Jan Cohen-Cruz (Author)
Jan Cohen-Cruz is a longtime professor of drama at NYU and founder of the school’s applied theater minor. As a past director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, she co-founded its journal, Public. Her numerous books include Local Acts, Engaging Performance, and Remapping Performance. Cohen-Cruz is a co-founder of A Blade of Grass, which supports socially engaged artists. In 2012, she received the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Award for Leadership in Community-Based Theatre and Civic Engagement. She also teaches at CUNY and Touchstone Theatre/Moravian University.
Rad Pereira is a cultural worker, performing artist, healer, and educator in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, (known as Pindorama by the Tupi people), with a home base in Brooklyn, New York (known as Lenapehoking, originally a Lenape land.) Their creative practice ranges from social sculpture to popular theatrical and TV/film performances. They are committed to making art that involves community participation and healing, incorporating themes of transformative justice and queer re-indigenization of culture.