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Aldo Billingslea

Educator; Performing Artist: Actor

As Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Aldo Billingslea heads Santa Clara University’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion. He also is Professor of Acting and Performance Studies in the Department of Theatre and Dance. Professor Billingslea joined Santa Clara University as a visiting guest lecturer in 1996 and became a tenured member of the faculty in 2005. He served as Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance for three years and Vice Chair of the University’s Athletics Advisory Board. Professor Billingslea is a nationally known actor who also serves in professional leadership roles and provides service to the theatre community in a number of west-coast locations. He received bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and a master of fine arts degree from Southern Methodist University. As Associate Provost, his primary focus is to work closely with members of the University community to enhance the recruitment, retention and success of faculty from underrepresented groups. He collaborates with other University offices in promoting a student climate of inclusive excellence through curricular, co-curricular and extracurricular programs, and he coordinates with the Office of Enrollment Management, Multicultural Learning, Affirmative Action and Human Resources in efforts to recruit a more diverse student body and staff. He works closely with the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and reports directly to the Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Rodrigo García

Educator; Performing Artist: Actor

Rodrigo García is an accomplished actor, director, educator, and playwright originally from Mexico City. As the current Artistic Director of Teatro Visión, Rodrigo has driven the creation of a youth program to create a pipeline for young Latinx artists. In addition, he is leading the development of a new work through a binational collaboration between Teatro Visión, La Quinta Teatro ensemble from Mexico City, and music artist Guillermo Galindo. He is also a founding member of the theater ensemble Teatro Alebrijes. He has worked with other companies including Santa Clara University, Los Altos Stage, San Jose State University, Tabia Theater, and Opera Cultura among others. Rodrigo graduated from the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City and has trained with Double Edge Theater, De’ll arte International, Le Théâtre du Soleil, Sojourn Theater, and Julian Boal. He is a Theater Communications Group (TCG) fellow, and a graduate of the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute (MALI) Class of 2009.

Judith Komoroske

Educator; Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer; Visual Artist: Painter

Dancer, choreographer and teacher Judith Komoroske is now retired after a 38 year career. She now pursues creative expression through painting and writing.

Victoria May

Educator; Visual Artist: Mixed Media

As a mixed media artist, Victoria’s work results in objects and installations that integrate contrasting materials and methods, creating a “different perspective between one’s surroundings and ordinary materials”. Victoria was an artist in residence in 2012 at Jentel Artist Residency Program (Banner, WY) and has also been honored with a Rydell Fellowship in 2010. Victoria serves as a guest lecturer and panelist, and presents gallery talks at local arts nonprofit organizations, and share her inspiration through teaching photography and book arts at several local universities and arts organizations. She received her B.A. in Design from University of California, Los Angeles, and M.F.A. from San Jose State University. STATEMENT: An interest in tension and dichotomy fuels my artwork. Continually I attempt to merge the delicate with the strong, to seduce and repel, to obscure and reveal, and to combine the hand and the machine. A conceptual tension arises between beauty and darkness in my work, alluding to the fundamental struggles inherent in the human condition. Using the framework of cultural constructs, such as abstraction, codification, circumscription, my work highlights the absurdity they often impose. By pitting the organic or visceral against the institutional, I seek to reveal a dark humor or tender fragility in the seeming contortions that often underpin our lives. I often rely on raw materials and found objects to function as would text or imagery, allowing the history, function, metaphorical value and/or sensibility of each element to contribute to the work’s intent, along with my own investment of labor. Meticulous handwork transforms humble materials into the precious, mirroring how our own ephemeral lives become precious through our own personal toils.

Valerie Mih

Educator; Performing Artist: Composer; Visual Artist: Animator, Filmmaker

Valerie Mih is an animated filmmaker with a wide range of both studio and independent production experience. Commercially, she has animated for Pixar Animation Studios (Toy Story II, Geri’s Game, A Bug’s Life), Lucas Learning Limited (Star Wars Math), WildBrain (Hershey’s Kisses) and game companies (Electronic Arts, Rockstar San Diego). She has independently produced/directed animated shorts for PBS and the festival circuit (Paper Peace, Harmonize, The Pet’s Zone), as well as a half-hour animated documentary (EINSTEIN, awarded best animation at the International Festival of Cinema and Technology). A committed educator, she has taught animated filmmaking at the undergraduate and graduate levels for over ten years. Prior to joining the faculty at ACM, she served as the faculty lead for the M.F.A. program in Computer Animation at The Art Institute of California – San Francisco. Valerie has received grant support from the Silicon Valley Arts Council, CPB/PBS Producers Academy, Center for Asian American Media and the Independent Television Service. Her independent work currently focuses on exploring the storytelling mediums of interactive books and films through her digital publishing imprint, See Here Studios. A trained classical and jazz musician, she often composes the music for her productions. Valerie holds an M.F.A. in animation from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where her student film PETS was awarded a student Emmy, and a B.A. in American Studies from Stanford University. She is currently Assistant Professor at University of Hawaii’s Academy for Creative Media. https://myspace.com/valeriemih

