Three Black Men
A Journey into the Magical Otherwise
Production Team
VICTORIA SANTOS
Victoria’s work is rooted in a far-reaching vision of human potential. She has a deep commitment to our collective liberation. Her work emphasizes intersectional awareness, individual and collective healing, and compassionate action. She is the founder and director of the Center for Healing and Liberation. An organization focused on healing, wellness, and racial Justice practices.
Additionally, as founder and co-executive director of the BIPOC ED Coalition, Victoria is part of a cultural change movement that prioritizes health and wellness. Victoria advocates for more resources to flow towards BIPOC-led nonprofits and calls in philanthropic partners and other allies to reimagine their roles and commit to working with BIPOC-led organizations in more powerful ways. She is the co-creator of the BIPOC ED Sabbatical program and the Respite and Restoration program in Washington State.
Victoria knows the power of community and the wisdom that can emerge from it. Her work is guided by the deep knowing that everyone is needed, and that when we offer each other our compassionate listening, we cultivate our collective freedom. Victoria is a Spanish-fluent Afro-Latina immigrant born in the Dominican Republic living on land of the Snohomish people – although somewhat nomadic as of late.
KARINE BELL
Karine Bell is a somatics educator and somatic abolitionist. A bi-cultural Black woman, she’s also a culturally reflexive anthropologist exploring the intersection of where our bodies/psyches/experiences meet our collective histories. Karine’s current work centers around kin-making and community building in an online/offline communal space called The Rooted Global Village. The heart and soul of Rooted is building an ecology of care that can support our un/learning and deschooling, and cultivate technologies of liberation that serve personal and communal healing. Karine is also mentored by Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands, in somatic abolitionism, which focuses on body-centered healing around the wounds caused by racialized trauma and white-body supremacy. She combines continued study in somatics with studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Depth Psychology with a focus in community, liberation, indigenous and eco-psychologies. Her work is guided by the loving hands of her ancestral grandmothers, and is dedicated to her children, whose world entrance ignited the fire of her own trauma alchemy; and to her mother, Jean, whose influence set her on course to want to understand the nature of our disconnection and disembodiment and how we can reawaken and re/sensitize to a world alive.
DAVID CLAYTOR
David has over 30 years in event production, with a focus on Production for Festivals, Concerts and Events. Within the music industry, he has worked in every aspect of festival production, including production/stage management, operations, booking, staffing, sound, and festival director, along with tour management. David has worked with numerous nonprofit organizations that focus on social justice and arts and cultural. These include local Arts Councils, the NAACP, the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers and the Sausalito Arts Festival. Santa Cruz Juneteenth, SF Kwanzaa, the UC Santa Cruz MLK Convocation and the SF International HipHop DanceFest. A partial list of diverse artists he has worked with include Ray Charles, Los Lobos, Jimmy Cliff, Joe Cocker, BB King, Al Green, Bonnie Raitt, John Legend, Bunny Wailer, Damian Marley, Kendrick Lamar, The Roots, Lil Jon, Lauryn Hill, Stephen Marley, Diana Ross, Taj Mahal, Wiz Khalifa, Sheryl Crow. David does what he does because he loves being a part of bringing people together to have an experience. That gives him great joy. www.surethingproductions.com
ANA ELIZABETH
Ana Elizabeth is an event producer and works in event production management. As a youth, Ana was captivated by arts and culture and was fortunate to be able to explore and participate in many genres of art while growing up. This love of arts and culture has led to countless community collaborations resulting in uplifting, healing and joyous events. Ana has been Executive Director of a non-profit cultural dance center in Santa Cruz and served on many non-profit boards. She is currently chair of the Equity committee and serves on the board of the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County. Currently, Ana is a senior partner at SureThing Productions & Management, co-producer and program director of Santa Cruz Juneteenth, along with working, consulting and mentoring at festivals and community events along the West Coast. Ana is grateful to be on this journey with the Three Black Men
MASSOMEH SPAHR
Massomeh brings over a decade of leadership experience in program management and operations to the BIPOC ED Coalition team. Prior to joining, Massomeh served as the senior director of operations at a progressive K-8 charter school network. In this role, Massomeh led the development of network and campus based school operational systems and managed the opening of three out of four school buildings within a five year span. Massomeh was born and raised in New York City and is the last child of seven from two Caribbean-born parents. She believes that we are all educators and learning spaces are beyond the four walls of a classroom. Massomeh earned her bachelor’s degree from New York University, where she double majored in Gender and Sexuality Studies and Psychology. In addition, she earned her master’s degree in the Study of the Americas at the City College of New York.
