolls is to empower our Northeast Detroit neighborhood through justice-focused initiatives. We create a nexus of progressive art and community-led activism through access to our shop and exhibition facilities, the use of our infrastructure for performance and celebration, as well as experimental art workshops. Andrea Cardinal is representing Talking Dolls in this collaboration. One Custom City was founded in 2008, One Custom City offers screen-printed products that merge craft, creativity, and a deep connection to community. We all want to show the world who we are and what we care about. Everyone has passions and One Custom City wants to empower you to express yours. Andrea Cardinal is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Bowling Green State University, Principle of Tooth & Rag Design, and Co-Director of Talking Dolls Studio in Detroit. Talking Dolls is We are also home to a Banner and Poster Lending Library, from which the public can borrow oversize banners and hand-held placards for actions, to then be returned and re-used. Cardinal has run numerous workshops to add to the archive in support of some of the following organizations: Black Youth Project 100, The School for Poetic Computation with the Detroit Community Technology Project, Detroit Democratic Socialists of America, and the Summer Scholars program at the University of Notre Dame. In addition to this work, Cardinal is also the sole proprietor of Tooth & Rag, LLC, a freelance design company with over 15 years experience designing and concepting for clients at a variety of scales. Clients include The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Museum of the American Indian in New York, The Seidman College of Business, and Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. She has designed and developed all aspects of print, packaging, web, publication, exhibition, and user-experience design. Ron Watters is a product designer, artist, educator, and Detroiter. He is the owner and founder of One Custom City and SCIDE Design (Systems Combining Industrial Design and Engineering). Ron holds a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design from the University of Michigan. He has taught socially-minded entrepreneurship and graphic design as an instructor with Detroit Future Media, an initiative of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition and Allied Media Projects. He is also a member of the Move the Crowd True+Paid+Good Academy, a rigorous training founded by Rha Goddess to create a conscious entrepreneurial movement. Ron was a 2014 artist-in-residence at Detroit Community Schools as part of Detroit Connections, an initiative of the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design and has served on the Advisory Board for the Detroit Design Festival https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136827161-NCVYYMPUC6RML7T8QE2N/Ian+Fink+Photo+credit+Cy+Abdelnour.JPG Featured Artists (2025) - Ian Fink (Copy) I am a pianist, composer, producer and educator, based in the Detroit area. My practice is rooted in jazz piano, and I have performed as a soloist and as a sideman since the age of 14 when I began to perform with, and be mentored by, members of the Detroit jazz scene. My longtime mentors include Marcus Belgrave, Geri Allen and Tad Weed. I have performed with such artists as Marcus Belgrave, Benny Golson, Terri Lyne Carrington, Esperanza Spalding, Karriem Riggins, Robert Hurst, Shigeto and Savion Glover, and have been featured on recordings by Shigeto, Scott Groove, Omar-S, Black Milk, Waajeed, Robert Hurst, and many others. I perform solo and collaborate with other musicians regularly in and around the Detroit area, and tour nationally as well as internationally. (All of which have lessened dramatically since the pandemic.) I compose, produce and self-release music on my own label Freak Press. My productions are informed by the wide range of music that I consume as well as being heavily influenced by Detroit techno and house music. My craft is based in the traditions of Detroit jazz piano, and is focused on continuing the lineage of jazz music in Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136827217-SIG7C1AYOFMDJKYNDO3Z/LevonKafafian.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Levon Kafafian (Copy) Levon Kafafian tells stories of hybridity, healing and transition, weaving the worlds they envision into tangible objects and ephemeral experiences. Their practice is fluid and playful, employing textile processes and ancestral traditions to build characters, worlds and scenarios that live beyond modern day borders, gender norms and time. Levon has been a 5 year returning artist at Sidewalk, bringing experimental installations and performances to the festival in hybrid forms, exploring the magical, mystical and textile. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1627052051206-HT8KMAZSXPTKYT50US4K/Halima-Cassells-headshot.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Halima Afi Cassells (Copy) Halima Afi Cassells is an interdisciplinary community-engaged artist/ facilitator/ mom/ urban gardener who calls Waawiiyaataanong (often referred to as Detroit, MI) home. She credits gardening as inspiring her move away from painting to a practice where she aspires to use materials and processes that lead to the thriving of all (human and non-human) communities. Halima is the founder and co-director of the Free Market of Detroit, which explores notions of freedom, work, value, and disposability in a participatory context. As an advocate for all artists and cultural practitioners, she has spearheaded many community processes that uplift cultural capital from often-marginalized communities. Over the past 15 years, Halima has facilitated diverse groups of people through conversations, workshops, and collaborative creation, with an intention of deepening relationships and strengthening our collective power. She is a founding member of the Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition, and facilitator with PeoplesHub. Within her work in the Detroit community, Halima often facilitates conversations that intersect culture and justice. She often works with Allied Media Conference, Detroit Narrative Agency, and leads training on the Cultural Community Benefits Toolkit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136825963-SI3768RKBZQ9284EY1UR/Lara+Sarkissian+headshot+3.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Lara Sarkissian (Copy) Lara Sarkissian is a sound artist, electronic composer and DJ based in San Francisco. She explores familial narratives, diasporic intimacy, and social issues both in her music and visuals. Her electronic music weaves experimental approaches from dance and ambient along with Armenian instrumentation and sampling. She produces scores for spatial, multi-channel sound installations and video which have been exhibited internationally. Sarkissian is co-founder of CLUB CHAI in Oakland,CA ; a record label and curatorial project that artistically hybridizes non western sonic and visual worlds among contemporary western culture. Under the project, she has produced community sound workshops, broadcasts with Boiler Room TV, and events highlighting local artists in the Bay Area, Detroit, Chicago, New York - creating musical dialogue between artists across communities and cities. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1627572578507-IWXHI2OWFNS6B0PZI8QR/123_1-2.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Lisa McCall (Copy) Lisa McCall is a Producer, Choreographer, & CEO of LM Productions Entertainment Group & the former Choreographer and dance road manager for Aretha Franklin Group Booking Agent. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136823571-VAJR82OGWCHOS1A09EKG/Phil+Simpson.JPG Featured Artists (2025) - Art by Phillip Simpson (Copy) Phillip Simpson is a proclaimed painter and muralist, practicing for over 20 years. Working primarily with acrylic, spray paint and pencil, Simpson creates both private and public artwork with the relentless intention to make its viewers smile. Instinctively so, Simpson produces special 'smile-branded' paintings, murals and clothing. Simpson has over 8 public murals throughout the City of Detroit. Simpson currently resides in Detroit with his wife 2 daughters. He lives by motto One World, One Smile. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220415259-08LIRKGYQXK8G0707LT5/Olivia_Guterson_Headshot_12.2020.png Featured Artists (2025) - Olive Rae Gutterson (Copy) Olivia Guterson (b. 1990, Gallup, NM) lives and works in Detroit, MI. In 2020, she curated her first exhibition, The Space Between at the Ann Arbor Art Center. She presently is a resident at Sibyls Shrine and AS220’s Practice//Practice. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Arab American National Museum, Art Week Miami, JADA Art Fair, Norwest Gallery, Detroit Artist Market, Ann Arbor Art Center, The Scarab Club and more. She is a founding member of Art Mamas Alliance. Primarily through black ink, I create works that are a healing and truth-seeking investigation. In conversation with the materials I am marking, I layer ink as a means of mapping the present conditions and environment through the lens of my lived experience. My interest in pattern as language stems from my multiracial heritage, which inspires how the patterns relate to one another and stand alone. Accentuating the balance of black and white, busy and still, negative and positive, and the valid in-betweens, my linework is embedded in meticulous, instinctive wisdom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220477964-KKF0DWIGH6JU3VSIY8RG/ROnaldFordQWNTYMredFestival.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Ronald Ford (Copy) Ronald Ford Jr., also known as QWNTYM (Quantum), is a dancer, choreographer, and music producer/artist. QWNTYM excels in a contemporary variation of the Detroit original dance called Funkateer and along with his dance collective, Unstoppables, has shared the stage with world renowned acts such as Afrika Bambaataa, Run DMC, Los Hermanos, and AUX 88. As a music producer, QWNTYM’s Detroit Techno song, We R Unstoppable, has been played in venues that stretch from the Palace of Auburn to Romania. A driving force behind his art is to uplift the Detroit dance community as well as the local music scene. QWNTYM is a 2018 Kresge’s Fellow for dance and choreography, 2019 Knights Art Challenge recipient, as well as a 2019 AXD grant winner for his half concert, half dance showcase: Jit the Funk Up and Dance! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220536361-GJDT2080ZOTQTIYX87S3/TeneDismuke.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Tene Dismuke/House of Bastet (Copy) A cultural dance assemble of the six-member Detroit based company, led by Artistic Director Tene’ Dismuke, compares and contrasts all forms of ancient sacred women’s’ dances and healing movements with authentic human content to create an emotionally moving dance masterpieces, which are both visually beautiful and physically demanding. Wild Spirit Dance Company performs and educates audiences on the sacred and powerful divine feminine through the art of dance. Watching them will leave you feeling inspired, motivated with creative enthusiasm to move and expand your view on what hidden powers lie within the human form. The company was founded in June 2009 by the dance instructors at the House of Bastet LLC., an empowerment center focusing on healing through all forms of dance & movement with the purpose of reeducating minds of the connectedness of movement and the original intent behind it. Energy is moved wherever they perform and the choreography is infused with cultural and sacred history and knowledge which blends Modern, Samba, North African, West African, Afro-Haitian, Cuban, Hip Hop, Jazz and Hatha Yoga. You are sure to be delighted and your spirit will be moved as you watch Wild Spirit Dance Company radiate and dance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136823535-U94CKM01NJ6DN3SZZEOQ/EricScottBakerphoto+by+slumgullion+thousandaire.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Eric Scott Baker (Copy) Eric Scott Baker (the Facemaker) is a high-energy entertainer who is fun for all ages! He will add exciting circus-style performance with stilt walking, juggling, fascinating object manipulation, giant bubbles, LED performance, and more. Come to Sidewalk Festival and join Baker as he adds some extra color and excitement to the great city of Detroit! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626902626726-8NUUZUGXLYI9N7FHP5NV/Brandon+B%26W.