Michael F. Ramsaur

Educator; Performing Artist: Lighting Designer, Set Designer

Michael Ramsaur is a professor of lighting design at Stanford University. He also serves as an Honorary Professor at the Central Academy of Drama, Beijing and has taught regularly at the Bavarian Theater Academy Munich and as a Guest Professor at the University of Arts Belgrade in the Interdisciplinary Program in Theater Design and at Trinity College, Dublin. Professor Ramsaur was awarded a Fulbright Grant and has given lectures or workshop in 19 countries. He has had a 40-year career in theater including owning and operating San Francisco Theatrical Supply, a stage lighting sales and rental company. He has served as Lighting Designer, designing over 200 productions for many theater companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Berkeley Repertory Theater, San Jose Civic Light Opera, West Bay Opera, Scholar Opera, Lamplighters, TheatreWorks, and the Broadway by the Bay where he is the resident lighting designer having designed over 70 productions. He has been awarded Outstanding Lighting Design awards from the San Francisco Bay Area Critics, Dean Goodman Award, and Drama Logue Awards. His articles on lighting techniques have been published in three countries and he has created a computerized software program to aid lighting designers.

John Santos

Educator; Performing Artist: Composer, Musician

Five-time Grammy-nominated percussionist and US Artists Fontanals Fellow, John Santos, is one of the foremost exponents of Afro-Latin music in the world today. Born in San Francisco, California, November l, l955, he was raised in the Puerto Rican and Cape Verdean traditions of his family, surrounded by music. The fertile musical environment of the San Francisco Bay Area shaped his career in a unique way. His studies of Afro-Latin music have included several trips to New York, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil and Colombia.He is known for his innovative use of traditional forms and instruments in combination with contemporary music, and has earned much respect and recognition as an educator, composer, and record and event producer. He’s been a prolific performer, composer, teacher, writer, radio programmer, and record/event producer whose career has spanned over 35 years. John has worked with acknowledged, multi-generational masters such as Cachao, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito Puente, Bebo Valdés, Max Roach, Eddie Palmieri, Patato Valdés, Lázaro Ros, Bobby Hutcherson, Chucho Valdes, Chocolate Armenteros, John Handy, Billy Cobham, Zakir Hussain, George Cables, Rene Lopez, Generoso Jimenez, Joe Henderson, Francisco Aguabella, John Faddis, Ed Thigpen, Giovanni Hidalgo, Steve Turre, McCoy Tyner, Batacumbele, Poncho Sanchez, Omar Sosa, Mel Martin, Ignacio Berroa, Danilo Perez, Los Pleneros de la 21, Jose Luis “Changuito” Quintana, Armando Peraza, Pancho Quinto, Tootie Heath, Jacqueline Castellanos, Malonga Casquelord, CK Ladzekpo, Pancho Terry, Yosvany Terry, Dafnis Prieto, Oscar Castro Neves, Mark Murphy, Larry Coryell, Lázaro Galarraga, Regino Jimenez, Luis Daniel “Chichito” Cepeda, Pedrito Martinez, Jerry Medina, Orestes Vilató, Paquito D’Rivera, Larry Vukovich, Arturo Sandoval, Nestor Torres, Anthony Carrillo, Paoli Mejías, Raul Rekow, Andy Gonzalez, Jerry Gonzalez, Jovino Santos Neto, Lalo Schifrin, Pete Escovedo, Claudia Gómez, Maria Márquez, Jon Jang, Ray Vega, Chembo Corniel, Wayne Wallace, John Calloway, Mark Levine, Elio Villafranca, Bruce Forman, Linda Tillery, Charlie Hunter, Joyce Cooling, Bobby Matos, Mark Weinstein, Jackeline Rago, Roberto Borrell, Sandy Perez, Jesus Diaz, Roman Diaz, Pablo Menendez, Yma Sumac, and Carlos Santana. John is widely respected as one of the top writers, teachers and historians in the field and was a member of the Latin Jazz Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian Institution. He is currently part of the faculty at the Jazz School Institute (Berkeley, CA) and the College of San Mateo (CA). He has conducted countless workshops, lectures and clinics in the US, Latin America and Europe since 1972 at institutions of all types including the Adventures in Music program of the San Francisco Symphony, the Berklee School