AfroMundo: Presenters' Bios

Paula Melissa Alves aka Mel Adún

Paula Melissa Alves aka Mel Adún is a writer, journalist, and a Master in Literature and Culture at the Federal University of Bahia. She is co-founder of Editora Ogum's Publishing House in Brazil. Mel Adún is the author of A Lua Cheia de Vento (children's book, 2015), Adumbi (children's book, 2016); Peixe fora da Baía (short stories, 2021) and Quantas Tantas (poetry, 2021). Her poetry and prose can be found in several anthologies. She organized and edited the poetry anthology Quilombellas Amefricanas Vol. 1 and 2 (Ed. Ogum’s, 2020) with black women from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mozambique, United States and more. Mel Adún was chosen by the Waters; she is a daughter of Oxum and the mother of Ominirê. In her writings, black-amefrican-feminist voices can be heard, always carried by the ancestors' power in her texts. Mel Adún is part of the Ogum's Toques Negros Collective, Corpos Indóceis e Mentes Livres (working towards sentence reduction for incarcerated women at the Women's Correctional Facility in Salvador, Bahia- Brazil) and is a coordinator at Kilomba - Black Brazilian Women living outside of Brazil Collective.

Marcus Gonçalves da Silva aka Guellwaar Adún

Marcus Gonçalves da Silva aka Guellwaar Adún has used music, writing, and socially-engaged cultural work to contribute to the vitality of contemporary Afro-Brazilian culture in his home of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil since the late 1980s. Envision Guellwaar at the center of a multi-dimensional web of creativity and activity. Guellwaar is the co-founder, director and editor of the first Black publishing house in northeastern Brazil, Ogum’s Press, which began publishing in 2015, and grew out of the artistic and literary eponymous collective. His poetry and prose can be found in several anthologies. His poetry book desinteiro (Ed. Ogum’s, 2016) placed him among the top contemporary poets. Guellwaar is an accomplished composer of contemporary Afro-Brazilian music. His compositions are performed by the Bloco Afro/African Brazilian Carnival group Ilê Aiyé, one of the most prestigious cultural organizations in Bahia. Three times, his compositions have earned him 1st place in the Black Music Composer Contest sponsored by Ilê Aiyê.

Monice Aguilar

Monice Aguilar was born and raised in Albuquerque New Mexico. A University of New Mexico student, she plans to pursue a degree in the medical field. Monice enjoys performing spoken word poetry and relaying the emotions of her written work. She hopes to compose a short collection of personal poems in the near future that center around the black identity and black women specifically.

Ausettua AmorAmenkum

Ausettua AmorAmenkum, a native New Orleanian, attended McDonogh 35 High School, Dillard University and Loyola University. She is a cultural advocate and educator, professor of African and Hip-Hop dance at Tulane University, Big Queen of the Washitaw Nation Black Masking Indians, Director of Kumbuka African Drum & Dance Collective, Vegan Chef of Soul Sisters, Acting President of New Orleans Black Mardi Gras Indian Cooperative and Co-Chair of the Save Our Souls Coalition. Ausettua began engaging performance arts in prison communities in 1980s at Angola Penitentiary with Gary Tyler and the Drama Club. She has engaged incarcerated women with performance and spiritual arts for 20 years as Co- Director of the LCIW (Louisiana Correctional Institution for Women) Drama Club. Ausettua is also the Co-Director of The Graduates, a performance group of formerly incarcerated women. As Rauschenberg Fellows Arts as Activism Fellows (2016), The Graduates produced the Life Quilt, which featured 107 beaded names of women serving life sentences in Louisiana in 2016; Contributing artists to the Life Quilt included Brandan B-Mike Odums, Louise Mouton Johnson and ten tribes of the Black Masking Indian Tradition of New Orleans. That quilt was recently exhibited at the Ford Foundation, New York, in 2020. She is committed to the preservation, presentation, and documentation of African and African American culture and artforms. Ausettua is a Junebug Productions John O’Neal Fellows 2020-2022 and recent contributing author to the book Hot Feet & Social Change. Ausettua firmly believes in the power of the arts to heal, educate and motivate community to engage and organize for social change.

Seiça Santana Carriaga

Seiça Santana Carriaga, from coastal town Itanhaém in São Paulo, is renowned in Albuquerque for serving up her native cuisine, including Feijoada—a culinary creation of Africans enslaved in Brazil’s sugar plantations.