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Brandon Waddles (Copy) Dr. Brandon Waddles, a Detroit native, is no stranger to the city’s rich legacy of vocal music in schools. An alumnus of Renaissance High School, he was a member of the Renaissance High School Varsity Chorus, under the direction of renowned music educator Nina Scott. Waddles credits Scott and the late Dr. Brazeal Dennard as founding influences on his work in choral music. He went on to receive his B.A. in Music from Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA) and an M.M. in Voice Performance & Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University (Princeton, NJ). Dr. Waddles earned his Ph.D. in Music Education with a Choral Conducting emphasis at Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL). Before pursuing his doctorate, he served on the Conducting and Sacred Music faculty at Westminster as conductor of the Westminster Jubilee Singers. As a composer, conductor, educator and music director, Dr. Waddles enjoys a multifaceted career spanning the musical gamut. His choral compositions and arrangements have been published and performed by choral ensembles around the world, including the Morehouse College and University of Michigan Glee Clubs, Oakwood Aeolians, Westminster Choir, Brigham Young University Singers and the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir. In 2019, he was awarded as the inaugural recipient of the ACDA Diverse Voices Collaborative Grant. For years, Dr. Waddles has worked as a transcriber of Black gospel music for numerous choral octavos, hymnals and hymnal supplements published by GIA, including his recent work as a contributor editor for the One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism hymnal. He recently released Just In Case You’ve Forgotten, the first selected compendium of works by the late Thomas Whitfield, the subject of his dissertation. Dr. Waddles has worked with a diverse array of artists, most recently serving as music director for Grammy-nominated recording artist Ledisi, collaborating with the celebrated singer on multiple occasions, including her Nina & Me concert series and the LEDISI: THE LEGEND OF LITTLE GIRL BLUE show-run at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. At the heart of Dr. Waddles’s work is his unwavering passion for Black sacred music, instilled within him at a very young age by his father, Alvin Waddles, one of Detroit’s most beloved musicians. His areas of research focus on Negro spirituals, the evolution of contemporary gospel music, and the life and work of Thomas Whitfield. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220748675-OLX20UBU7XQIIKGVZ6EY/UMS_Logo_Tagline_Black.png Featured Artists (2025) - UMS (Copy) A recipient of the 2014 National Medal of Arts, UMS (also known as the University Musical Society) contributes to a vibrant cultural community by connecting audiences with performing artists from around the world in uncommon and engaging experiences. One of the oldest performing arts presenters in the country, UMS is an independent non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Michigan, presenting over 70 music, theater, and dance performances by professional touring artists each season, along with over 100 free educational activities. UMS is committed to bold artistic leadership, engaged learning through the arts, and access and inclusiveness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220805403-RIRKLUYE04QQTH6V59M9/DJ+Jungle.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - DJ Jungle (Copy) Ron "DJ JUNGLE313"Johnson is a native Detroit DJ and educator who recognized a vital need to fill the creative gaps left by the public-school system’s abandonment of an arts curricula. He has a passion for music and sharing that with our next generation. Ron is committed to empowering disadvantaged youth and at-risk communities with music that inspires, rather than contributing to being a genre that perpetuates negative stereotypes of our youth. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626220864500-D1TDBRRMMD12WRNK5ZST/ArcPrep.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - ARC Prep (Copy) The University of Michigan Architecture Preparatory Program (ArcPrep) provides Detroit Public School juniors with an immersive, semester-long college preparatory course in architecture, urbanism and studio design. Meeting three hours per day, five days a week over the course of a semester, U-M ArcPrep works to broaden career horizons, meet future demand, and bring diverse voices into the fields of architecture, planning and design by serving students typically underrepresented in American architecture schools and thus the profession of architecture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626135740150-0N1NN89AXO4Z7RVXCB0K/Sarah+Mark.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Sarah Mark (Copy) Sarah Mark is an artist, designer and co-founder of the Neighborhood Arts School in Detroit. She has over a decade of industry experience designing for apparel manufacturers in the fashion industry, she produced her own boutique clothing line in Los Angeles, has run a non-profit art gallery and helped launch an ethical social business working with artisans in India & East Africa. Since moving to Detroit in 2012, she has immersed herself into fiber art and has exhibited her work throughout Michigan. Her dedication to ethical design informs her work as she uses almost entirely repurposed materials and is thoughtful about the impact of her work on people and the planet. Her husband, Billy Mark, is a performance artist and they have two sons named Silas and Nekoda. They are deeply invested in their community and together they run the Neighborhood Arts School out of a duplex in their North End neighborhood, blocks from their house. The Neighborhood Art School (N.A.S.) Is dedicated to offering affordable arts programming to residents of Detroit with a place-based, mentorship education model. The school is set up as a maker space for education focused on clothing design, music, recording, book making, and music lessons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137115343-G1MO1HM1XPBC9QQA7RX5/CheriseMorris.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Cherise Morris (Copy) Cherise Morris is spirit worker, poet, multidisciplinary artist and ritualist born and raised in rural Virginia and based in Detroit, MI. Her work merges experimental writing, poetry and prayer with performance, movement, sound and ritual practices to open loving, audacious and transformative spaces that invite us to explore, imagine and continu the individual and collective healing that enables us to create the world of our dreams, our future, free. Morris is currently at work on her ongoing project, "Visions of the Evolution: The Ritual-Performance Series." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137119236-6CQAH50YU7CUVO8DKHZN/CyrahDurdas.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Cyrah Durdas (Copy) Cyrah Dardas (b.1990) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, educator and community organizer based in Detroit, MI. Her work, inspired by themes of Queer identity and ecofeminism, includes drawing, painting, and installation. Dardas uses her art practice as a tool in remembering the forgotten networks between humans and the earth otherwise suppressed by colonialism and gender based trauma. She holds a BFA in painting from Wayne State University. Her work has been presented in 30+ exhibitions in Detroit, Chicago and New York. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626221025429-HTR7U6DIC3URJPO5O6HJ/DAM-JENNIFER+HARGE-PERORMANCE_-10.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Jennifer Harge (Copy) Jennifer Harge is an interdisciplinary choreographer, performance artist, and educator based in Highland Park, MI. Her work utilizes movement based performance and community gathering to center Black and queer vernacular movement practices, codes, and rituals. Harge’s most recent creative research is anchored in embodied archives, ancestral knowledge, Black fellowship, and Black churchicality. In 2014 she founded Harge Dance Stories to create a movement and performance platform centering Black subjectivity. Harge is the inaugural recipient of Queer|Art’s 2019 Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists, and the 2019 Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists. Her work has also been recognized by various institutions and foundations in the form of grant support, fellowships, performance and residency invitations, including: Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Kresge Arts in Detroit, Knight Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Yaddo, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, The Philadelphia Thing, Washington National Cathedral, and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137114423-Y1SYK2H6NBHJIJOF1IPB/JooriJung.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - ArtLabJ (Copy) Joori Jung is the Founder of ArtLab J and Artistic Director, and Choreographer of ArtLab J. Originally from Seoul, Korea, She danced with various dance companies in Korea and New York, she moved to Detroit to achieve her goal to expand contemporary dance as well as the arts community in Detroit and decided to establish ArtLab J in 2012. She strives to create spaces where people of all ages and abilities can learn, grow and connect through dance and culture. She believes that dance is for everyone. Founded in 2012 by Artistic Director Joori Jung, ArtLab J, as a 501(C)(3) non-profit organization, develops a robust set of programming under its three core branches: Dance, Lab, and Education of which function to advance the dance arts and connect people. Using the power of dance to not only bare our life stories but bridge them, ArtLab J unites persons across divides of race, age, sex, class, gender, religion, status, and experience. ArtLab J produces and directs the Detroit Dance City Festival (DDCF) - an annual community-building event in partnership with the Detroit Institute of Arts that celebrates dance in its various forms and disciplines to celebrate dance and culture diversity further https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137114120-YBESSIYFC3T1IF3LSLUS/Headshot_Meg_Unknown.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Meg Heeres (Copy) A native Michigander, Megan Heeres returned home from the West Coast in 2007 to study at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and settled in Detroit where she has been involved in the local arts community as an advocate, volunteer, and teacher. Megan has maintained an active studio art practice in the City and is a represented artist at Simone DeSousa Gallery. Megan’s art practice evolved along with her understanding and relationships in the City, professional endeavors and her art have connected into a collaborative way of working with community outside of the studio. These collaborations typically involve place, people, art and plants. They have ranged from large scale green space projects (Lafayette Greens Urban Garden, Beacon Park) that engage with a range of stakeholders, to the Invasive Paper Project which addresses invasive plants not as things to be cast-off, but rather as potential assets to our communities if managed carefully. Participants make their own paper and generate new ideas about how to treat our landscapes more holistically. She participates in projects locally and nationally, most recently at the Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center in Maryland and the Max M. Fisher Center in Detroit. Megan has been an artist-in- residence at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, the Michele Schara Residency at the Brightmoor Makerspace in Detroit, the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois, and the Santa Fe Art Institute and Women’s International Study Center in New Mexico. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626221130725-N0GFTKBWY2S12AX7NTQS/Thornetta+David+photo+cedit+Trilogy+Beats.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Thornetta Davis (Copy) Thornetta Davis is a 2018 Kresge Fellowship Awardee and The Official “Detroit’s Queen of Blues”. Thornetta’s lastest CD Honest Woman, which she wrote and produced, has won numerous awards including eight Detroit Music Awards, 2 BLUES MUSIC AWARDS 2017 Nominations for "Best Song" and "Best Blues Album Emerging Artist" also Blues Blast Magazine Music Award for “Best Soul/Blues Album, Thornetta was also nominated for a 2019 and 2020 Blues Music Award for best Soul/ Blues artist female. Thornetta also received a French 2017 La Academie du Jazz Award for Best Blues Album. Thornetta’s live performances will leave you feeling uplifted and asking for more. New York Music Daily "What better place than Lincoln Center for Thornetta Davis" “In an era where the blues has become a legacy style, like bluegrass and roots reggae – and a lot of bands play it like it’s an artifact in a museum – Davis and her band are a blast of fresh air.” AXS Gary Schwind says “Thornetta Davis is a Blues Powerhouse" Down Beat Magazine 2018 Monterey Jazz Fest performance “Thornetta, sang with no-nonsense sass, fearless in her missives against lovers, as she preached the blues” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626902495853-3FYMKBHO9UB4W2QEB3M3/AshleyLightseyThompson_Headshot1.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Ashley Lightsey (Copy) Ashley Lightsey-Thompson is a Certified Reiki Master Healer + Teacher, Crystal Lover, Intuitive, Voyager, Star Child, Tarot + Oracle Feeler, Tattoo Addict, Visionary, Herb + Plant Medicine + Tea Enthusiast. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Child Development from Michigan State University, and has 15 years of social work and healing experience. http://lightseyreikiworks.com/ https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626137107405-4GR668HGQ6Q8OVDP82V3/Matthew+Daher+Headshot+with+PC.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Matthew Daher (Copy) Matthew Daher is a Musician, Multimedia Artist, and Counselor/Expressive Arts Therapist, and one of the creators and co-organizers of Spectral Slumber. His creative work is an exploration of mental health, empathy, masculinity, spirituality, and healing. His practices are informed by 15 years of experimentation in ambient, electroacoustic, jazz, hip-hop, and folk music, meditation practice, and Authentic Movement practices. He holds a BMus in Jazz Performance from McGill University and a M.A. in Counseling and Expressive Arts Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies. IG: @matthewdahermusic https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626136084656-SSNCKOW63JD51XZWAW6V/Paulette+CU+by+Leslie+Bryan.