of Music in Boston, UCLA, Yale, Stanford, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Michigan, Cal State Monterey Bay, Cal State East Bay, the University of Colorado, Yakima Valley Community College, the Afro-Cuban Drumming and Dance Program at Humboldt State University (CA), Cal State Sonoma, Cal State Sacramento, Cal State San Jose, Tulane University of Louisiana, Jazz Camp West, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Los Angeles Music Academy, the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco), he Lafayette Summer Music Program (CA), Skidmore College (NY), and La Universidad Inter-Americana in San Germán Puerto Rico. He has contributed to the international magazines Percussive Notes, Modern Drummer, Modern Percussionist, and Latin Percussionist. John was the director of the Orquesta Tipica Cienfuegos (l976-1980) and the award-winning Orquesta Batachanga (1981-1985). He was founder and director of the internationally renowned, Grammy-nominated Machete Ensemble (1985-2006), who released nine CDs with special guests from Puerto Rico, Cuba, NY, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, mostly on John’s Machete Records label. He currently directs the John Santos Sextet, Latin jazz ensemble. Their second CD, Perspectiva Fragmentada, released in October 2008, was nominated by the Jazz Journalists Association (NY), and by Cubadisco (Cuban Grammys) as one of the top Latin Jazz releases of the year, and selected as one of the five top Latin Jazz CDs of 2008 by New York’s All About Jazz magazine, among many honors. John’s Afro-Caribbean Folklóric Ensemble, El Coro Folklórico Kindembo, has produced three full length CDs since 1994, two of which were Grammy-nominated including the most recent, La Guerra No, in 2009. John’s work has been recognized and supported by the California Arts Council, United States Artists, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Fund for Folk Culture, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, the East Bay Community Foundation, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Creative Work Fund, and the City of Oakland. The San Francisco Bay Area community in which he still lives and works has presented him with numerous awards and honors for artistic excellence and social dedication. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation declaring November 12, 2006 John Santos Day. And on October 9th, 2012, in a ceremony at City Hall, he received the 2012 San Francisco Latino Heritage Arts Award from the Mayor’s office. It came with a Certificate of Honor signed by Mayor Edwin Lee, and Certificates of Recognition from the State Assembly signed by Speaker Pro Tempore Fiona Ma and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Certificate of Recognition from the State Senate signed by Senator Mark Leno, a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the US House of Representatives signed by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and a glass plaque from the City and County of San Francisco. John is an endorsee of Latin Percussion instruments, Remo drumheads, Sabian cymbals, Engelhart Metal Percussion, and Fat Conga Cajones.

Joel Slayton

Educator; Visual Artist: 3D, Computer Arts

Joel Slayton is a pioneering artist, educator, and curator. His professional activities explore contemporary culture as informed by emerging technologies. As co-founder of the L&J Ranch (launching fall 2018), Slayton is focused on cutting-edge research, creative projects and sense of place. He’s Professor Emeritus at San Jose State where he founded the CADRE Laboratory for New Media in 1984. Slayton’s artwork has been featured in over 100 exhibitions around the world including Berlin, Austria, Buenos Aires, and New York. For eight years he served as Executive Director of ZERO1, a Silicon Valley-based arts organization and agency for four international art biennials that featured over 600 artists from 45 countries. The SVNexus Award, sponsored by Adobe, was created to recognize pioneering artistic achievement at the intersection of arts and technology.

Connie Steinman

Educator; Visual Artist: Filmmaker, Videographer

Connie Steinman is a filmmaker and high school teacher for American Sign Language and English.

