BIPOC Surviving Predominately White Institutions Contributors
Dat Ngo
(he/him)
Dat Ngo is a seasoned arts education and community engagement leader with over 20 years of experience advancing equity, access, and creativity in the arts. A first-generation Vietnamese American and parent raising children of two cultures, Dat brings a deeply human-centered approach to his work, grounded in his belief in the transformative power of the arts to amplify voices and create pathways for opportunity. Dat served as Associate Director of Engagement and Inclusion at Shakespeare Theatre Company and as Education Director at Adventure Theatre, developing and facilitating programs serving communities across Maryland, DC, and Virginia. As Vice President at Arts Consulting Group, Dat connects emerging and seasoned leaders with arts and culture organizations while also helping those same organizations create inclusive environments to support healthy and sustainable cultures. A frequent collaborator with artEquity and a board member of PlayPenn, Dat continues to inspire change, championing justice, storytelling, and empowerment through the arts.
Erika Hawthorne
(she/her)
Erika is an arts administrator with 10+ years of experience in funding, community engagement, and nonprofit leadership. She champions human-centered leadership, fosters authentic relationships, and advances social-justice initiatives.
She holds a BA from Howard University and an MA in Arts Management from American University. Her career began as a teaching artist with the Rockford Area Arts Council, followed by experience in the for-profit and government sectors, including an internship with the National Endowment for the Arts. She has held roles in grantmaking, event planning, community engagement, and equity research with the Bainum Family Foundation, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and Arts Education Partnership (AEP), and led membership and communications at Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP).
After years of service as a founding board member of the Arts Administrators of Color Network (AAC), she now serves as Interim Executive Director, focused on expanding AAC’s capacity and advancing its mission to support artists and arts administrators of the global majority.
Ginger Klee
LMFT, LPCC (they/she)
Ginger is a queer, multiethnic Korean mental health therapist in their own private practice in Orange County, California. They specialize in treating trauma and acculturative stress, and treating the queer, trans, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. Ginger works with adolescents, adult individuals, and families. They are also an adjunct psychology professor where they teach about the intersectionality of gender, sex, sexuality, and ethnicity.
Lauren Turner Hines
(she/her)
Lauren’s role is that of an advocate and facilitator for justice and change. Lauren is the founding Producing Artistic Director of No Dream Deferred NOLA, a community-anchored theatre production company that is dedicated to the development of new works originating in the South. Additionally, Lauren leads as Founder and Executive Director of the Andre Cailloux Center for Performing Arts & Cultural Justice. Her work lives where storytelling, community building, and politics intersect. Lauren speaks and facilitates with organizations and institutions across the US. She is an artEquity facilitator and founding content creator for the BIPOC Surviving PWI series and the BIPOC Leadership Circle series. Lauren is the founder of Equity and Justice for Institutional Change (EJIC), an organizational development consulting firm. Additionally, Lauren provides executive strategic and wellness coaching for BIPOC leaders working within predominantly/historically white institutions. She is a Round 4 recipient in the Leadership U: One-on-One grant program, funded by the Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group, designed to further develop prominent emerging leaders and change agents in the American Theatre. Lauren has also served as a Mellon Fellow through Tulane University’s Community Engaged Graduate Program, mentoring Tulane University graduate students who wish to implement community-engaged practices into their work. Lauren received her Master of Fine Arts in Performance from The University of Southern Mississippi and her BA from North Carolina Central University. Lauren lives joyfully in New Orleans with her husband and their three children.
Marissa Herrera
(she/her/ella)
Marissa is a 3rd generation Chicana/Indigenous woman born and raised in Los Angeles. She is the Co-Founder and Executive Artistic Director of 4C LAB (501c3) and CEO of De Mi Alma Productions. As reflected in her feature interview on the PBS documentary, Art & the Mind: “I was born to dance . . . my calling is to create.” Marissa strives to use her creative work to empower individuals into sharing their authentic stories and fostering the next generation of creative visionaries connected by diversity, love, and creativity.
Marissa has been featured in a cover story of the NY Times, Vanity Fair in recognition for her leadership in creating content that reflects the American Latine experience and championing the value of representation, equity, and inclusion across all media, non-profit, and artistic platforms.
As a visionary and leader in the arts and community, Marissa strives to create and lead the work that connects us all.
Meena Malik
(she/her)
Meena is a musician, sound healer, arts consultant, conflict mediator, and coach. She is the founder of Magpie Cultural Strategies, a social impact firm on a mission to realize a collective liberated future for the arts field and beyond. She is an alumna of the artEquity Facilitator Training, the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute Facilitation Cohort, Intercultural Leadership Institute, and currently a Senior Associate of The Aspire Group.
She was a founding member and performer with Voci Angelica Trio, an international band that created a musical fusion of world folk and classical music, for 14 years. With Voci Angelica, Meena toured to the US’s East Coast, Midwest, and Southern regions, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Meena holds a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance from New England Conservatory and a Masters of Science in Arts Administration from Boston University.