Francesca Chaney

Francesca Chaney is an award winning plant-based chef, creative & full spectrum doula. Her thoughtful food creations explore the traditional flavors of her Garifuna and Southern American upbringing. In 2018 she began offering sliding-scale and community minded dining initiatives with the goal of making plant-based food and wellness more accessible. She continues to partner with community members and organizations to expand upon that goal. This year she released a plant-based chicken alternative and she is having lots of fun learning how to sustainably package products and goods from the Sol Sips kitchen. Her work has been featured in the 2020 Michelin Guide, Oprah's 2020 Vision Tour, Rachael Ray, Tamron Hall, Good Morning America and more. She is also listed as an Eater Young Gun, Grist50, Rachael Ray's Most Innovative Women in Food, and as one of New York Times: T-Magazine's 15 New Creatives to Watch.

Benjamin “BJ” Dennis

Benjamin “BJ” Dennis was born and raised in Charleston, SC. Recent appearances on Netflix 'High on the Hog' docu-series, P.B.S 'Moveable Feast' and Bravo's 'Top Chef' have taken Chef BJ and Gullah Cuisine to an international television audience. What differentiates Chef BJ’s food from his contemporaries in “southern” cooking is the homage he pays to the Gullah Geechee culture, brought to the Americas by West Africans, and disseminated along the West Indies and the American South. Dennis infuses the techniques of his ancestors, learned from four years of study in St. Thomas, as well as the lessons of his grandparents about eating from the land, to create fresh interpretations of local dishes focusing on in-season, locally sourced vegetables and seafood. Recent trips to Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Barbados, Dominica, U.S. Virgin Islands, Angola, Senegal and Benin has brought his work full circle. Connecting the people and cultures of the African diaspora through food. When you taste BJ’s cooking, you can’t help but re-think your idea of soul food. Chef BJ has an associate’s degree in hospitality / tourism management and the culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of Charleston and has worked in a number of award winning southern dining establishments including Carolinas, Anson’s, Oak Steakhouse, Hank’s Seafood, and 82 Queen. His cuisine has been featured in local, national and international events including the BB&T Wine+Food Festival, Cook It Raw, Meatopia, and The Food film fest. His “pop-up” dinners, at local establishments such as Butcher & Bee, Elliottborough MiniBar, Republic Reign, Le Creuset, Roadside Seafood and Proof, are sought after culinary adventures on the underground dinner circuit. His pop up at Labo Culinaire Foodlab in Montreal, Quebec in May 2015 took the Gullah food and culture to an international arena. Also a chef participant at the Terrior food symposium in Toronto May 2015, Canada's biggest food conference.

Eleuterio Santiago-Díaz

Eleuterio Santiago-Díaz is a poet, professor, and literary critic. Upon graduation from the University of Puerto Rico, Santiago-Díaz worked as a teacher of Spanish, physical education and industrial arts, and as a librarian in Puerto Rican elementary schools. He earned a Master’s degree in Spanish from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from Brown University, and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of New Mexico. His teaching and research center on Afro-Caribbean and Caribbean literature examined in light of theories of race, writing and modernity; Latino-Caribbean literature in the United States; and Modern Latin American poetry. Before joining UNM, he taught language and literature in the departments of Spanish and Portuguese and African and Diaspora Studies at Tulane University, at Cambridge Community College and at St. Cloud State University. Santiago-Díaz is the author of the poetry books Árbol de plaza talado en su novena edad (Ciudad de México, Ediciones del Lirio, 2021) and Breaths (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2012), the scholarly book Escritura afropuertorriqueña y modernidad (Pittsburgh, PA: IILI/University of Pittsburgh, 2007), and articles published in academic journals and anthologies such as Revista Iberoamericana, Confluencia, Bilingual Review, Revista de Literatura, História e Memória, and Marvels of the African World: Cultural Patrimony, New World Connections, and Identities (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003). Pending publication, he has several creative projects: the poetry books Kernel and The Mollusk and the Thumb, and a collection of short stories titled El Circo.

J. Gourdin

J. Gourdin (they/them) is a multi-hyphenate creative originally from Baltimore, MD. Their writing is inspired by vignettes of Black home life and explores the power of belonging. J is a PhD student at the University of New Mexico. They are excited to bridge their poetic efforts with the field of Sociology.