Truong Tran

Educator; Literary Arts: Poet; Visual Artist: Mixed Media

Truong Tran (born 1969) is a Vietnamese-American poet, visual artist, and teacher. His collection dust and conscience (2002) won the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Prize, and in 2003, he served as Writer in Residence for Intersection for the Arts. Tran currently lives in San Francisco, where he teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University, and is Writer in Residence at the San Francisco School of the Arts. Artist Statement: Day In The Life … On days when I am not working as a poet and teacher, I try to wake up early. I empty my oversized messenger bag of books and papers and the previous day’s half-eaten lunch. I place the strap over my left shoulder, with the bag firmly secured to my back. I begin to walk. I walk for as long as it takes to fill the bag with stuff: branches, findings from the local thrift stores, choice items left in boxes on sidewalks and, if I’m lucky, something I’ve never seen before. Once the bag is filled, I return home, empty the contents from the bag, creating mounds of what some might consider piles of junk. I see them as source materials and the beginnings to my art making process. I am committed to using these recycled materials as an environmentally conscious artist but also as an artist who strives to make art accessible through both its practice and use of materials. Quite frankly, I get a kick out of forcing these disparate objects to come together, compromising and accommodating one another in their process of becoming something new, something beautiful. I refer to what I do as art making because I do not paint, draw or sculpt in a traditional or learned consideration of artistic craft. My craft is founded in the doing. I glue things together. I make things fit. I dip things in wax. I cut. I build. I weave. I think. I fill things up with paint using ketchup bottles. I stare at things in hopes that these things will talk back to me. This is what I do. It makes me happy. It allows me to lose myself in the process of doing. It makes me sad. It allows me to find myself in the process of seeing. I insist on it being called art at the end of the day.

Stan Welsh

Educator; Visual Artist: Ceramist, Mixed Media, Sculptor

Stan Welsh was born and raised in Southern California in the town of Claremont. He currently has a home and studio on three acres of property in the coastal mountains of Santa Cruz California. For the past 20 years Stan has been a professor at San Jose State University in the School of Art and Design where he is currently the Graduate Coordinator. Welsh has been honored with the Meritorious Performance Teaching Award, and has received arts grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The California Arts Council and the Arts Council Silicon Valley 2005 Fellowship Award. His work has been recently collected by the San Jose Museum, Ca. the Santa Cruz Museum, Ca. and the Daum Museum, Missouri.

Yong Yao

Educator; Performing Artist: Choreographer, Dancer

Mr. Yao is an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer and dance instructor from Beijing. He began dancing with the Hubei Province Dance Company at the age of twelve. In this company he was trained in Chinese classical and folk dance technique as well as ballet basics. In 1980 Mr. Yao won a first place individual dancers award for Hubei Province and third place in the China National Dance Competition. Later that year, Mr. Yao was chosen for college level training at the Beijing Dance Academy, the most prestigious dance school of China. Even as a student in a select group trained by master to become masters themselves, Mr. Yao demonstrated his talents not only as a performer, a leader, but also a choreographer full of refreshing ideas in presenting a theme, a style, a tradition. Upon receiving a degree with honors in the teaching of Chinese dance from the Beijing Dance Academy, Mr. Yao was invited to join the academy faculty. During this period, besides his teaching responsibilities as a lecturer, Mr. Yao choreographed and performed a number of works, including the first place choreography and performance prize winning “Gallop”. In 1986, Mr. Yao was choreographer and director to China Young Children’s Company which toured New York, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. He was then appointed choreographer and principal dancer of the China Premier Dancers Delegation on it 1987 tour to Singapore and 1988 appearance at the World Arts Festival in Utah, Idaho and Montana. He returned to Singapore in 1988 as choreographer and principal dancer for the Beijing Dance Academy Young Artists Delegation. The Delegation also performed in Hong Kong to rave reviews for his new work, “Yellow River Suite,” a contemporary piece which adopted modern dance techniques in depicting Chinese historical themes. “Yellow River Suite” won first place in choreography at the Beijing Dance Competition later that year. In 1989, “Yellow River Suite” was awarded first place in performance by the Ministry of Culture of China, while his classical piece “Goddess Luo” won third place in the same competition. In 1990, Mr. Yao came to the United States to study modern dance at Cunningham Dance School in New York. He then received an International Dance grant and taught Chinese folk dance and ballet at Snow College, Utah, until joining CPAA in 1991. In the capacity of Artistic Director, Choreographer and Principal Dancer of CPAA since its founding, Mr. Yao both provides artistic direction and choreographed many new works for the company. In the “Chinese Performing Arts Festival” of the past four years, Mr. Yao displayed his superb talent as a choreographer by a wide range of themes, techniques and flavor in his works: “Music in the Moonlight” and “Flower Drum Festival” in 1992;”Drums of Thunder” and the “Dandelion” in 1993; “Dream of Shangri-La” and “Anhui Lion Dance” in 1994; “Nocturne of the Muses,” “Princess Sweet Fragrance” and “Sorrow of the Great Wall” in 1995. “Sorrow of the Great Wall,” a dance drama, was especially well receive by critics and audiences alike. It was hailed as one of the most outstanding Chinese dances in recent years. In addition, Mr. Yao taught master classes at De Anza College, San Jose Dance Theater and CPAA’s own South Bay Dance Academy. His choreography for the tremendously popular Theatre Works production of M. Butterfly won high critical acclaim and was nominated for Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle’s “Choreography in a Drama” Outstanding Achievement Award in 1993. In the same year, he awarded a fellowship by the Arts Council of Santa Clara County for his choreographic achievements. In 1994, China awarded Mr. Yao the highest honor for a choreographer. In a nationwide critical evaluation of dance in 20th Century China, jointly held by China Dancers Association, Arts Research Institute of China, China Literary and Artistic Alliance and other prestigious arts organizations with the endorsement of the Ministry of Culture, Mr. Yao’s “Yellow River Suite” was voted one of 32 “20th Century Masterpieces by Chinese Dancers,” from 3,300 outstanding dances created in the past 100 years. CPAA is very fortunate to have an artist of his caliber at the helms to guide and insure high quality of it repertoire, artists and performances. Mr. Yao is listed in Who’s Who of Contemporary China. Mr. Yao and Dennis Nahat, Artistic Director of Ballet San Jose, jointly choreographed a full length dance drama “Middle Kingdom Ancient China”, which premiered in February of 2005. Mr. Yao also choreographed “Moon Reflection on Crystal Spring” for Ballet San Jose in April of 2006. He received the Santa Clara County Asian Hero Award in 2006, which was featured on ABC’s “Profile of Excellence” in 2008. He joined Hubei Opera and Dance Drama Theatre as Dance Director in 2010.