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Paulette Brockington (Copy) Paulette Brockington currently holds 2 positions at Michigan State University as an Assistant Professor of Dance in the Theatre Department and as a Master Teacher in the Michigan Traditional Arts Program. She is a former Arts Educator of the Year and Michigan Heritage Award Fellow. She directs A Company of Dancers, The American Lindy Hop Championships and has an online and downloadable dance app called Savoy Dance Bums. Additionally, she is a Fulbright Specialist for World Learning in the US State Department with a 3-year appointment ending in 2025. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626218640151-IXO4HEJ0FGE3DVW2NN1S/Ollie-4.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Ollie Dodt (Copy) Ollie Dodt is an interdisciplinary artist and flower farmer. They founded Villekulla Flora in 2018. Villekulla Flora is an urban flower and herb farm, a perennial work in progress and a social space striving for intersectional queer sanctuary. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626221556068-XZPWXXPSBIUQ9H297DEY/SonyaClark+-+Cranbrook+_+Riverfront.png Featured Artists (2025) - The Healing Memorial Project (Copy) The Riverfront Conservancy and Cranbrook Art Museum present he Healing Memorial by Sonya Clark. The creation of The Healing Memorial will be a summer-long engagement at the public sites programmed by the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, such as Valade Park and the Dequindre Cut, as well as various stakeholder sites throughout the metro area. Pop-up making stations will be organized throughout Wayne, Oakland, and Malcomb counties. An instructional video will be available for individual and group participation in creating contributions to the memorial that will be collected at designated drop-off locations. The first phase of the memorial will premiere on August 31, 2021, but the project will continue to take submissions and expand its physical footprint at the TCF Center. The project was conceived by world-renowned and Cranbrook-educated artist Sonya Clark as an interpretation of her Beaded Prayer exhibit, which has traveled the world for more than a decade. For this project, residents will be encouraged to create small memorial pouch (fits in the palm of the hand) using fabric from their loved ones or donated material. These fabric pouch will be gathered by the thousands to create a tapestry of memories to be displayed at Detroit’s TCF Center downtown. Learn more about the project and how to get involved: https://detroitriverfront.org/thehealingmemorial https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626304468973-F033BU64RUP0Z2XKPX24/Credit_+LaMarre+And+Dancers+featuring+the+James+Cornish+Ensemble.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) Lisa Rose LaMarre Wilmot is a choreographer testing the boundaries of performance-based responsive artwork and screen dance: working to bring dance away from the stage and into the realm of everyday life. Lisa has created over 100 original live art performances, 6 dance films, and was a 2018 Kresge LiveArts Panelist. Her focus is on the utility of the human body in response to sites, sounds, and surrounding stimulates. She is the director of LaMarre and Dancers, teaches at Wayne State University, and is a teaching artist for Michigan Arts Access where she shares dance making with special education classrooms. Lisa holds a Master in Arts in Teaching Artistry, in Theater and Dance, from Wayne State University and a Bachelor of Arts from Western Michigan University where she was a Presidential Scholar. She is a member of both Michigan Dance Council and National Dance Education Organization. Her work has been produced for Wayne State University, Grand Valley State University, Oakland University, ArtPrize7, Defibrillator Gallery, DDCdances, People Dancing, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit Contemporary, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Music Hall, Sidewalk Detroit, ArtPeers, Multikulti, What You Will Festival, WNUR, Hatch Arts, Pubic Pool, Chicago Calling, Rapid Pulse, Access Arts, and numerous public and private spaces nationally. Lisa has been a seed grant recipient for ArtPrize 7 premiering “They Were Displaced...And Again” in an unused house curated by res345 at The Rumsey Street Project. Her film “mechanical response” was exhibited at N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, and most recently she’s been investigating intergenerational exchanges and how authentic movement can generate vulnerable, honest dance in response to the environment and the people sharing energy in that space at the same time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626905561565-MMV37H1DQJ0T0R8NZONG/4883r8x10-naimashamborguer-2.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Naima Shamborguer (Copy) With the sultry, smooth style reminiscent of Sarah Vaughan, jazz aficionados call her the last of a dying breed whose sensuous, clear vocals are a voice for the 21st Century. Naima Shamborguer was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Born to a musical family, professional musicians surrounded her. From her early days of musical training, Naima developed highly artistic and finely polished vocal abilities through extensive training in classical and jazz music, but jazz music is where Naima has made a successful career. On two occasions Naima received The Spirit of Detroit award from the City Council of Detroit In recognition of exceptional achievement, outstanding leadership and dedication to improving the quality of life educationally and “The Women in Jazz.” The late Hugh Lawson deemed her “the closest that he has ever heard to Sarah Vaughan, all she needs is to be heard.” A “Motown “ treasure, Naima has performed nationwide with the finest jazz greats known to the world, including Freddie Hubbard, Marcus Belgrave, James Carter, Geri Allen, Kenny Burrell, Barry Harris, Donald Byrd, Steve Turre, Larry Willis, Rodney Whitaker, Donald Walden, Marion Hayden and Wendell Harrison, Ken Cox and Charlie Gabriel, Sean Dobbins, and Tad Weed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626902107280-NAGVTRD5JSFKP9DR0NWO/DetroitAudobon.png Featured Artists (2025) - Detroit Audubon (Copy) At Detroit Audubon, our mission is to foster appreciation and conservation of birds and the environment we share. We Strive to bring nature and people together, in a way that serves both. Detroit Audubon functions with three passionate part-time staff members that work diligently to run our public and in-class education programs, field trips, citizen science projects, bird population monitoring research efforts, and office administration. We are proud to work closely with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Detroit Parks and Recreation Department, and especially local community leaders and members. We offer assistance to any neighborhood or group interested in supporting and embracing wildlife in Detroit. In effort to fulfill our mission, Detroit Audubon has three goals: 1) Expand bird and nature appreciation and understanding for all metro-Detroit residents, 2) Increase actions and decisions by metro-Detroit communities and city officials that support healthy bird and wildlife populations, 3) Expand and improve bird habitat within and around Detroit. Detroit Audubon uses several effective strategies to accomplish our goals. We provide regular field trips that are open to everyone, provided for little to no cost. We host regular, free informational webinars on topics such as Beginner Birding, Attracting Birds, and Native Plants for Wildlife. We provide programs for schools and children that function with place- and exploration-based learning and allow children to develop their interests. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1626902140022-U4HQF7OV70OJWISRBHV6/Reshounn+Foster+Photo+CreditTinisha+Brugnone.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Reshounn 'Sun' Foster (Copy) Legacy Detroiter Reshounn “Sun” Foster is a community-oriented Healing Artist, Creative Citizen, and Professional Butterfly whose work intersects healing arts, mental and emotional hygiene, creative writing, hospitality, architecture, design, and activism according to her family legacy, African American culture and neighboring. Her cultural organizing in the North End began when deepening her 30 year spiritual connection to a familial home and the land. In 2012, she themed the home Hip n Zen Northend, a healing arts dojo and creative incubator that has become translocational. Extending comforting vibes beyond home, she found passion for community engagement. Ideating events, synthesizing information, and solving problems with neighbors projects enthuse her. Co-founding the Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition (OAAC) lead her to the path of artivism with her co-founders, neighbors, and community leaders. She’s played integral roles co-developing The Northend Urban Expressions Community Arts Festival: The Healing (2013-2014), ONE Mile (2014), The Legacy of Funk Concert (2014), The Garage, the OAUF Detroit Month of Design (2017), the King St. Block LLC (2020) and other neighborhood experiences. Reshounn is a featured storyteller in North End Storytellers, N.E.S.T., a documentary produced by the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm (2017), the “Urban Biographies: Ancient and Modern” online exhibit at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (2018), and Coffee Break, hosted by award-winning podcast producer Sarah Werner (2016). She is a 2020-21 Artist in Residence at POETIC SOCIETIES Transmedia Arts & Healing Technologies Global Network where she explores the natural connections between the ancestral and digital technologies in participatory and celebratory modes. Her personal essay “Live Up to Your naME” appears in the anthology Destined to Win by Mary Segars (June 2021). Her recent and ongoing collaborative community projects include: American Riad/North End Woodward Community Land Trust (2020-Present) and CommunityLibrary, Oakland Avenue Urban Farm (2021-Present). Reshounn was Sidewalk Detroit’s Production + Artist Relationships Manager (2017-2018). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628789816401-M3GCSWH18DZ2ICXGC3D9/unnamed.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Ahya Simone (Copy) Ahya Simone is a Detroit-based harpist, singer, artist, and organizer. She earned her degree from Wayne State University, where she was the principal harpist for the Wayne State University Wind Symphony in 2011. She has performed extensively in Detroit, and internationally in Scotland and Canada. Ahya’s versatile approach to harp and vocal artistry includes classical, jazz, and soul. She is also an emerging filmmaker, and was awarded a Knight Sundance Fellowhip in 2018. She is in the midst of developing “Femme Queen Chronicles,” a web-series sponsored by the Trans Sistas of Color Project and the Detroit Narrative Agency 2.0 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628695899890-RQZEDGXAAP9R80JSNYMZ/IMG_4870.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Gabriel Brass Band (Copy) This Brass Band honors the rich history of New Orleans music while bringing fun and funk to you live and direct! Spear headed by 5th generation musician Dameon Gabriel, with a few Gabriel family members and a host of close friends, continues the New Orleans flavor that the Gabriel family brought to the Motor City in the 1940’s via New Orleans. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628877455898-0EJ6Z6I1WHNQYUJNHCO7/logo_whitebg.jpg Featured Artists (2025) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628877263192-8DXTMXUCH0YLXJNTQH16/MOT+Concert+2.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Olivia Johnson, Michigan Opera Theatre (Copy) Olivia Johnson, born in Jacksonville, NC, is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she earned her Master’s degree while studying under Professor George Shirley. Last year she was the resident mezzo-soprano at Toledo Opera in Toledo, Ohio for the 20/21 season. In October 2020, Ms. Johnson appeared with Michigan Opera Theatre as the second Rheinmaiden, Wellgunde, under the direction of Sharon Yuval in his re-imagining of Wagner’s Ring Cycle in the modern adaptation, Twilight: Gods. After performing the comprimario role of the Girlfriend in Daniel Sonenberg’s The Summer King at MOT in 2018, Ms. Johnson made her second appearance with MOT in the role of La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi) followed by Buoso’s Ghost by Michael Ching. Wherein she was reviewed in Opera News as “…the intriguing mezzo-soprano Olivia Johnson and her cool, stylish demeanor as La Ciesca.” She performed Mathilde in Opera MODO’s innovative re-telling of Poulenc’s Dialogue of Carmelites. Ms. Johnson made her soloist appearance with the Rackham Choir in Richard Einhorn’s “Voices of Light” at the Detroit Institute of the Arts and her solo debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in their annual Classical Roots Gala. Ms. Johnson was the first-place winner of the 2017 National Vocal Arts Competition for Emerging Artists sponsored by the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club, Inc. She also appeared in the role of Mercédès (Carmen) at the Martina Arroyo Foundation, Prelude to Performance. Ms. Johnson attended the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria making two solo appearances with their orchestra. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628877267937-LB7OYLSHL592DTCNTQ9N/Davone+Tines+HS.