Patricia Garza
(she/her)
Patricia is a weaver and connector who, for over twenty years, has produced local and national projects centering our collective liberation. Currently, Patricia serves the City of Santa Monica as a Cultural Affairs Supervisor focusing on space activation strategy. Previously, they were the Producer and Director of Programs at Los Angeles Performance Practice (LAPP) supporting the production and presentation of contemporary performance. Before joining LAPP, they served as the Director of Programs and Engagement at the Network of Ensemble Theaters overseeing programmatic activities and marketing/communications. A former member of the artistic staff at Center Theatre Group for over a decade, Patricia filled roles spanning artistic, education, and community partnerships, and management. Patricia frequently speaks at public events, facilitates group conversations, consults, and has served as a grant panelist for the NEA, L.A. Department of Cultural Affairs, and The L.A. County Department of Arts and Culture, among others. Patricia has an MFA/MBA in Theater Management from California State University, Long Beach, and a BA in English with a minor in Theater Studies from UC Berkeley.
Peter J. Kuo
(he/him)
Peter is a director, producer, writer, and educator focused on raising the visibility of marginalized communities. He is the Director of the Conservatory at A.C.T., where he served for five years on the EDI committee. He has been a speaker and facilitator for numerous conferences and events, where he primarily speaks on EDI topics around theatre and education. Facilitation and speaking engagements have been at Theatre Communications Group’s (TCG) National Conference, Center Theatre Group’s Working in Theatre panel, and the initial BIPOCs Surviving PWIs Zoom convening on May 22, 2020, among others. He was named one of TCG’s Rising Leaders of Color. He is a co-founder of Artists at Play, a Los Angeles-based Asian American theater collective. He holds a Diversity and Inclusion certificate from eCornell. He received his MFA at The New School of Drama in New York, where he was the Social Justice Programs Coordinator.
Quanice Floyd
(she/her)
Quanice is a renaissance woman who wears many capes. Born and raised in NYC, she has spent 20 years in Washington, DC, where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Education from Howard University and Kent State University respectively. Her passion for arts administration led her to pursue her second Master’s degree in Arts Management at American University. She has recently received her Doctor of Education in Education Policy from Drexel University.
Quanice is currently the executive director of the National Guild for Community Arts Education, a national arts service organization for community arts providers. She was previously the executive director at Arts Education in Maryland Schools (AEMS) where she served as a registered lobbyist for the state of Maryland. In her work, she advocated for arts education access for all 900,000 students in the Maryland public school system. Quanice is well-versed in advocacy and organizing as she is a steering committee member for the D.O.P.E. Coalition, a grassroots initiative that uplifts and highlights arts and culture leaders of the global majority around the country. She is also a member of the Cultural Advocacy Group, Creative States Coalition, and the Arts Education Partnership’s Advisory Council. She is also the Co-Founder of the Arts Administrators of Color (AAC) Network, an organization committed to empowering artists and arts administrators by advocating for access, diversity, inclusion, and equity in the arts nationally. She has also been a public-school music educator, teaching elementary and middle school general music, chorus, band, and orchestra. As an educator, she served as a regional organizer for her local teacher’s union.
Quanice currently serves as a commissioner for the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities, is a board member of Staten Island Arts, and a proud member of The Society, Incorporated. She is an alumna of Fractured Atlas’ Artist Campaign School, the National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Leadership Institute (CAELI), ArtEquity’s Racial Facilitator Cohort, Diversity in Arts Leadership Program, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Music Educators and Arts Administrators Academy, 4.0 Schools’ Essentials Program, and the Arts Education Collaborative’s Leadership Academy. She was also on the planning committee for the SW Arts Fest, a neighborhood arts and culture festival in Washington, DC. Quanice was the Americans for the Arts’ American Express Emerging Leader Awardee, and the Advocate of the Year for the Coalition of African Americans in the Performing Arts.
Siobhan Juanita Brown
(she/her)
Siobhan certified for primary ages 3–6 and has a BFA in Performing Arts from Emerson College and graduate certificate in Acting from the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. Siobhan has served as the Co-Indigenous Solidarity & Sovereignty Officer for the board of Montessori for Social Justice. She was also Co-Chair of the Representation, Equity, and Diversity team for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Region 1, representing the northeast. At Boston University School of Theatre, Siobhan was Guest Artist for Patterns of Wind, a devised work performed in the Booth Theatre. Students explored Indigenous storytelling and community practices rooted in the land of the Wôpanâak. As an adjunct professor at Brown University in the Brown/Trinity acting program, she taught Liberatory Strategies for Whole Artist Collaboration. Siobhan is also serving as director for We Are The Land, a community devised play that shares historical and contemporary perspectives on the Wampanoag experience and our sacred relationship to the land.