Born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, raised in Jersey City and New York City, and living in New Orleans since 1984, José Torres-Tama has received an NEA Regional Artists Project Award for his multidisciplinary performances, a Louisiana Division of the Arts Theater Fellowship, two National Performance Network Creation Fund awards, a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant for his art book publication New Orleans Free People of Color & Their Legacy, and a 2015 MAP Fund grant for his ALIENS Taco Truck Theater Project. A poet, visual artist, and performance artist, he explores the underbelly of the American Dream mythology and the current anti-immigrant hysteria gripping the United States. He teaches traditional drawing at the Ogden Museum in New Orleans, and from 2006–2011, he contributed commentaries to NPR’s Latino USA program, exploring the challenges of life post-Katrina and Latino immigrant contributions to the reconstruction of the city.
Elise Witt
Born in Switzerland and raised in North Carolina, Elise Witt has called Atlanta home for nearly forty years. Witt is fluent in five languages and sings in at least a dozen more. A member of Alternate ROOTS since 1979, her music promotes the causes of peace, justice, and human dignity. In addition to connecting singing communities around the world with her concerts of Global, Local, & Homemade Songs™ and her Impromptu Glorious Chorus™ workshops, Witt is currently the Director of Music Programs at the Global Village Project, a special-purpose middle school for teenage refugee girls in Decatur, GA. She is the 2015 recipient of the William L. Womack Creative Arts Award, which acknowledges artists who use their talent to build bridges of understanding between diverse communities.