Rosario Sonia Goyoneche Narciso, aka Charo Goyoneche

Rosario Sonia Goyoneche Narciso, aka Charo Goyoneche, is a 2020 Latin Grammy Nominee appointed by the Peruvian Government as a Meritorious Person of Afro-Peruvian Culture. Charo Goyonehe is a Cultural Activists who through songs, theater and dance preserves Afro-Peruvian traditions and combats racism, sexism and marginalization. Her beginnings as a dancer were with iconic musical and dance ensemble Peru Negro founded in 1969 by Ronaldo Campos de la Colina to celebrate and preserve Peru’s black culture and criolla music. She is currently the principal singer for the Ambiente Criollo, and is on the Board of the cultural association Teatro del Milenio. Throughout her career, she has represented Peru in over 20 nations throughout Europe and the Americas.

Rosa Guzmán

Rosa Guzmán, is a 2020 Latin Grammy Nominee recognized by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture as a Meritorious Person of Peruvian Culture. She is one of the featured singers in the iconic Peruvian documentary, Kachkaniraqmi (Sigo Siendo in Spanish, I Am Still Here in English)—a film nominated by Los Premios Latinos as a Best Film Documentary. La Casa de la Mujer located in the district of her birth has since been renamed after her in honor of her cultural and artistic achievements. Rosa Guzmán was raised in a musical household frequented by Afro-Peruvian musical masters such as Don Ernesto “Chino” Soto, Los Hermanos Ascues, Mañuco Cobarrubias, Pablo Casas, El “Manchao” Arteaga, Valentina Barrionuevo, Wilfredo Franco, Ricardo del Valle “Mil quinientos”, and Sabina Febres “La gata”, among others. Throughout her lengthy career, Rosa Guzmán has rescued a broad repertoire of songs from the early 20th century when “criolla music” was known as “danza cancion”. Since the 90s she has toured extensively throughout Peru and abroad. For the last 17 years she had been the principle singer at Casa de la Marinera, founded by Amelia Huapaya. Rosa Guzmán also performs monthly at Peña El Bolivariano, Casa de Pepe Villalobos, and Club Miraflores.

Kathryn Hall-Trujillo

Kathryn Hall-Trujillo, DDiv, M.P.H. For over forty years, as a public health administrator, community health educator and advocate in the public and private sectors, Ms. Kathryn has been addressing the racial and gender divide in women’s access to healthcare. She was the founding director of Birthing Project USA: The Underground Railroad for New Life, a global maternal and child health organization, which has provided technical support and resources to maternal and child health stakeholders in 13 countries. Her experience in understanding, translating and bridging policy, administration, services delivery, and client cultures has earned her national and international recognition, including presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Living Legacy Award and appointment as an official Ambassador by the Federation of International Gender and Human Rights (FIGHR), a United Nations affiliate. Ms. Hall-Trujillo has also received the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Public Health Lifetime Achievement Award and is an Ashoka Global Social Entrepreneur Fellow. She is an Independent Scholar of the Cuba Public Health System, serves on the Medical Advisory Board of IFCO (the administrator of the U.S./Cuba Medical School Scholarship Program), adjunct faculty for Charles Drew University of Medicine, and visiting professor for the Cuba National School of Public Health, where she facilitates courses for U.S. students and professionals. Ms. Kathryn is a consultant and mentor to many community leaders, students, and young professionals, to whom she is affectionately known as Mama Katt.

Cara Lawson

Cara Lawson is a writer, film director, and artist from Chicago, Illinois. Her multi-racial background inspires her to carve out new spaces for representation in an innovative, female-centric, multi-ethnic approach to the stories of old. She weaves myths that foster compassion and empathy within this space, building vibrant worlds inspired by her passion for animation, history, politics, social justice, and folklore. After graduating summa cum laude with a B.A. in Cinema Art + Science from Columbia College, Lawson moved to Los Angeles, where she attended the prestigious American Film Institute and received a full-tuition scholarship to study Directing. Since graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree, Cara has worked for many distinguished filmmakers including television producer Mark Gordon and award-winning director Karyn Kusama. Currently, Cara works with Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, creators and showrunners of the hit cable television series Yellowjackets on Showtime. In 2022, Cara was awarded a directing fellowship by Indeed and Hillman Grad’s Rising Voices, a highly selective program. Cara was one of ten filmmakers chosen to direct her short film entitled “Crooked Trees Gon Give Me Wings” an African American magical realism story that delves into the involuntary gynecology practiced on Black women during the 19th century and the vital assistance given by Black midwives.The film was filmed on location in Savannah, Georgia, and premiered at Tribeca’s 2022 Film Festival. Cara’s currently using the resources provided by her short to fund the development of a free public education campaign for female reproductive care. Lawson devotes most of her time to extensive research for each project, believing quality comes from a thoughtful, empathetic, and anthropological approach. No matter the country, world, planet, or time period, she aims to create emotional stories rooted in character.