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Davóne Tines (Copy) Michigan Opera Theatre’s Artist-in-Residence and Curator of the 8th Annual Sidewalk Festival MOT performance. Heralded as “[one] of the most powerful voices of our time” by the Los Angeles Times, the “immensely gifted American bass-baritone Davóne Tines has won acclaim, and advanced the field of classical music” (The New York Times) as a path-breaking artist whose work not only encompasses a diverse repertoire but also explores the social issues of today. As a Black, gay, classically trained performer at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics, his work blends opera, art song, contemporary classical, spirituals, gospel, and songs of protest, as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance that connects to all of humanity. Mr. Tines is Artist-in-Residence at Michigan Opera Theatre—an appointment that culminates in his performance in the title role of Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X in the spring of 2022—and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale’s first-ever Creative Partner. His ongoing projects include Recital No. 1: MASS, a program exploring the Mass woven through Western European, African-American, and 21st-century traditions, with performances this season at the Ravinia Festival, in Washington, DC presented by WPA, and at the Barbican in London. He also performs Concerto No. 1: SERMON—a program he conceived for voice and orchestra that weaves arias by John Adams, Anthony Davis, Igee Dieudonné and Mr. Tines himself, with texts by James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou—with the Philadelphia Orchestra and BBC Symphony. Mr. Tines is a member of AMOC and co-creator of The Black Clown, a music theater experience commissioned and premiered by The American Repertory Theater and presented at Lincoln Center. He has premiered works by today’s leading composers, including John Adams, Terence Blanchard, and Matthew Aucoin, and his concert appearances include performances of works ranging from Beethoven’s Ninth with the San Francisco Symphony to Kaija Saariaho’s True Fire with the Orchestre national de France. Davóne Tines is a winner of the 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, recognizing extraordinary classical musicians of color. He also received the 2018 Emerging Artists Award from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and is a graduate of Harvard University and The Juilliard School. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Featured Artists (2025) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688916368056-5CF0ZAFNHUQEOP274NAH/image0.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Queen Gabby (Copy) Photo Credit: James Terry https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688912403947-HSA8S28X3YXPDAWKR1EF/shua+3.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Shua Group (Copy) Shua Group - shuagroup.org - is performance based artist group founded by movement artist and choreographer Joshua Bisset and directed by Joshua and dancer and visual artist Laura Quattrocchi (@lauraquattrocchi). Currently the company is joined by dancer Trishawna Woods (@trishawna_w) a street dancer, improviser, and producer. Shua Group creates stage and site-specific performances, interactive installations and short film. Through movement, voice, and light Shua Group creates artworks which are at once formal and chaotic, accessible and difficult to describe. They reside in the present, offer our bodies and voices in direct raw states, get at details of who we are and offer audiences possibilities to transform themselves through action. Title: Something Together Social: @shuagroup for IG and FB Photo: Darrien Pope @darrienthepope Costume Design: Sarah Mark @sarahmarkdetroit https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689204274510-IFBQ4NEY7RHK2O5ARFUR/SISTAZ+2+.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Sophiyah E. & The S.O.L Tribe (Copy) Detroit native, Sophiyah E. is a multi-sensory artist, sonic meditation practitioner + cultural conduit who uses sound and technology to encourage collective liberation and spiritual reverence. Through community organizing and production, her practice explores deepening connections for legacy building and overall wellness. She is the founder of Afro Moone, a Detroit-based holistic resource providing integrative wellness activations, advocacy design, production and accessible aides for community care. Sophiyah also impels a story-telling lens as artist relations and Director of programs for D.Cipher, a non-profit organization amplifying the Michigan music economy through artist development resources and event curation. Sophiyah's passion for integration honors ancestral influence and radical sound design to convey messages of empowerment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688916608936-4FM8W0I3972Z1OMRRD14/LCT+Promo+1.+Photo+by+C.+Weis.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Lis Chere Thomas and Linden Godlove (Copy) "Sun Celebration" by Lis Chere Thomas and Linden Godlove Lis (she/they) Lis Chere Thomas is a performance artist, urban farmer, and environmental scientist, in no particular order. Lis' movement-focused practice incorporates elements of dance and circus arts around themes of climate change, urban ecosystems, and anthropogenic impacts to the natural world. Lis was a 2020 Gilda awardee and runs Bloomtown Detroit, a flower farm in East Poletown. IG: @art.hurts @bloomtown.detroit www.lischere.com www.bloomtowndetroit.com Linden (she/her): Linden Godlove's art strives to capture the ineffable: scattered notions, vague dreams, but also the endurance of beauty amidst the dark. Her art is a meditation on the symbiotic relationship of all life: humans, animals, plants and how they intertwine and have cohesion. Linden Godlove is a transplant to the Detroit area. She enjoys searching for the unexpected in the seemingly commonplace. instagram.com/lindenartworks facebook.com/lynzcreates lindenartworks.com Photo Credit: C. Weis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688912915224-RBME2LB3571ARSJKX6SM/RicanStruction23.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - RicanStruction (Copy) Ozzie is a Latin drummer and leader of La Inspiracion (a full set Latin orchestra) and RicanStruction (Puerto Rican Bomba folkloric troupe). Although born in Puerto Rico, he has lived in Detroit most of his 60+ years, integrating the best of both worlds into his vocations. He is also an educator, consultant re: Latin Caribbean & Afro Latino culture and history. Ozzie has been playing percussion since the 1950's. He's performed with some of Detroit's greatest dancers and musicians over the years. RicanStruction is currently his main musical act. The group consists of 3-7 drummers, vocalists and 2-4 dancers. Our performances always get the crowd involved! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688913163150-6V8YBEV2IKBQLW713PZ3/120533691_10158977385061967_4684976163609890241_n.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Bryce Detroit (Copy) Bryce Detroit is the multimodal Afrofuturist artist, activist, griot, designer, and pioneer of Entertainment Justice. As a national award-winning music producer and curator, Bryce Detroit utilizes his social practice to demonstrate the power of using music entertainment arts, sociocultural iconography, and native legacies to preserve, produce, and promote new Diasporic Afrikan narratives, cultural literacies, and cooperative neighborhood-based economies. Bryce Detroit is a 2023 Planetary Self artist-in-residence, a 2020 Harvard University Council of the Arts award recipient, 2019 New Museum Ideas Cities Fellow, a 2018 Race Forward - Rinku Sen Innovation Awardee, as well as a 2017 Knight Arts Challenge award winner. Bryce Detroit was also selected as music curator and lead performer for the 10th St Etienne International Design Biennale, representing Detroit as a UNESCO City of Design. Bryce Detroit curated and produced all live music programming for the event’s two-week opening, becoming the first music curator in the Biennale’s twenty-year history. A prominent activist and community advocate, Bryce Detroit grows intersectional self-determined communities as a founding member of Oakland Avenue Artists Coalition, founding organizer of Detroit Community Wealth Fund, consultant at Center for Community Based Enterprises (C2BE), board member for East Michigan Environmental Action Council, and founding member of the art-activism collective Frontline Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688913749187-IQ6T5YT5NGOLGY3JPP10/Kashira_Portriat.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Kashira Dowridge (Copy) Kashira Dowridge is a Visual Artist based in Detroit, Her practice lies in researching social factors in psychology through textile, lens, film, audio, and painting that is represented throughout her works. As a survivor of sexual and traumatic experiences, Kashira’s work seeks to create a safe space for all individuals regardless of how they identify to elevate, process, and release spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical bonds that hinder a person’s path towards wholeness. Kashira’s visual pieces act as healing spaces that reflect social and emotional topics specific to the local communities they are displayed in. Her work encourages people to move within these spaces to encounter and define their own understanding of peace and vulnerability. Guided by her experiences, Kashira allows her heart to lead in creative ways to voice awareness in forms that are appropriate for the given topics in society or oneself. She does various forms of film and portraits of individuals, allowing her subjects to explore their vulnerability in a healing space. She is constantly inhabiting new disciplines to expand her ability to translate emotion into a broader visual language. This has led her to experiment with sounds, colors and visuals that demonstrate stillness with materials such as fabrics and elements from nature to form storytelling. Kashira’s perspective of wellness allows the human senses to embrace the depth of vulnerability in a sentimental way. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688914229839-VKKKOBI5ML1FQJ1ES5OD/Spirit_Plaza_Dorian.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Detroit Opera (Copy) Detroit Opera is the premier multi-disciplined producer and presenter for opera, musical theatre, and dance in the Great Lakes Region. Based in the city of Detroit, the organization engages artists of national and international stature for stellar main stage and outreach performances, and provides compelling cultural enrichment programs for the diverse audiences and communities that it serves, making it one of Detroit’s pillars of arts and culture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688914621442-TYRSCIK3UFCTSNJOQTEN/solo.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Iman “Ayman“ Aboutaleb (Copy) Iman “Ayman“ Aboutaleb has been performing a traditional Arabic folklore line dance called, dabke, since he was 10 years old on a youth dance team in elementary school. He started his teaching career at the Arab American National Museum where he teaches different levels from beginner to advanced. In 2019 he founded the Thowra Dabke Troupe with the students who completed the curriculum. Thowra is an all-inclusive coed community based dabke dance troupe that offers affordable classes and performances for all occasions. They use traditional and modern elements to give a fresh, exciting, and authentic dabke experience. Their goal is to make dabke more accessible to the community. Ayman and his team have travelled throughout Michigan and different states performing and teaching to share the culture and joy that dabke brings. Photo credit: Alex Flores https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688914795361-I5XPL0O2MWFY1L2KEMRR/Shin_Sidewalk_Headshot_1.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Amanda Shin (Copy) Amanda Shin was born and raised in Detroit, and after years of living in Los Angeles, has returned to her hometown. With a background in architecture, she is interested in installations at the human scale, and how space informs moods. As an Asian American, her work shows her unique point of view of the blend of Asian and Midwestern American culture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688915311112-0Y4B71AK8DYWVRP2C2I6/DivineProvidence-54%2B%25281%2529.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - LuFuki and Divine Providence (Copy) LuFuki and Divine Providence is a creative improvised music collective that combines elements of classical, rock, “jazz,” and world music. Each member brings their unique experiences and interpretations that bring about emotion and spontaneity for each performance. The intention of the group is to connect hearts and promote solidarity, freedom, and social action through their unique storytelling sonic sessions. Social Media Links: IG: @lufuki.divineprovidence FB: @lufukianddivineprovidence Website: www.lufuki.org Youtube: @Lufuki_Detroit https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688915615934-AOCYSTZ027IH3YNF3PWP/IMG_0317.