Al Young

Educator; Literary Arts: Poet, Writer

Born May 31, 1939 at Ocean Springs, Mississippi on the Gulf Coast near Biloxi, Al Young grew up in the rural South of villages and small towns, and in urban, industrial Detroit. From 1957-1960 he attended the University of Michigan, where he co-edited Generation, the campus literary magazine. In 1961 he emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area. Settling at first in Berkeley, he held a variety of colorful jobs (folksinger, lab aide, disk jockey, medical photographer, clerk typist, employment counselor) before graduating with honors from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in Spanish. His marriage in 1963 to technical writer and editor Arline Young was blessed with one child: their son Michael, born in 1971. From 1969-1976 he was Edward B. Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford near Palo Alto, where he lived and worked for three decades. In the Y2K year 2000 he returned to Berkeley, where he continues to freelance. Young has taught poetry, fiction writing and American literature at Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Santa Cruz, U.C. Davis, Bowling Green State University, Foothill College, the Colorado College, Rice University, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan, the University of Arkansas, San José State University, where he was appointed the 2002 Lurie Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, and Charles University in the Czech Republic under the auspices of the Prague Summer Programs. In the spring of 2003 he taught poetry at Davidson College (Davidson, NC), where he was McGee Professor in Writing. In the fall of 2003, as the first Coffey Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, he taught a poetry workshop. From 2003-2006 he served on the faculty of Cave Canem‘s summer workshop retreats for African American poets. His honors include Wallace Stegner, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the PEN-Library of Congress Award for Short Fiction, the PEN-USA Award for Non-Fiction, two American Book Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, two New York Times Notable Book of the year citations, an Arts Council Silicon Valley Fellowship, the Stephen Henderson Achievement Award for Poetry, Radio Pacifica’s KPFA Peace Prize, the Glenna Luschei Distinguished Poetry Fellowship, and the Richard Wright Award for Excellence in Literature. At its May 2009 commencement, Whittier College conferred on him its highest honor: the Doctor of Humane Letters degree. On October 4, 2011 at the University of North Carolina’s Historic Players Theatre, Al Young received the 2011 Thomas Wolfe Prize. Young’s many books include novels, collections of poetry, essays, memoirs and anthologies. His work has appeared in Paris Review, Ploughshares, Essence, the New York Times, Chicago Review, Seattle Review, Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature, Chelsea, Rolling Stone, Gathering of the Tribes, the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, and the Oxford Anthology of African American Literature. In the 1970’s he wrote film scripts for producer Joseph Strick, Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, and Richard Pryor. In the 1980’s and 90’s, as a cultural ambassador for the United States Information Agency, he traveled throughout South Asia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian West Bank. In 2001 he traveled to the Persian Gulf to lecture on American and African American literature and culture in Kuwait and in Bahrain for the U.S. Department of State. Subsequent lecture tours have taken him to Southern Italy in 2004, and back to India in 2005. His poetry and prose have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German, Urdu, Korean, and other languages. Blending story, recitation and song, Young often performs with musicians. In 2005, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him Poet Laureate of California.

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