Yuri Martín Juárez Yllescas
(detail of photo by Silvana Lopez)

Yuri Martín Juárez Yllescas (Lima-Peru 1973), guitarist, arranger and composer, began his career in 1996 as guitarist for various groups of Afro-Peruvian music, folk and fusion. His musical training ranges from formal studies at New York University with Gil Goldstein, John Scofield and Peter Bernstein and also with the Peruvian masters of the guitar such as Pepe Torres, Alvaro Lagos, Jorge Madueño and more "street" experience in Afro-Peruvian peñas. He has shared the stage and recorded with musicians like Eva Aylloón, Susana Baca, Arturo O'Farrill, Ron Carter, and iconic Peruvian composers such as Kiri Escobar and Javier Lazo, and trail blazing bands including the Gabriel Alegría Afro-Peruvian Sextet, Novalima and Tangolandó among others. In 2000, Yuri becomes involved with Latin-American folk music for the first time with the group Sin Líneas en el Mapa. In 2004 he starts exploring the Afro-Peruvian Jazz current with Edward Perez, Rafael "Fusa" Miranda and Juan Medrano Cotito. In November of 2008 Yuri released his first album. Afroperuano with its own repertoire and important composers Chabuca Granda, Carlos Hayre and Chucho Valdes, achieving great success in domestic and international criticism. In December of 2009 he moved to New York City and gets the Latin Jazz Corner Awards in the categories of Best Afroperuvian Jazz Album and Best Latin Jazz Guitarist debut for his "Afroperuano". In 2012 he released "Tangolandó" with the Argentinean singer Sofia Tosello. Tangolandó is the first encounter of traditional Argentinean tangos with the Afro-Peruvian rhythms. This album was nominated for the Independent Music Awards in 2013. Guitar Sapiens (2016) is his lifetime project where he puts together all his 20 years of experience like a performer and composer. This is a huge orchestral and ensemble project, a double album where is blended their Classical, Jazz, Flamenco, Brazilian, Tango and Afro-Peruvian music influences. The suite "Hayre" and "Gitanos y Criollos" are two examples of those influences. Lima (2019) is his recent work with the rising star Peruvian percussion player Jhair Sala. This is a tribute to his hometown with traditional "criollo" music where classical criollo guitar dialogue with the cajon. Lima is a contemporary view of an old traditional sound.

Freddy "Huevito" Lobatón

Freddy "Huevito" Lobatón is a Legend of Afro-Peruvian music. He was raised in an ambience of Afro-Peruvian dance and music, given that rehearsals for the ballet folkloric group, Gente Morena, founded by his father, took place in his home. By witnessing such rehearsals, Freddy begins step-dancing at age four. By twelve, he was a member of Ballet Santa Cruz, and composed his first hit: Señores Murió el Cajón. From then on Freddy was the percussionist preferred by artists Eva Ayllon, Lucía de la Cruz, Lucila Campos, Oscar Aviles, y el Zambo Cavero. He was even featured in the iconic recording Ritmos Negros del Peru produced by renowned poet and composer Nicomedes Santa Cruz. Since then he has performed and collaborated in multiple genres with musicians all over the world.

Josie Lopez

Josie Lopez is the Head Curator at the Albuquerque Museum where she recently curated The Carved Line: Block Printmaking in New Mexico, The Printer’s Proof: Artist and Printer Collaborations, Wit, Humor, and Satire, Indelible Blue: Indigo Across the Globe, and other exhibitions featuring the Museum’s art collection. Currently, she is working on curating and organizing an upcoming traveling exhibition, Danny Lyon: Journey West and curating current and upcoming exhibitions featuring a broad range of art historical and contemporary themes. Josie oversees the museum’s collections and the permanent exhibition Common Ground: Art in New Mexico. Prior to her curatorial position at the Albuquerque Museum, Josie was the curator of art at 516 Arts and curated: Puerto Rico: Defying Darkness, Currency: What do you Value?, and Species in Peril Along the Rio Grande. Josie completed a BA in History and a Masters in Teaching at Brown University. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Josie’s research interests include examining art as a discursive agent in the political arena, the intersections of art and the environment, modern and contemporary Latin American art, and modern and contemporary Mexican and New Mexican art. As the 2013-15 Eleanor Tufts Fellow at SMU she taught courses on modern Mexico and the prints of Francisco Goya. She has also taught courses on the history of printmaking and European art at the University of New Mexico.