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Flying Cardboard Theater (Copy) Flying Cardboard Theater was formed in 2019 and is a collaboration between two puppeteer friends, Lindsay McCaw and Jason Hicks. As Flying Cardboard Theater, we write, build and perform puppet shows, produce the Detroit Cantastoria Festival (cantastoria: a form of street theater using painted banners), collaborate with many local artists and we use art and performance to support local social justice issues. We believe live puppet theater brings people together and keeps our imaginations alive. Website: www.flyingcardboardtheater.com IG: flyingcardboardtheater facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flyingcardboardtheater Photo by Lindsay McCaw (with cacti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688915975821-MMBZQZBXGPBWGWLGHI16/391+%282%29.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - One Single Rose (Copy) Rosemarie Wilson a.k.a. One Single Rose is an award winning poet and playwright, spoken word artist, singer/songwriter, actress and filmmaker from Detroit who performs wherever her words are welcomed. Go to Onesinglerose.com to peek at her rose garden. Photo Credit: Trilogy Beats https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688916111833-HL7UTPP3T97QVC7870E1/IMG_7475.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Trishawna Woods (Copy) Trishawna is a dancer and emerging choreographer from southwest Detroit. From an early age, she felt a divine connection to music and her body, which sparked a purpose in her as a movement artist. Trishawna is well versed in house dance, hip-hop, breaking, vogue, waacking, and contemporary dance styles. She explores this diversity of techniques through improvisation, letting her influences flow naturally, finding bridges between styles. Trishawna seeks to push the boundaries of dance culture through performances that respect and validate all forms. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688916827426-TNM8C3MMHFOZML4HTZY4/Photo+by+Dori+Sumter+2.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Emily Rogers (My Detroit Players) (Copy) Emily Rogers is a multifaceted artist. Her diverse musical influences are apparent in her creative works as a Songwriter, musician, dancer and DJ. An adept band leader and dynamic bass player, she has traveled nationally and internationally performing original music. She is a cardinal force in building platforms that provide a fertile environment for many artists and ideas to foster and grow. Emily contributes to the vibrancy of the Detroit community by curating inclusive concerts, live recordings, jam sessions, micro festivals and multi-media events which bring a wide variety of people together to meet initially and experiment creatively while forging new projects, groups and friendships. Emily recognizes her responsibility as an artist seeking to inspire and empower with her gifts, intentionally cultivating space to construct a symbiotic platform that generates music with a mission, art with a purpose and shared value for all. Her work was recently awarded the 2020 Gilda Snowden Emerging Artist Award from the Kresge Arts Foundation. Emily Rogers has an eclectic catalog of original music, a plethora of performance chronicles, and tons of artistic adventures. Her universal outlook grounded in faith has bestowed her with the courage to boldly blaze new trails into uncharted artistic vision, lighting her path with the energy of a Rock Star! Photo Credit: Dori Sumter https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688917606342-V2UP62MC6TSGZ1WPF8ZT/001286410001.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - DAAY (Copy) I was raised on the east side of Detroit. I began playing piano at age four and at the age of 17, I moved to England and pursued my bachelor’s degree in Popular Music at Falmouth University. While at school, I participated in a study abroad program at ArteZ in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, I studied Jazz Voice and pursued an internship at a local studio. At university, I began my practice in music production and sound art. In 2018, I moved back to Detroit, and I released my first EP October as a singer-songwriter/artist. In October of 2021, I put up my first sound art installation. In 2022, I won the Kresge Artist Fellowship for Music. I have two artistic practices which are related, and also parallel. My sound art practice is rooted in experimentation and my practice as a music producer/songwriter is rooted in expression. In my sound art practice, I like to use the negro spiritual as the raw material for experimentation, considering all American Popular music has derived from it. The music is wrought with a lot of history and pain and as someone who grew up in a Black Church, the negro spiritual was my first introduction to music. So, I like taking this heavy and dense sonic material and warping it. Through sound design, sampling, and sound synthesis I create this new piece of sound art that is rooted in form of music that is generations old but rendered in an abstract way – where the “blues” of the sound becomes peaceful, ethereal, and meditative. By using field recordings, samples, interviews, and composed scores, I aim to create soundscapes that sanctify our culture, voices, and experiences. As a music producer and songwriter, I simply want to create music and assist in the creation of music that moves people. Society doesn’t consider R&B, Rap, Hip-hop, techno, house, punk, blues, etc. high art especially when there are Black folks performing or creating it, but the amount of skill and talent it takes to create the music that has become the American popular music canon doesn’t elude me. As a music producer, I want to contribute and expand upon this in my own way. I’m a multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, and beat maker and these are all skills I employ when creating my own music and working with others. All my collaborators right now are other women in music, and I am proud of this. In an industry that is mostly male dominated, my goal is to nurture the work other women create and envision, so that our perspectives are shared honestly. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688915467637-58WEGIFX93X93BRDZLP9/TonjaTheDisruptorPhoto.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Tonja The Disruptor (Copy) Tonja The Disruptor is a multidisciplinary community engaged artist who hails from the heart of Detroit. Spanning conceptual art, performance, writing and directing, her practice centers Black women and Black Detroit. Tonja’s honors include a New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship. Her features include CulturePop and the Afrofuturist Affair. Tonja is currently in residence with Inside Out Literary Arts. 2023 marks Tonja’s third activation at the Sidewalk Festival. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688917325811-KWBG737SSE7TIWPRDJCU/Sofa+Stories_2nd+shoot_6_web.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Sofa Stories (Copy) Sofa Stories: OUTside uses live theatre & digital media to amplify the stories of young LGBTQ+ people impacted by housing insecurity or homelessness who may have resorted to couch-surfing as a means to survive. Featuring monologues created in collaboration with LGTBQ+ youth who have experienced homelessness, the project aims to bring attention to an often-invisible crisis and imagine a world without youth homelessness. Originally conceived by 2020 Kresge Artist Fellow Andrew Morton, Sofa Stories is an ongoing project of the recently formed Every Soul Arts, a Detroit-based collective of artists, care providers, housing activists, and people with lived experience of homelessness who believe every person should have access to safe and affordable housing and opportunities to explore and celebrate their own creativity. Instagram: @sofastoriesdetroit Facebook: www.facebook.com/sofastoriesdetroit Photo Credit: Shekinah Shazaam Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1688917580942-LYUMQVWU9JD6BWGJLR37/IMG-0546.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - House of Jit (Copy) House of Jit is a collective group of artists specializing in Detroit's footwork style known as Jit. The company was founded in 2019, by three dancers who share a passion for this unique style. Over the years, members have held Jit workshops nationally and internationally in France, Bolivia, Canada, Los Angeles, New York, and many more. They have also been featured on platforms such as Red Bull, Footlocker, Snipes, So You Think You Can Dance, the NBA, and Forbes Magazine. Our mission is to make Detroit Jit a style welcome to many homes and atmospheres and to spread the heart of the city with it. We welcome you to the House of Jit, where Jit Happens. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689205072113-31MSEZ5A7Q0Q8KFJEABW/FM_AliAllanColding-e1675793207888-200x200.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Allan Colding (Copy) Allan Colding is a seasoned professional jazz musician with national and international experiences, living and practicing in Detroit. He has performed at most of Detroit’s major music venues and has played with world class musicians and singers such as James “Blood” Ulmer, John Dana, Ron English, Ken Cox, Marcus Belgrave, Leon Henderson, Charles Moore, Ed Pickens, Sam Sanders, Harold and Ray McKinney, Wendell Harrison, Dorothy Ashby, Gloria Lynn, Kim Weston, Fred Anderson, Noah Howard, Faruq Z. Bey, Hakim Jami, and more. Colding received his musical education from drummers Rudy Tucich, Sr., Doug Hammond, Roy Brooks, J.C. Herd, Jimmy Allen, Ron Johnson, Danny Spencer, and George Davidson, as well as through conversations with Elvin Jones and private lessons with Robert Pangborn Sr., percussionists with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Jack Luddingham at the Teal School of Music. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689206454162-UHH2JXNPZ56YAGXK0HC8/ED943DA4-15AB-4F27-945C-449F74C4C477_1_105_c.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Celia Benvenutti (Copy) Celia Benvenutti is an Afro-Latina dance artist, native Detroiter, and Howard University alumna. She has been studying dance for the past 25 years under the tutelage of Madame Penny Godboldo, former professor of dance at Marygrove College and certified Dunham Technique dance instructor. Benvenutti’s background includes extensive training in the Dunham Technique, classical ballet, modern (Horton), jazz, traditional African, and Afro-Caribbean dances. She focuses on creating choreography centered in the Afro-Caribbean fused with Dunham Technique. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689207152122-QOHKZ31KOK55M6HLTH92/9DD48F3F-4DFB-4A4E-9157-2C7B81DAEF84.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Gabriela Gibson (Copy) I am a visual artist who is inspired by the endless possibilities of nature. I work with found materials to reimagine the world around us. I teach workshops on “up-cycling,” create immersive instillations from trash art, design textiles with plant-based natural dye techniques, and Cyanotype solar photo prints from foraged plants and the sun. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689286333729-5LVHFCKY0IMA9G1PNRU8/342070172_950163949459196_5260070741596753551_n+%281%29.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - JRGotTheHiTS & Master Student (Copy) Divine restraint and manifest destiny have become the definitive marks of JRGotTheHiTS’ career as an artist, producer, and composer. JRGotTheHiTS channels his upbringing in a family of musicians and ministers, (as well as ancestral wisdom), into layered experiences that blend seamlessly across genre or platform. Following in the tradition of his bloodline, he fuses music and spirituality into creative works that raises the consciousness of listeners and collaborators without sacrificing showmanship. Instead, he satisfies his taste for organic sounds that induce nostalgic warmth and timeless reverence by enlisting the help of fellow musicians that comprise the loose collective & publishing company AGiLE SOCiETY. JRGotTheHiTS process of capturing the sampled feel of golden-era hip-hop through recreating those sounds live in-studio is featured across the AGiLE SOCiETY album GOLDEN RATiO and is signature to his admittedly diverse production style. Driven by his intuitive understanding of rhythm and arithmetic as a drummer and percussionist, JRGotTheHiTS fuses his textbook agility with master level improvisation that rewards listeners for their attention. This is most evident on collaborations with artists like emerging icon Yuneer Gainz and hip-hop legend Royce Da 5’9 alike. Providing executive production for independent artists like KID VISHIS and Boog Brown, JRGotTheHiTS also continues to prepare his Summer 2023 album RETURN of the PEOPLE MOVER. The independent-jazz album explores nonverbal communication, spreading 13 instrumental vignettes across a listening experience that mimics riding the historic Detroit People Mover, a novelty mass-transit project that was meant to bring the motor city into the future of public transportation. Though it homages late 80’s Detroit culture, RotPM is inspired by events in JRGotTheHiTS’ personal life ranging from the growth of his family to his spiritual awakening as a Moslem. Each of these details drives JRGotTheHiTS to take seriously his commitment to uplifting others through music and vibration. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689286775925-VY939OICKZ3YRIBGVGBW/Glownival_Nightime_LizaLewis2021.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Liza Lewis & Carolyn Catlos (Copy) Liza Lewis is a floral designer and botanical installation artist living and working in Detroit. She uses fresh and dried flora, lighting, and sculptural components in her work to explore the elements of the nature. Carolyn Catlos is a Detroit artist, educator, and natural builder. Her work uses natural materials to explore concepts of identity and relationships. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689705249640-5O367L7NWY2DYSPN179Y/001410510011.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Bakpak Durden (Copy) Bakpak Durden, born and raised in Detroit, is a self-taught multi-hyphenate antidisciplinary artist, alchemist, and mystic. Pulling from various figurative art techniques and styles [i.e. hyperrealism, baroque, and surrealism] Bakpak employs a wide range of mediums—oil and acrylic paint, graphite, film photography, and the written word —to construct their hyper-surrealistic and conceptual works of art. Durden’s artworks illuminate the complexity and precarity of human emotion, Universal existence, Spiritual existence, and identity by conscientiously examining their own. Bakpak is focused on continuing their work within community; highlighting black trans, postgender, and queer resiliency; in addition to mental health, neurodiversity, and disability advocacy/accessibility as a native to Detroit, in its enduring and compelling art scene. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689705434808-WXBSP34C05P1X794F388/cranbrook+cyantupeIMG_6437.png Featured Artists (2025) - Cranbrook Art Museum (Copy) Cranbrook Art Museum presents: The Finding Freedom: Cyanotype Workshops are a drop-in photography activity rooted in the artwork Finding Freedom by Sonya Clark (http://sonyaclark.com/). Participants will make their own cyanotype constellation to take home using a blue quilt square that is light reactive (via the sun) and seeds arranged to create white, star-like spots on the fabric. By creating our own constellation with seeds we are reminded of all that makes up the universe. We are each a seed and a representation of the ancestors of the past and the future. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689818423688-M6FQAJWA45RQCSDHI3EP/unnamed.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Layali Ali (Copy) Layali is a Yemeni-American creative excavating with, beside, & beneath her life’s experiences and ever changing states of being. Through raw dance, music, & word she hopes to learn, divulge, and atone with the galaxies of vulnerability. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689973644306-KK9ONG7T7BYET3GYNN81/Ali+Gali+portrait.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Ali Gali (Copy) Ali Gali is a queer, Middle Eastern artist, scholar, and cultural organizer, focusing their practice on abolitionist space-making and art processes as methodologies for organizing. Their writing, visual and performative practices merge histories of migration and displacement with futures of queer becoming, care and earthen languages to articulate the nuances in which we become free. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689973853771-CAKQJJTWWRU9OX44A0KY/Adrienne%2BHeadshot.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Adrienne Ayers (Copy) Adrienne Ayers is a African, non binary & queer, Reiki Teacher, wellness practitioner, and student of revolution. Their offerings merge socialist revolution and wellness, informed by African ancestral practices and guidance, political education, and ideological process. They are the Founder & Lead Practitioner of Heal in the Waters Wellness and Founder and Director of Afrofuture Youth in Detroit, which both create experiences as portals to touch the futures of African liberation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1689973793553-9CGYV8KT6NRHRPSMGT0O/12-41_headshot.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - 12:41 (Copy) 12:41 is a poet, healer, and a facilitator. Their practice centers Black, trans existence as a guiding light for space-making, for cultivating "home" spaces for community members to come in, sprawl, and dream. As a facilitator, they cultivate relationships of facing ourselves, sitting with conflict, and building sustainable connections that can keep our movements alive. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1690208077226-IILRHN5DD1AEZ6A0YEGH/image0+%282%29.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Drizzy Dria (Copy) Drizzy Dria is a mental health advocate, model, skater, host, poet, spoken word artist and a rapper that performs all around the city of Detroit. She provides enlightenment and a sense of community to people of all backgrounds through her intersectional identity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1691076109802-DQ171UOAK4L0RXPLTMOO/bernal_headshot.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Peter Daniel Bernal (Copy) Peter Daniel Bernal originates from Houston, Texas and graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2000 with a BFA in painting. He received additional education at the Rhode Island School of Design and trained in printmaking and drawing in Weimar, Germany, where he lived from 2010 to 2015. In 2015, he relocated from Germany to Detroit. Peter is a 2021 Kresge Artist Fellow. His primary focus is on storytelling-based oil painting but he also creates polychromed ceramic, linoleum prints, and pastels. In the past few years, he has completed several murals around Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079048131-MOCCUCSPP52A6S33TIOQ/Supercoolwicked.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - Supercoolwicked Morgan Hutson: (Copy) Supercoolwicked is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on freedom. Originating from Detroit’s west side, a place rich in community, she utilizes the power of the collective in her work by tapping into the various roots that have nourished her growth. She maintains presence by honoring the past and looking toward the future. As a creator, Supercoolwicked is a shape-shifter – able to be who ever she decides to be at the moment. Her complex and layered identities have manifested into various forms of the arts in diverse spaces ranging from the Detroit Institute of Arts to the Foundation Hotel, the Kindred Festival held in Detroit’s historic Roosevelt Park, The Waking Windows fest with Moodymann and Dam Funk, and the Earthworks Harvest Gathering at Earthworks farm. Supercoolwicked’s current passion project and debut EP, High Gloss, will be released this summer. Follow the fire and get to know her on Instagram @supercoolwicked. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079071650-UX7QV3Q9AIT3V2FYWM3K/Karilu+Forshee+photo+credit+Gabriela+Gabinski.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Karilu Forshee: (Copy) I am a Mexican performer and teaching artist, raised in the border town of Ciudad Juárez. I started taking singing, dance and acting classes when I was 8, appeared in my first show at age 11 and I never stopped. I graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2009, with a degree in theater arts and English-Spanish translation. I have been a Detroit based artist since 2011 and a company member of the theater company A Host of People. I consider myself a multidisciplinary artist who finds joy in making theater, singing and creating performance art. My artistic work is influenced by the entire Latin American Diaspora and I find profound inspiration in my roots and the women in my familia. I create from there, and hope for trees to grow. My practice as a performer and teaching artist often meet along the route. Through my work I strive to create environments that inspire and nurture human connection and self-worth. This being the path to cultural voice and presence. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563240510791-3AFSA1ZYBR6KU4MB2KTP/Audrey+Johnson+photo+credit+Carlos+Funn.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Audrey Johnson: (Copy) Audrey Johnson is a queer movement artist with roots from Detroit, MI. Her work centers black and queer futurity and joyous survival. Audrey has danced in Harge Dance Stories (Detroit) for 3 years, and has additionally performed and collaborated in work by Biba Bell (Detroit & St. Louis), Dafi Altabeb (American Dance Festival), and Stephanie Hewett (San Francisco). She has shown her work in Detroit and the San Francisco Bay Area, and was recently an artist in residence at 2727 California Street in Berkeley, CA, holding a month long class series and a solo performance evening of her project [opening]. Audrey is also a co-founding member of Collective Sweat Detroit. She believes that movement is transformative justice, and she performs, writes, teaches, and lives centering this belief. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079140751-RLCS7RIM79EOOWG8M8SK/Durst.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Katelyn Durst: (Copy) Is a warrior poet, community organizer, teaching artist and freedom dreamer living in Detroit, MI. While finishing her graduate thesis in Radical Self-Care for Black Women, Katelyn imagined a world that celebrated, amplified and provided space for black women’s voices and stories. From there the idea of a black feminist mobile bike library was born which is a trading and borrowing library and biblio installation featuring literature written by black women and femme https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079379929-EOSB0NR7TF833JE6GIGH/FringeSocietySidewalk1.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Fringe Society (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563240944481-9E23N05YJKN3Q9BOX1HD/Photographs+of+QWNTYM+were+taken+by+Kurt+Norris%281%29.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - House of Jit: (Copy) A collective group of entertainers specializing in Detroit’s footwork style known as Jit. Ronald "QWNTYM (Quantum)" Ford is a music producer, choreographer, dancer, and visionary. QWNTYM was born and raised in Detroit and has spent 35 years of his life performing a Detroit authentic dance style called Funkateer. He has personally evolved the dance to its current state and even has plans to reveal a futuristic form soon. He is a 2018 Fellow and Awardee for the Kresge Grant for dance and choreography. Simultaneously, QWNTYM, creates dance music that compliments both Funkateer and Jit with speeds averaging 160 beats per minute (bpm). He has been Jitting for 35 years as this is Detroit's native, urban dance. His latest project follows up on his dance song and music video, We R Unstoppable! This is a multi-layered creation as on one hand, it's a Detroit Techno-ish dance track, and on the other hand it is a movement of motivation and inspiration for all who could use it a little "oomph!" in their life. The aggressive sound of the song stems from growing up in the, sometimes, unforgiving surroundings of not only Detroit, but the world at large. Over and over, one is told what they can and cannot achieve via of the status quo and social perception. QWNTYM looked around and announced that nothing can stop his aspirations nor should it halt the imagination and goals of anyone else, including all artists as a whole. As a dancer, QWNTYM has performed for World of Dance, America's Best Dance Crew, and Detroit's Electronic Movement Festival among other locations both domestic and international. Dreaming big has transformed one song into two songs and an LP has become the focal point for QWNTYM as he desires to motivate, inspire, and physically move others who could benefit from some high-speed, sound waves with a call of action: Never stay defeated...Be Unstoppable. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562079245631-N0NLT775287B7EMCC7AO/osrsidewalk.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Rosemarie Wilson: (Copy) a.k.a. One Single RoseTM is an award winning poet and playwright, spoken word artist, singer, actress and filmmaker from Detroit. She is currently a featured artist and songwriter with Defected Records, the United Kingdom’s #1 house music record label and she’s one of the first poets published under the Broadside-Lotus Press merger, two of the oldest African-American presses in the United States. One Single RoseTM performs nationally and internationally wherever her words are welcomed. For more information on One Single RoseTM, please visit www.onesinglerose.com. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562210879505-SZ0E03HASSWH6KBHG2UG/FreshClassics_x_FreestyleSessions-7750.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Benito Vasquez: (Copy) Tapping into the creative economy blossoming in Detroit, Fresh Classics exists to provide a dancing experience unlike any other in the city. Hailing from different cities and crews, Fresh Classics consists of Mav-One(Team Gurren), Just, Seoul(61syx Teknique/Crooks Crew), Roy Da 5’5(Vertical Ambition), and Shane-T. Knowing what it takes to succeed as performing artists they would need to work with the best of the best, which is why every member is a teacher, mentor, or director who has spent years traveling in the competitive street dance scene. The group formed in 2016 rallied around raising the bar for street dance in Detroit & challenging themselves to bring a fresh style of movement to the forefront while carrying on the classic traditions they spent years training in. Fresh Classics bridges multiple styles with dynamic movements over a wide array of genres of music. Supporting many local artists and performing for some of the biggest names to come into Detroit, Fresh Classics always delivers! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562211064276-WKSWIN4QZYJW8Y70D2EH/IMG_6454.