Micah BlackLight can perhaps be described as a defiant, volcanic force of Nature’s creation, wearing the body of a brown-skinned catalyst and bursting with perpetual enthusiasm. A multi-media, multi-platform, multi-dimensional artist, writer, orator, coach, mentor, and fashion designer proficient in a myriad of mediums: visual, graphic, audible and otherwise. He is determined to create as many different works of art in as many mediums as possible while detonating spirits along the way and leaving trails of empowering, inspiring experiences in his wake like a spirit boat on the lake of existence.
Miguel Petris is an arts administrator based in Boston, MA. In Boston he earned his Master’s degree in Horn Performance from the Longy School of Music of Bard College. He believes that music is a bridge builder and is able to connect humans across the world.
Miguel has had the opportunity to work with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, The Boston Early Music Festival, and with The Silkroad Ensemble. Recently, Miguel has started working as the Community Engagement Coordinator with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra. Through this role, he is working with an organization that puts equity and inclusivity at the forefront of their mission.
Miguel hopes that this fellowship will give him the knowledge and the network to continue supporting organizations that build community through the arts.
Michelle Antonina Burdex, a Tulsa, Oklahoma native, boasts a dynamic 25-year tenure as the Program Coordinator at the Greenwood Cultural Center (GCC). Renowned for her stewardship, she’s pioneered acclaimed initiatives such as the Young Entrepreneurs’ Summer Program, GCC’s Performing Arts Program, and the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools Summer and After School Program.
A storyteller and tour guide, Michelle has guided thousands of students, educators, and tourists through the vivid tapestry of Greenwood’s history. Notably, she led a tour for U.S. President Joe Biden during GCC’s 100-year remembrance of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in 2021.
Her gift lies in educating about both the tragic legacy of the massacre and the resilience of Black Wall Street, weaving together narratives that resonate deeply.
Recognized for her leadership, she joined the Oklahoma Arts Council’s Leadership Arts Program and Leadership Tulsa’s Thrive Tulsa Leadership Program in 2020. Presently, as a Bloomberg Tech Fellow, she’s engaged in Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Program, showcasing her commitment to innovative progress in cultural education and advocacy.
Michelle Amador, a lifelong singer and songwriter, has been acclaimed as “a new breed of musician” (Mercury News) by figures ranging from jazz bassist Buster Williams to legendary electronic producers like Osunlade. Most recently, she has recorded and released singles created with producer Eli Crews (Kathleen Hanna, Yoko Ono, tUnE-yArDs). Known for her “silken-voiced” (San Francisco Chronicle) original music, Amador draws inspiration from artists such as Solange Knowles, Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, Björk, and more.
From 2022 to 2024, Amador was a member of the Western States Center musician cohort for Inclusive Democracy and an organizing co-founder of the Cultural Solidarity Fund. She is also a California Established Artist Fellow. Beyond her artistic endeavors, Amador serves as Chief Growth Officer for the Equity Accelerator, a board member for California for the Arts, and a member of the Equity and Inclusion Leadership Alliance of North Carolina.
Michelle Huynh is an intercultural theater artist, performance studies scholar and arts administrator born and raised in Hawaiʻi. Her work is rooted in creating spaces where diverse stories and communities intersect and in using performance as a tool for cultural empowerment and social engagement.
She holds a doctorate in theater and drama from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s in fine arts in Asian theater performance from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Huynh has taught widely across the United States and abroad, including at universities in California, Hawaiʻi, New England, Singapore and Vietnam. She is a faculty member at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Outreach College in the Arts, Community & Engagement Department.
Her practice spans Hawaiʻi, California and the Asia-Pacific Rim, where she engages in cultural organizing and collaborates with local and international artists across performance, research and community engagement on university campuses and in public venues. Her multimodal works have been presented at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, East-West Center, Asian New Play Festival and Journey Theatre Company.
Michelle Pier is a Guam-born artist, creative entrepreneur, and mother of two with over 20 years of experience creating, exhibiting, and selling original paintings locally and internationally. Alongside her studio practice, she is dedicated to fostering creativity in the community through classes, workshops, and events that emphasize the creative arts, personal expression, and entrepreneurship. She is especially passionate about mentoring young artists, equipping them with practical tools and encouragement to pursue art as both a calling and a career. Above all, she shares her journey to inspire others to feel empowered to create and thrive.
