Original Cast Bios Bios with Photos
Aryeh Shell
Aryeh Shell is a social justice educator and organizer. She is the founder of the Herstories Project, seeking to cultivate social transformation by turning to the ancestors and bringing women's voices to the foreground. She has been a member of many organizations and coalitions including Direct Action to Stop the War, Art and Revolution, The Living Arts Playback Theatre Ensemble and the Institute for Deep Ecology. She teaches workshops internationally in anti-racism, arts activism, street theater and giant puppetry. She currently works with Mayfair Improvement Iniative, an immigrant rights organization and Teatro Vision, a Chicano-based theater company in San Jose, developing popular theater for social change. She is a graduate student at SFSU in Education: Equity and Social Justice. Aryeh recently participated in a peace delegation of American military and Iraqi families who came together to share testimonies and deliver medical aid to the refugees of Falluja. She is currently perfoming a one woman show entitled "Call to Prayer", to weave and share these testimonies with the American people.
Betsey Bryant
Grandmother, artist and writer/poet, a lover of the arts, whose work has been shown throughout the Bay area, Betsey is passionate about her grandboys, using the creative process for healing, and helping others to find and express their true, artistic self.
Black Star
Born and raised in San Francisco, 47 years old, an urban Native, Blackstar is a self-taught musician who plays from the heart. There are times when a wiser voice comes and she becomes a storyteller as well. She feels very privileged and blessed to be a part of The Herstories process with these other strong women.
Ching-In Chen
ching-in. poemsender. a loudmouth organizer hoping for liberation. sometimes bridge, sometimes islanderdweller. daughter. lover. sister. karaoke singer. budding filmmaker. a sunrise. lover of the thrift store. keeper of secrets, scraps and misplaced beauty.
Elenna Rubin Goodman
Elenna Rubin Goodman began secretly dancing at age 5 and since then (which was a while ago!) her work as a soloist and ensemble dancer, choreographer and director has been shown in Oakland, San Francisco, Washington, Mexico, Brazil and South India. As a writer, performance artist, and facilitator of peacemaking projects, she gets to practice of devotion to the ancestors, justice, beauty and community building.
Emily Burkes-Nossiter
Emily Burkes-Nossiter joined The Herstories Project as theatrical director in 2004. She holds a M.A. in Counseling Psychology,
concentrating in Drama Therapy, from the California Institute for Integral Studies. Emily trained in theatre and creative arts therapies
at Columbia University, the New School University, and the New York Open Center, and has written, directed, and performed with numerous theatre companies. She pursues healing and social change through the arts as
drama director for Marin Country Day School's Beyond Borders program, with adolescents at YWCA's Come Into the Sun and the McAuley Intstitute
at St. Mary's Hospital, and as president of the Northern California Chapter of the National Association for Drama Therapy. Emily is a
drama therapist in private practice through the Living Arts Counseling Center, San Franciso, (www.livingartscenter.org).
Isoke Femi
Isoke has been singing since she was seven years old. From blues to gospel to Italian arias. For Isoke, singing is prayer. She is a doctoral student, an elder and a foundation, and a voice of infinite and, sometimes, trickster wisdom for the women in The Herstories Project.
Jennifer Fox Bennett
Jennifer, engineer-by-day/poet-by-night, is an Ojibway/Odawa Band member of the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on the ethereal Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Canada. She has lived in many places between two oceans: a suburban wasteland in Florida, the menacing halls of Cornell University (where she received her B.S.), and the dirt roads and boréal forests of her Reserve. She now finds herself in Oakland. Left To Shatter, Jennifer's first book, a collection of poems and short stories, will be available from Monkey Book Press (San Francisco, CA) in February 2004.
Karla Brundage
Karla Brundage was born in Berkeley, California. Her poetry and essays have been published in Bamboo Ridge, Ishmael Reed's Konch Magazine, Hip Mama, Oahu Review, Kaimana and La'iLa'i. Other essays and poems have appeared in Multi-America: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace (Viking 1997); Adam of Ife: Black Women in Praise of Black Men (Lotus Press, 1992); Intersecting Circles: Voices of Hapa Women in Poetry and Prose (Bamboo Ridge Press 1999). She has performed her written work with Rhodessa Jones in "The Medea Project" (SF Yerba Buena Center, 1994) and with Joyce Lu in "Carving Circles" (Earl Ernst Lab Theater, 1997).
Karla Robinson
Karla Robinson is a crafty 26 year-old youth advocate and writer/storyteller from the Bronx. In the words of our ancestor Audre Lorde "What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will one day sicken and die of them still in silence? My silence has not protected me. Your silence will not protect you."
Nícola Wagenberg
Nícola is an artist and educator. She loves to create, explore and express through painting, video, voice, music and movement. For the past 13 years Nícola has facilitated groups of diverse ages and backgrounds in using the arts for personal and community exploration, healing and transformation. Nícola is the filmmaker for The Herstories Project. She's been filming the making of the project with the purpose of creating the Herstories documentary.
Shanique Scott Scott-Tyehimba
A distinguished comedienne, Shanique has been seen at Stand-up NY Comedy club, NY Comedy Club, The Punchline (San Francisco, CA), Kimbles East (Oakland, CA), Sidelines (Santa Rosa, CA), LGBT (San Francisco, CA), and performances with names like "Sisters doing comedy, Shades of Laughter, Inc." Shanique also holds to her credit several theatrical performances the latest being "In Search of a Legend, The Josephine Baker Story" A JonAl Production (San Francisco, CA). She is also a very talented writer. She is currently working on her first novel, Francine Anafiene and touring "Reflextions" a one-women play about her life as an inner city youth, written and performed by Shanique.
Sparlha Swa
Sparlha, 23 years old, is a powerful upcoming Bay Area singer and songwriter. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in the States, she graduated from Stanford University, and, for the past 3 years has been honing her craft. Her first CD, Uprising, is available at shows and online. An irresistible blend of soul and folk, with simple yet powerful guitar accompaniment and profoundly moving lyrics, her voice carries you into the deepest within yourself, and there offers insights that heal, inspire, and uplift. Under the auspices of CASAMENA (Oakland, CA), she is currently recording her second album. For Sparlha, The Herstories Project has been a profound blessing and an opportunity to deepen her connection with the amazing women building the project, to bring her love of the stage into a multimedia setting, to open the door to an awakened communication with her ancestors, and for healing. Check out her website at .
Vika Teicher
Vika Teicher is the founding producer of the Herstories Project. She is a teacher, performer, and Thai Massage practitioner. She studied spirituality and creative arts at New York's Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. She is now a seasonal faculty member of Omega's Holistic Studies Program, teaching theater and body image workshops and leading dance rituals for Omega staff. She has taught and served diverse communities in Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. She performed in "Being Beautiful," a local dance theater production about body image, from Spring 2002 through Spring 2003.