Aurelio Martinez
(detail of photo by Katia Paradise)

Aurelio Martinez, aka AURELIO, singer-songwriter, guitarist and percussionist, is one of Central America’s most gifted performers. Born in Honduras, the artist is known for his powerful and evocative voice. He is a major tradition-bearer of the Garifuna culture and music and he is considered nowadays as the Cultural Ambassador of the Garifuna nation. The Garinagu, commonly known as the Garifuna, are people of Amerindian and West African descents who live along the coasts of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

Dr. Sheryl Felecia Means

Dr. Sheryl Felecia Means (she/ella/ela). Until recently a UNM postdoctoral fellow in Africana Studies specializing in Afro-Latinidad and Afro-Indigeneity, Dr. Sheryl Felecia Means is now an Equity Strategies Analyst for the Office of Equity and Human Rights at the City of Portland. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Spelman College and earned her Ph.D. in Education Sciences, Philosophical and Cultural Inquiry from University of Kentucky in May 2018. Her doctoral research focused on Black racial identity formation at Steve Biko Cultural Institute in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and is originally from Newark, New Jersey.

Leandro Manuel Pita Benito

Leandro Manuel Pita Benito, a double-major in Sociology and Chicana/o/x studies, will pursue an MFA in Dramatic Writing. He is driven by theory and the possibilities this world has yet to show us. Leandro believes in the benefits of social balance. As an Afro-Caribbean and Indigenous Latinx individual, he strives for social justice and decolonization on stolen lands.

Viviam Caroline de J. Queirós

Viviam Caroline de J. Queirós, percussionist, artist, and activist, was born and raised in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. She is the founder of YaYa Muxima Women’s Band and is a featured performer/percussionist with Carlinhos Brown’s newly formed Timbaladies. In 1993, Viviam began her training as a percussionist with samba reggae creator, Neginho do Samba, then with Dida Women’s Percussion Ensemble. Viviam directed performed, taught, and fundraised for the organization for over twenty-five years.

Viviam is one of Brazil’s most sought-after authorities of Samba Reggae and the essential role the drum plays in empowering Black women. Her masterful teaching blends deep knowledge of the samba reggae drums and their rhythms, technique, movement, and spirit as powerful tools at the intersections of art and social transformation in the world.

Viviam holds an M.A. in Culture and Society from the Federal University of Bahia. Her thesis is titled Quilombo of Drums: Neguinho do Samba, the creation of Samba Reggae as a Black Bahian tradition. In 2020, Viviam ran for City Council in Salvador. Although she was not elected, Viviam remains politically and socially active in various governmental activities in Bahia. Viviam has lectured internationally at Cite de La Music, Paris; University of Texas, Austin; Tulane University, and Festival de La Juventud in El Salvador, among others. Additionally, Víviam was part of the 2011 TedTalk What is Impossible? She has performed with Angelique Kidjo, Milton Nascimento, Shakira, Carlos Santana, Caetano Veloso, Elza Soares, Gal Costa, and Carlinhos Brown.

Tauz TamuPovi

Tauz TamuPovi is a Queer Black and Indigenous woman. Both she and her teenage daughter reside in their homelands, San Ildefonso Pueblo New Mexico. Tauz works as a Trauma Recovery Specialist, traditional healer, perinatal community health worker, certified lactation counselor and birth attendant, providing emotional, physical and spiritual support during labor, birth and postpartum. Tauz incorporates teachings from her family lineage from San Ildefonso Pueblo as well as teachings that have been shown to her through ceremony, prayer and ancestral knowledge through her Trinidadian and African lineage. Tauz has studied with the Institute of Birth, Breath and Death and has attended over 55 births. As a facilitator and clinician, she practices massage therapy, energy work, Reiki, healing touch, chakra balancing and Somatic Archaeology, a healing modality focused on working with body awareness to unlock stories of personal and generational trauma from our bodies, allowing room for reconciliation, healing and personal growth. It has been the desire for Tauz to serve in her community to offer up gifts and tools that are rooted in love and tradition. To assist both the birthing communities and families in remembering the sacred ceremony of birth, life, living and death.

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