Rose Weaver, Brown MFA 2000, SAG/AFTRA/AEA actress/singer/writer, believes that Art saves lives. A professional actress, singer, and teacher for forty-seven years in regional theatre, Off-Broadway, television and film, Rose was a Boston New England Emmy nominee, and a New England SAG Board member for two terms. She is the author and actress of the one woman play, Menopause Mama, the new play, Black Women Taking Off the Masks; is published in Monologues for Women by Women (Heinemann), and NuMuse: An Anthology of Plays from Brown University. www.roseweaver.com

Photo credit: James Lastowski

Chachi Carvalho is a multi-talented artist, educator, and front man for the International Players band. He is a native born-and-raised Rhode Islander with roots that stem from the islands of Cabo Verde. As an educator, Chachi spends his days as School Culture and Community Engagement Coordinator at Shea High School in Pawtucket and is co-owner of Beatbox Studio, also in Pawtucket. Chachi serves on the Advisory Council for AS220 Youth and he is a board member of the Pawtucket Arts Festival. chachihiphop.com

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Local treasure Becky Bass is known for her euphoric steel pan playing, soulful voice, and powerful stage presence. A native of St. Croix, Bass utilizes her talent to highlight Caribbean music’s evolution through human necessity and resilience, and share the complex history of Caribbean music and its influence on the U.S. A 2013 graduate of Brown University in Theatre Arts & Performance Studies, Bass is two-time New England Urban Music Award winner. She has performed at the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), New York City’s Lincoln Center, Chicago’s Underground Wonder Bar, and Off-Broadway theater LaMaMa. www.beckybass.com

Photo credit: Erin X. Smithers

Consuelo Sherba, violist, is a founding member and artistic director of the performance ensemble Aurea, dedicated to exploring the connection between music and the spoken word. With Aurea since 2004, she has performed at the Chicago Humanities Festival, the New York University Humanities Festival, FirstWorks, the Pawtucket Arts Festival, and around New England. She is a 2015 honoree of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities for her creative vision and multidisciplinary, humanities-driven programming with Aurea; was chosen as Person of the Year by the Pawtucket Foundation in 2007, and in 2008, was awarded the prestigious Rhode Island Pell Award.

She has been on the applied music faculty at Brown University since 1986, teaches at the RI Philharmonic Music School, and performs with the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, The Vermont Symphony and Buzzard’s Bay Music Festival. aureaensemble.org

Photo credit: Peter Goldberg Photography

Spoken word artist Christopher Johnson is the recipient of the 2018 Rhode Island State Council of the Arts Fellowship for Playwriting. He is also a finalist for the 2018 for the McColl Johnson Fellowship and an award-winning Slam Poet. As a highly sought out speaker and performer he has collaborated with many Rhode Island organizations including AS220, Brown University, Everett, FirstWorks, The GAMM, PVDFest, Trinity Rep, Wilbury Theatre Group, and others.

Timely, relevant, honest, unapologetic, personal, and political, his spoken word commands in a way that is uncomfortable and arresting. Educated in performance art through experience and mentorship, it has been said that his pieces touch the heart with feathers and barbed wire alike, speaking uncomfortable truths, invoking the best and worst of human emotions.

Using words like a dancer uses movement or a painter uses color, his delivery is nuanced. Able to evoke deep-seated dormant emotions through writings and performance, Johnson’s emotional expression through his art transcends race, gender, and other divisions. His impassioned words reach into the collective soul of all of us, touching and expressing our own pain, fear, and love, as well as his own. thencredibull.com/

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Violinist and educator EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks is a firm believer that music can move people, quite literally. To this end she plays a broad variety of musical styles, from classical to contemporary music, from traditional fiddle tunes to improv. Her craft has sent her around the world, from the Pacific Music Festival in Japan to the Orchestra of the Americas in Europe, South America and Canada, to Carnegie Hall. A two-year fellowship with Providence’s Community MusicWorks as a musician and teaching artist inspired her to found the Newport String Project, a mentoring and performing program with Ealain McMullin, where she served as co-director for six years. She is currently a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and the Birch Creek Summer Performance Center and performs with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, the Cape Symphony, the Southcoast Chamber Music Series and the new music collective, Verdant Vibes. www.emmaleeholmeshicks.com
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Musician and educator Michelle Kaminsky plays and teaches the fiddle, leading workshops in Cajun, Zydeco and Barn dance, as well as the xylophone. Her fluency in traditional American dance styles, which includes New England, Appalachian, French-Canadian, Cajun and Zydeco has made her a staple at festivals around the Northeast with New England’s hometown Cajun band, Magnolia, and the Contra dance band French Roast. She is also fiddler-in-residence at the Rhode Island Fiddle Project. mkfiddle99@gmail.com

Photo credit: Steer PVD