Passionate to connect people through Chinese culture and fusion musics; Actively involved in Chinese community’s development; started to bring Asian communities together from 2022 for showcasing Asian creative expression and cultural traditions through the power of arts.
• 2004 – Present, Worked at GE and then Honeywell as a senior professional leader;
• 2020 – Present, Committee member, Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC);
• 2018 – Present, Appointed as the Chair of Alliance of Chinese Culture & Arts USA (www.acca-us.org), a 501c3 non-profit organization fully operated by the volunteers. It is composed of the local chapters across regions in the spirit of collaboration;
• 2008 – 2019, Led a volunteer group to partner with Philharmonia Orchestra of CCM ( College Conservatory of Music in UC), defined programs and organized the annual Chinese New Year concert as an executive producer in 12 consecutive years, created fusion music programs, and named by Cincinnati Enquirer as one of the highly received concerts in the year;
• 2012-2019, Partnered with the social studies teacher of 6th grade in a local school to initiate the annual event “Connecting Kids to the World” in 8 consecutive years. The event was to create the dialog opportunities for the 6th grader to talk with the similar age of the kids in India and China face-to-face through video;
• In early 90s, came to the United States from China to pursue higher education and received MBA degree.
Midori Hirose, born in Hood River, Oregon, is a Japanese American interdisciplinary artist based in Portland. Through sculpture, sound, and social ritual, she explores material storytelling as a portal to memory, perception, and transformation.
Her practice bridges care labor and poetic research, turning complex histories and communal connections into dimensional, tactile forms. Hirose co-leads a mutual aid collective supporting protest safety and community resilience, informing her ongoing inquiries into collective care and embodied resistance.
Her work transforms shared spaces into sites of relational alchemy and slow, subversive repair. It has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including “Labor of Love” at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, “Of the Unicorn (and the Sundowner Kids)” with the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, and East/West Project in Berlin. Her installations invite intimacy, tension, and radical possibility.
Dr. Miriam Padilla, Executive Director of Bomba Marilé, is a proud LGBTQ Puerto Rican woman, a registered Taino tribal member, a doctor, and a community organizer. Dr. Padilla is board certified in Endocrinology, Obesity Medicine, and Lifestyle Medicine. She currently is the Medical Director of the LiveWell Center at Utah Valley Hospital. When Miriam is not seeing patients, she is the Executive Director of Bomba Marilé which is a non profit organization that shares Afro-Puerto Rican bomba music and dance with the community in Utah. Dr. Padilla has received multiple awards for her community involvement including the “30 Women to Watch” award from Utah Business Magazine, the “Mujeres Destacadas” award from La Opinion Newspaper, and the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the United States Congress. Miriam is grateful for the WESTAF support and hopes to continue lifting up brown, black, and indigenous voices through her work as a cultural artist in the state of Utah.
MK Chavez (She/They) is an Afro-Latinx writer, cultural worker, coach, consultant, educator, and editor. She/They are committed to advancing equity and inclusion in the arts and beyond. She is the co-director of Berkeley Poetry Festival and the Founder and Director of Ouroboros Coaching & Writing Lab. Her writing has been honored with a Pen Oakland Award, a San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award, and fellowships at CantoMundo, Caldera, Sitka, Playa, Community of Writers, and Hedgebrook. Her community activism and cultural work have been acknowledged with an Alameda County Leadership Award, and in 2023, she was recognized by the Yerba Buena Center for Arts as a YBCA 100 Fellow.
Moana doesn’t just make art—she architects worlds.
Moana Iose is a multidisciplinary artist and policy mind born in Oceania and raised in the American West. Her work moves through mediums from murals to film and exhibition design to poetry. Iose’s creative practice bridges the sacred and the stylish, turning stories of home and diaspora into visual symphonies.
Her aesthetic is layered, bold, cinematic and grounded in Indigenous futurism with a touch of West Coast ease. Her work moves between boardrooms and block parties, archives and airwaves, always returning to one question: what does freedom look like when it’s ours?
Iose’s vision is for Indigenous Pacific futures that are sovereign, sensual and unapologetically alive.