Jon Marro
Jon Marro is an award-winning Artist, Author & Filmmaker who creates whimsical worlds filled with love, virtue and imagination. He has discovered that solutions to most any problem can be found through triumphs in imagination and a willingness to view the situation from a different perspective. Jon is a seasoned traveler in liminal spaces and loves guiding people between the mystical and the mundane. After 20+ years as a Creative Director, Jon founded of Worlds Within Enterprises, a Creative Agency and Production Studio that brings big, bold visions to life through multimedia storytelling.
Sienna McLean-LoGreco
Sienna McLean-LoGreco is a bi-racial documentary filmmaker with a passion for stories of social justice, racial justice, and people who are striving to make a difference in the world – stories that can both entertain and inspire. Her film Still Revolutionaries, about women in the Black Panther Party, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was awarded first prize for best documentary at the NextFrame International Film Festival, and continues to be distributed internationally. She’s earned credits as a writer, director, and producer for HBO, Showtime, A+E, VH1, Discovery, and Animal Planet, as well as writing and producing on branded content projects for Ridley Scott’s RSA films.
Early in her career, Sienna was part of the team that launched the Television Race Initiative (now known as Active Voice), a media project of P.O.V./American Documentary, promoting PBS broadcasts of documentary films that addressed issues of race & equality, using them as a catalyst for community dialogue beyond the airdate.
More recently, her call to activism has moved beyond storytelling to equity & inclusion in all aspects of production and content. Her work has grown to include healing spaces and conversations around social, racial and generational trauma. She calls on her bi-racial/cross-cultural personal experience & identity to hold safe and inclusive spaces.
Jodi Nishioka
Jodi has worked for over 20 years on behalf of low-income communities, particularly women, children, and immigrant and refugee communities. She started her career as an attorney advocating for immigrant domestic violence survivors and single mothers fighting for child support in legal aid organizations in Boston and Honolulu. Jodi continued her work on behalf of women and children within state and city governments in Hawaii and Seattle, and later with grassroots nonprofit organizations.
Jodi serves as co-executive director for the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color nonprofit executive directors coalition of Washington state. An organization focused on promoting solidarity, wellness and restoring resources in BIPOC communities.
Robin Gilliam
Experienced advocate and consultant with demonstrated commitment to equity, access and social & environmental justice. Skilled in Public Outreach & Affairs, Community Engagement, Strategic Communications, Urban & Environmental Planning, and Public Policy. Strong creative and innovation-based background with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from the University of Southern California and a Master of City Planning (MCP) focused in Environmental Planning and Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.
ARTISTS & ALLIES
ALIXA GARCíA
Alixa García is a Colombian born, globally-raised, multi-disciplinary artist, activist, and cultural activator whose work is imbued in ritual, spirit, and deep reverence for our Great Mother, Great Lover, our Earth. She is an award-winning activist, poet, and filmmaker. She is also a professional writer, visual artist, musician, and facilitator. Her work has been published by Whit Press, AK Press, Hatchett, & Daraja Press.
Alixa García is the Co-Founder & Co-Artistic Director of Climbing PoeTree, an internationally-renowned, award-winning social justice spoken word, hip-hop, and world music duo. Touring the globe, García has presented and performed at the The United Nations, T.E.D: Ideas Worth Spreading; on the main stage at Lightning in a Bottle, Eclipse, and Symbiosis music festivals; and In 2016 she performed on the main stage at the Women’s March for over 500K people on the streets of Washington D.C., a performance televised to millions world-wide.