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Zaynab Wilson: (Copy) A Montréal-born Trinidadian-Canadian, Zaynab Wilson brings a wealth of cultural and musical diversity to her sound which draws from her Caribbean roots mixed with folk, her heart and soul. The Live Video EP (2018) is the debut to her emergence as a singer-songwriter and showcases Zaynab is her most comfortable and natural state as a performer. As a multi-instrumentalist, Zaynab has performed with artists in Canada, Trinidad, Mexico, Australia, UK and Europe. She has independently toured her original music on both Canadian coasts in 2018 and, continuing with the flow in 2019, will be releasing her first studio EP, Unconditional, touring North American and remaining open to the possibilities and opportunities that will meld her worlds of community-bridging, music, education and travel. Set features Zaynab Wilson on Cuatro, vocals and percussion, alongside Kyle Skillman on guitar and vocals https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562211205609-EYZN4GAAQMAHB5KHYRUD/Alex+Way+3.JPG Featured Artists (2025) - Alex Way: (Copy) was born on February 28, 1993 in her hometown, Detroit, MI. From the day she was born, she has been immersed in music through her family, which was filled with talented musicians and singers. She began singing when she was 4 years old in her church choir and loved it. She discovered her other love, the violin, when she was 11 years old. She gave her first performance singing and playing violin in a camp talent show. From then on, she knew she wanted to be a performer. Alex began violin studies in the Detroit studio of Michelle May and continued with Hai Xin Wu of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She received additional training through musical programs with Cass Tech High School, the Sphinx Organization, the Arts League of Michigan, Wayne State University, and other private coaching, all of which have helped her to develop as a singer and violinist. She has performed in venues and events across the country, which includes the Music Hall, Arts, Beats, and Eats, Orchestra Hall, and the Fox Theatre. She has performed with such nationally and internationally renowned musicians as Al McKenzie and Marcus Belgrave. Alex has received prestigious awards such as the Theodore Edward Harris, Jr. Scholarship and Achievement Awards and WSU/DSO Scholarship Award. Most recently, she was awarded the Kresge Arts in Detroit grant and Fellowship. Alex is a recent graduate of Wayne State with a Bachelor of Arts in Music. She is a proud alum of Cass Technical High School and Detroit Country Day. She enjoys volunteering, teaching in the community, and most of all, sharing her music with the world. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563241198375-IQ70MB5BDTPERU8BV55C/Arturo+Herrera+image+2-larger.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Arturo Herrera: (Copy) Having begun my training in the theatre arts, I discovered a love of self-expression through abstract painting, installation art, and sculpture. With my art I explore my endless fascination of human emotions, connections, and experiences, especially my own. My process is often organic and free flowing because of this. While I may have a plan to how a certain project may turn out, by the project completion it will always be at least a tiny bit different due to what the project may need. It is important to my art practice that I explore a different emotion or experience with each piece, though often straying away from dark colors and rather focusing on the vibrancy of each experience, which is reflected in my color palette. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563241564122-4SZUDQWWH7E039B0OL9R/Credit_+LaMarre+And+Dancers+featuring+the+James+Cornish+Ensemble-larger.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - LaMarre and Dancers feat. James Cornish Ensemble: (Copy) Together LaMarre and Cornish have developed over 60 original movement and sound collaborations in Detroit and across the Great Lakes Rustbelt Region working with diverse dancers and musicians to reveal reflective narratives of the past, present, and future. Their work began as collaboration in support of rejuvenating local Detroit parks, waterways, and neighborhoods with live-breathing dancers and musicians. From the DSO Cube and the DIA to our friend’s front porch, our art exists in all spaces with our community and for our community. Lisa Rose LaMarre Wilmot is a choreographer testing the boundaries of performance-based responsive artwork and screen dance: working to bring dance away from the stage and into the realm of everyday life. Lisa has created over 100 original live art performances, 6 dance films, and was a 2018 Kresge LiveArts Panelist. James Cornish is a third-generation Detroiter, multi-instrumentalist and composer. He has written three operas, and is one Detroit’s most prolific creative musicians and new music composers. In 2009, he was a recipient of the NEA grant American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius for his ensemble work. James recently curated a series at Detroit Contemporary called Radical Music Detroit focused on nurturing experimental music in the city. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563242785342-AVDNLMQNRUMKGHAMY0WX/The+Move+image.jpeg Featured Artists (2025) - The Move (Copy) Brinni Kellom The MOVE program focuses on building resilience in our youth against childhood trauma. Dance and movement are proven to build socio-emotional skills while strengthening the body. We assess sensory skills and improve the health and productivity of our youth using dance as an art form. It is a discipline, art, social skills, and a pathway for youth to express themselves. We hope to expand the program to include all dance skill levels allowing those with advanced skills to compete. The CORE dance team is a part of MOVE and has performed in various venues in Metro-Detroit, including securing first and second place in the 2019 Winter Wishes Pom and Dance Competition. As a new dance team, CORE is dedicated to challenging their physical and mental capabilities, and uplifting communities through the art of dance expression. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625485968-UFHMH5BNE4OU029GTPK2/AaronJones-V2.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Aaron Jones: (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625713728-02OZTUMQG187NA5MX87X/BryceDetroit.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Bryce: (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625487121-JEFZQHNCFVN13VCCAL4B/SiclyNora.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Sicily McRaven: (Copy) Sicily McRaven BFA Fibers, I've always been inspired by the natural world; bodies, Flora, fauna, and the social structures we create for them. I create installation and drawings that draw the two together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625800098-C0HSM82DUXK93BO8DP70/ChelseaC.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Chelsea Criger (Copy) Having begun my training in the theatre arts, I discovered a love of self-expression through abstract painting, installation art, and sculpture. With my art I explore my endless fascination of human emotions, connections, and experiences, especially my own. My process is often organic and free flowing because of this. While I may have a plan to how a certain project may turn out, by the project completion it will always be at least a tiny bit different due to what the project may need. It is important to my art practice that I explore a different emotion or experience with each piece, though often straying away from dark colors and rather focusing on the vibrancy of each experience, which is reflected in my color palette. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625715439-ET2RO8K0F20G2OR8301G/C2.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Chloe Stevenson (Copy) C-Squared is a performance group that performs throughout the midwest. Our work incorporates Physical Theatre, Dance, Circus, Object Manipulation, Acrobatics, and Storytelling. We seek to engage audiences with conversations revolving around current relevant topics within society. Such topics explored include community, collaboration, and equality within society. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626346495-J287B0OHYNRB657N6MZ0/houseofbastet.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - House of Bastet: (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563625971360-ZKNOPXH3SRM6FK3UNN63/ChrisJakob.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Chris Jakob: (Copy) Chris Jakob is a queer actor and playwright born, raised, and living the dream in Detroit, MI. Holding a BA in Theatre from University of Detroit Mercy, he is an interdisciplinary performance artist focused on the creation of fresh, thought-provoking, experimental work. Chris is a proud ensemble member of A Host of People (AHOP) and Shakespeare in Detroit. He has also performed at Detroit Repertory Theatre, The Ringwald Theatre, the Jewish Ensemble Theatre, Planet Ant and Matrix Theatre (where he is also a teaching artist). Recent work includes the previews of Cleopatra Boy with AHOP at FURY Factory Festival 2018 in San Francisco and Test Flight at Cleveland Public Theatre March 2019, and anagoge. at Sidewalk Festival 2018, the world premiere of Neither There, Nor Here with AHOP, the tour of his play I, Too, Sing America, produced by the Michigan Opera Theatre, as well as an artist residency at Cleveland Public Theatre and the North American Cultural Lab (New York). Art is long, life is short. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626418705-H3YNU8H0TE40P2HNI4U8/JillGoven.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Jill Govan: (Copy) Born and raised in Motown Detroit, an epicenter for music innovation, singer-songwriter Jill Govan brings a fresh perspective to soul music. Jill's eclectic sound blends sultry vocals, compelling stories, and acoustic-driven grooves reminiscent of great artists like Lauryn Hill, John Legend and Norah Jones. As a 19 year old, she picked up the guitar and has honed her gifts performing at venues across Metro Detroit. Jill is passionate about creating real music with a message and seeks to share God's love with the world through song. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626563280-9CAJ6GCRA97Z8WLWU1DS/KevEKev.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Kevin Morris: (Copy) Kev E. Kev Musician, Composer, Producer, Performer R & B, Smooth Jazz, Funk, Classic Rock, Blues, Reggae Began performing as a self taught drummer in Detroit bands & venues in 1972, inspired by Motown (more directly, The Jackson 5). Various tours & performances in Canada & Midwest states. Detroit venues included Cobo Center, Gem Theater, Bakers Keyboard Lounge, Campus Martius, Wayne State University, and Detroit's Thanksgiving Parade. Currently has 2 albums available for download on CDBaby.com- "Street Corner Symphony", featuring the talents of artists at Artist Village and poet Black Maria's "Rhythm & Words, Vol. 1" Currently redeveloping the 2 year old Jazz At Java music series co-created with Alicia George at Motor City Java House. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626562796-IFEHF4EK1IC8MVL37SFF/Malis.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Michael Malis: (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626685144-U5WWFWRKY7TLP7UBV726/Stephanie+Howells.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Stephanie: Howells: (Copy) Stephanie is a teaching artist and installation artist. Her work focuses on interactive, collaborative creative processes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626791037-U559ZP0SPY22HJIXDAY0/Tonja.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Tonja The Disruptor (Tonja Warren): (Copy) Tonja is an award winning writer, performer, and conceptual artist. A Detroit-bred soul stirrer, Tonja creates interdisciplinary stories, interrogations, and constructive conjures. Her artistry spans performance and text-based art, music, theater, African American and African dance, screenwriting and poetry, where she trains a signature lens on memory, Black identity, Black women's trajectories and Black Detroit narratives. Her honors include: New York Foundation for the Arts Screenwriting Fellowship, CulturePop Grantee, Revolve Detroit/Art Place in America Grantee, Detroit Future Media Grantee, IFP- New York Project Involve Mentee, Urbanworld Film Festival Screenwriting Finalist. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563626863950-DYIPWYEE1XAKGL56TD0L/Vangaurd.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Vagabond Inventions (Jen Davis): (Copy) Vagabond Inventions is an association of physical theater artists who share a language of ensemble-devised theater. The company’s work, described as “Beckett-meets-Fellini” by the Montreal Gazette, explores worlds in disequilibrium. Based in New Orleans since 2014 after many years in NYC, Vagabond Inventions has created five full-length productions and over a dozen short pieces which have toured across the US and to six countries. The company’s work has appeared at leading experimental venues in NYC including The Chocolate Factory, The Brick Theater, Dixon Place, and The Bushwick Starr. Examples of the company’s short work and other events include New Vaudeville acts between music sets at Webster Hall, an interactive Artist Salon that took over the Tigermen Den in New Orleans, hosting numerous clown variety shows including the opening Cabaret of the 2011 NY Clown Theater Festival – and many other experimental projects. The company’s current production, A Kingdom, A Chasm received a 2018 Deep Space residency at the North American Cultural Laboratory and a 2016 grant from the Network of Ensemble Theaters to collaborate with co-writer Zina Camblin, celebrated playwright and current writer for Hulu’s upcoming series, “Wu-Tang: An American Saga”. This past fall and spring, Kingdom performed a series of pop-up shows as an experiment in mobile “Rough Theater”, visiting a junkyard, a backyard, a parking strip under an overpass. Vagabond Director Jennifer Sargent, a graduate of the 2-year training program at École Jacques Lecoq in Paris, works with project-based teams on Vagabond’s productions. The talented Kingdom ensemble that has created the show together over the course of 3 years includes: actor-devisors Khiry Armstead, Owen Ever, and Lisa Shattuck - all skilled comic, physical performers; set designer and car mechanic Adam Tourek; and a production crew that includes Stage Manager Tricia Anderson and Co-Producer Jen Davis. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563628157819-Z07CV225W5UHI6CVP1BL/NLR.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Nique Love Rhodes: (Copy) if N.E.R.D, The Roots, and Rage Against the Machine had a band baby, it would be Nique Love Rhodes & The NLR Experience. This multi-faceted ensemble of musicians, led by dynamic performer and hip-hop artist Nique Love Rhodes, fuse hip-hop with funk, rock with jazz, and conscious lyrics with pop hooks and melodies to provide positive vibes, elevate social consciousness, and keep people jamming one song at a time. The band has performed at numerous festivals throughout Michigan and the country including South by Southwest Festival (Texas), Dally in the Alley (Detroit), North by Northeast Music Festival (Toronto), Sidewalk Festival (Detroit), Buckham Alley Fest (Flint), and has become known as one of the best live acts coming out of Detroit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563748443657-B9GQA8Y95UART740BRAE/MarionHayden.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Marion Hayden and Saffel Gardner: (Copy) I grew up in Detroit during a time when music was intricately and inexorably woven into the fabric of the city. My near west side neighborhood, just off Dexter Avenue, was home to at least 4 jazz clubs- including one that was on the second floor of a bowling alley on the next block. I used to sneak up the stairs of that bowling alley and peak in to the club through the window- listening for the music and looking for the musicians. In my neighborhood, TRANE oozed from Vaughn's Book Store, ARETHA blasted from the record shop and MAHALIA wafted from Prophet Jones headquarters. My Detroit was steeped in music. My home was full of jazz records, Gershwin and Rachmaninoff Playing hopscotch- Miles Davis floated from the basement. Catching butterflies- Monk was on the speakers outside. I began playing cello at 9, falling in love with the low notes and the sound of the orchestra. Then at 12, I decided the bass was my voice. I would speak through the bass and use the instrument to express the full range of emotion. I learned jazz from the master musicians in the Detroit community-Marcus Belgrave, Wendell Harrison, Donald Walden, Ursula Walker, Kenn Cox, Roy Brooks, Will Austin, Charles Boles. HEARING their life stories, LEARNING their original music, VISITING their homes, TRAVELING with them. This was an amazing opportunity to learn and experience music in a very personal and intimate way. Now, I experience my musical practice as a full vessel- a repository of village knowledge. Seeking opportunities to pour out and share this knowledge. I synthesize my musical experiences through the bass. I weave a rhythmic and harmonic platform upon which the ensemble sits. I create bass lines that bind a song together AND generations of musical traditions. My creative process is informed and enriched by the music traditions I have experienced and musicians I have known. These traditions and musicians live on, in new perspective, through my music. Awards, Grants and Commissions 2019 Premiere of 7 X12 with a Cha Cha. Music and Dance collaboration with Prof. Robin Wilson, Univ. of MI School of Dance 2018 Knight Arts Foundation Grant for Women in Jazz Concert and Symposium, Summer 2019 2017 Premiere of Reflections of '67. Original musical score to accompany Eulogy for Detroit 1967 by poet Melba Joyce Boyd. Charles Wright Museum. Detroit Premiere of Original music score for "The Flying Ace", rare 1926 Silent Film featuring an all Black cast. Detroit Institute of Arts 2016 Kresge Artist Fellowship Detroit Jazz Hero Award, Jazz Journalist Assn. Premiere of "I Sell the Shadow" Original composition in response to artist Glenn Ligon, the 30 Americans Exhibit: The Rubell Collection. National Conference of Artists 2015 Special Recognition Award, Wayne County Council for the Arts, History and the Humanities 2014 Vision and Excellence in the Arts Award. National Conference of Artists Touring Ensembles Marion Hayden Detroit Legacy Ensemble Straight Ahead (co-founder) Detroit Jazz Festival All Stars Ellen Rowe Octet https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749326613-05J6LFKKLFWV22143AFU/Sala%CC%84kastar+%28Aja+Dier%29-+.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Salākastar (Aja Dier): (Copy) Salākastar (aka Aja Salākastar Dier) is a Detroit-based multidisciplinary performance artist. She earned her BFA and completed her classical acting training at the acting conservatory at the State University of New York at Purchase College. She made her professional debut as Clementine Hunter in the workshop production of Zinnias: The Life of Clementine Hunter directed by Robert Wilson with music direction by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock. After living and working in New York City, she moved to her hometown of Detroit and was (re)embraced by Detroit’s arts community. Formerly a member of the Detroit-based music collective Video7, she is currently recording her debut solo album ALL BLUE:PART ONE (MAJORELLE!). She is an ensemble member at A HOST OF PEOPLE theatre company. She is also a founder and member of iii Sisters, a Detroit-based black feminist writing ensemble. Film credits include Listen Up Philip and Hunter and Game. She is a 2018 Gilda Award winner for Live Arts awarded by the Kresge Foundation and a 2018 University Musical Society Artist in Residence (University of Michigan). She is in the touring company of I Too, Sing America at the Michigan Opera Theatre. She was most recently featured on the HBO series Random Acts of Flyness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749094099-HELTXOARHY4T9FGE3MDI/LG.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Lawrence Gabriel: (Copy) I am a poet, writer and musician with a primary focus on American roots, New Orleans traditional jazz, and African American culture. I am a fourth generation musician playing mostly acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin and bass. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749369978-WQF1J884POT9XHEQKJCQ/PennyG.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Penny Godboldo: (Copy) “Dance is Life” Penny Godboldo is a dance artist who believes that Dance is Life! Dance is movement in time through space with force. It creates balance which has the power to heal--mentally, spiritually, physically. Informed by her research in dances of the African Diaspora, and inspired by her 20+ year relationship with dance anthropologist Katheriine Dunham, she is compelled by her desire to create life-changing experiences for both the artists she works with and her audiences. “My travels reinforced the world view that Dunham says is based in self-examination, self-knowledge and love. I realized that I had been practicing/teaching this philosophy all my life and began to purposefully articulate it through my dance vocabulary, which is enhanced by Dunham Technique. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749538148-UANRSDLZPG1HF5IVW77J/HouseOfPeople.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - A Host of People (Sherrine Azab): (Copy) A Host of People is a Detroit-based ensemble theater company creating original work that celebrates complexity, imagination, and the synthesis of seemingly disparate elements—at once epic and intimate, political and personal, poetic and approachable. AHOP exists to create aesthetically rigorous, intellectually challenging theatre that is also warm, welcoming, and inspiring to people from all walks of life. All of our programming moves the company in this direction. We choose our subject matter and themes very carefully with an eye to stories, topics, and aesthetic approaches that will be equally thrilling to the most adventurous theatre fans as well as those with less exposure to the form. The company is led by co-directors Sherrine Azab and Jake Hooker, whose work has been seen, together and separately, in New York (The Bushwick Starr, The Chocolate Factory Theater, The Kitchen, HERE, Dixon Place, etc.), Berlin (Ida Nowhere, The Lyn-Lin), San Francisco (Intersection for the Arts, Z Below), Cleveland (Cleveland Public Theatre), New Orleans (Catapult), Detroit (HomeBase, The Play House, ArtlabJ, The Sidewalk Festival For the Performing Arts, The Jam Handy, Light Box, N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art) and elsewhere. Since 2012, the company has created and produced five original evening-length works, curated/presented multiple installments of two distinct performance series, toured to several U.S. cities, and developed an in-school "arts-forward" educational program that is closely tied to our productions. In 2014 and 2016 A Host of People was a recipient of the Knight Arts Challenge Award. Co-directors Sherrine Azab and Jake Hooker are 2018 Kresge Artist Fellows. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563749692373-4E5DIZMVB7NCXX3SLYSJ/DariusBarber.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Darius Baber: (Copy) is a multidisciplinary artist inspired by light, form, color, and the human condition. Baber’s work has afforded him many opportunities and exhibitions at institutions which include the Charles H. Wright Museum and the Motown Marauders exhibit curated by Sydney James and Tylonn Sawyer. Baber's paintings are found in many fine art collections including the home collection of Detroit Institute of Arts director, Salvador Salort-Pons and Alex May. He is also a member of the National Conference of Artists, Detroit Fine Art Breakfast Club, teaches community arts, and builds archival supports for his artistic community. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563808953605-ZGXX5CJEQBP39A9H0Z5D/Miz.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - Miz Korona: (Copy) If award-winning Detroit emcee Miz Korona had followed the rigid rules she’s been given since her childhood, she would have never opened up for hiphop icons like Scarface and Run-DMC, or free-styled alongside Eminem and Xzibit in a blockbuster film that was monumental for the rap genre and her city. Her father—a member of 70s R&B group The Floaters—wanted her to sing, but she decided to rhyme. A cowardly music industry would prefer she either rap about sex or keep her lips sealed, but she spits blistering bars without compromise. Good thing she doesn’t listen. “I have a no-holds-barred approach: ‘You’re going to respect me,’” Korona insists. “If you stand firm, you make people pay attention. It’s about being assertive and letting your voice come out.” After going into “retirement” for nearly 2 years Miz Korona not only returned in 2017 with her EP entitled Set Fire she also came with a band (The Korona Effect). The wordplay and metaphors on the lead single Most Slept on proves that this MC still has the ability to compete with the big dogs. In 2017 Miz Korona was hand selected to headline the 8 Mile 15 year Anniversary celebration concert at Saint Andrews Hall and Friday Night Live at the Detroit Institute of Arts. More recently she and her band The Korona Effect were scouted to headline the HAU Music Festival in Berlin, Germany, Allied Media Conference and Light Up Livernois Music Festival. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1563816372950-K9CP0MICHRV1I6YUQYTJ/MOT.jpg Featured Artists (2025) - MOT: (Copy) https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/schedule-2005 daily 0.75 2025-08-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562953090752-D71VADKIMDKM5QNS72VY/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Schedule (2025) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135649505-B0G8I6GLSEJYO0HC2PAU/Sidewalk+Map+Edit+1.png Schedule (2025) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135658089-LSYF4N8EXTDQ7AQ6GKWF/18+x+24back+.png Schedule (2025) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1628881379986-USOU9O7Y2SAX4NTDS26J/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Schedule (2025) - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.sidewalkfestival.com/parking-copy daily 0.75 2025-08-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135836762-ZNOWV0OHY6QHCIV8SMK0/1.png Festival Guide + Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135837111-PXKVL8FU5FQWIP69EAY3/2.png Festival Guide + Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135843592-7BRHD6H6D9XTDDVSYJX1/3.png Festival Guide + Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135844945-MXY6H906BIKK9XUTTAFQ/4.png Festival Guide + Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135848243-RR489DN0R60XBKC8JURI/5.png Festival Guide + Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1754135850457-XVJP5Q6T6EM9U2Z8I5HI/6.png Festival Guide + Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1561756873964-RKFBB8OYC31HOZDTKK56/059.jpg Festival Guide + Parking https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d12627375a7600001e7f214/1562040198675-8SFRKQK08Z214DF5BCVS/dashed-line-graphic-blue.png Festival Guide + Parking