Alixia’s website: https://alixagarcia.com/about
Pat Mccabe
Woman Stands Shining, is of the Diné Nation (often known incorrectly as “Navajo), and was also adopted into the Lakota Spiritual way of Life. She is a mother, grandmother, activist, artist, and international speaker. She identifies as a “radical bridger” of worlds and paradigms, with a focus on sharing from her own deep inquiry into Thriving Life Paradigm: “How do I become that being, that human, whose presence and way of being supports and causes all other life to Thrive?” She calls upon her lived experience from her indigenous cultures to make hypotheses and proposals to “Modern World Paradigm” as all of humanity is faced with its current crisis of relationship, with ourselves, with each other, and with the Earth.
Pat’s website: www.patmccabe.net
Sonali Sangeeta Balajee
Sonali Sangeeta Balajee (she/her) is a proud mother, artist, organizer, facilitator, mindfulness/yoga instructor, and emerging health practitioner who works at the intersection of belonging, equity, and deep transformative change. She roots in her home cultures and lands of India and Sri Lanka, and honors those from the Midwest (States) who also contributed to her growth and commitment to justice. Her formative education is in the arts, business, spiritual practice, collective health, and educational reform. Her life work has focused on bringing forward ideas and strategies that speak to wholeness, specifically calling for leading with multiple truths and perspectives required for collective wellbeing. To those ends, she strives to elevate the connection between social and spiritual wellbeing, focusing on artistically embodying and animating the web of health, belonging, collective care, and liberation. She focuses on elevating such medicines for our times through her founded projects, Our Bodhi Project and SSoMA (Spiritual Social Medicinal Apothecary), in deep partnership with luminary artists, queer activists, wisdom tenders, more-than-human kin, and earth and water protectors.
Sonali’s website: https://www.ourbodhiproject.com/
Cristina Orbé
Cristina Orbé is an artist/musician, non-profit founder, educator, wildcrafter, and medicine maker. Her path to healing led her to plant spirit diets in the jungle that connected her to plants as teachers and a highly evolved intelligence. In 2017, she started channeling an earth language and medicine song. This year she’s working on recording these songs and training to learn more about practices for healing collective and ancestral trauma.
Cliff Berrien
Cliff has 35-years experience as a percussion student and teacher of several music traditions, including drumming styles from Brazil, the Caribbean, Africa and India. He has combined his music studies, degree in psychology and years of experience as a professional DJ to develop practices that promote collective joy, cultural dexterity and global healing.
Cliff has had the honor of using these practices for the past 5 years co-facilitating workshops with his mentor, Dr. Barbara Holmes, author of Race and the Cosmos and Joy Unspeakable.
Aaron Johnson
Aaron Johnson is a facilitator, public speaker, and touch activist who practices closeness as a way to break down barriers between people. As co-founder of both Holistic Resistance and Grief to Action, Aaron takes the time to hold the stories of black people around homophobia, transphobia, internalized racism, and those that are Chronically UnderTouched. Aaron has created the Chronically UnderTouched Project, the basic strategies to bring a black body from being Chronically UnderTouched to a state of touch balance, as part of the lifelong journey of interrupting oppressive systems that make touch balance a radical action.
Aaron’s websites: https://www.holisticresistance.com/
& CUTproject.org
“Zi” – aka Davion Starchild Ziere
Born in Santa Barbara, CA and raised a global citizen between Oakland, Atlanta, Mississippi, South Africa and more, Zi is focused on being present and practicing holistic embodiment of the world we wish to live in. Zi is an artist, speaker, writer, bridge builder and entrepreneur cultivating visions and systems that value and respect wellbeing in all forms of life. Zi has formerly provided strategy work for Mission Investors Exchange, Chambers of Commerce, MB-USA, the MET, Emory University, Atlanta Public Schools, Children’s Defense Fund, in addition to local governments, small businesses and various celebrities. He has also been #1 Sales Advisor for TESLA, INC, co-creating their National Sales Training program, and has successfully generated millions of dollars in revenue for his startups, as well as turned down millions of dollars from investors who were not aligned with his organization’s values. By example and sharing through work, he has successfully empowered organizations, artists, students, and many more to be their best self not only by traditional metrics of success, but also in alignment with their values. He attended 13 different schools prior to starting college at the age of 15, is the oldest of 9 siblings and loves his family, community, travel, food, planet and exploring all that we don’t know.