ABOUT US
Our Team
Artistic Collaborator
George Chi Cheng, aka Txana Wukong (he/they), is a first-generation Asian American of Taiwanese, Manchurian, and Mongolian descent.
George’s multidisciplinary arts journey began in Taipei, Taiwan, and has taken him around the world since.
Also known as Txana Wukong (he/they), he is a member of world-renowned Hip Hop collective Circle of Fire and has worked with Hip Hop Theater company Embodiment Project as a principal member. In addition to his work as an artist, he has spent the last decade studying and learning from different Indigenous spiritual traditions and practices.
Their work also has involved holding space in ceremonial containers specifically for BIPOC community healing from intergenerational trauma, unwinding from systems of oppression and ancestral reclamation work. Wukong also serves as an acting foreign liaison, advocate and organizer with the Huni Kui Peoples Federation of the State of Acre in Brazil (FEPHAC).
As an organizer, activist, and multi-disciplinary artist, George is founder of Nawabu Culture, a nonprofit organization established with the mission to facilitate transformative social change through indigeneity, community, arts and culture, and spirituality. George holds a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies with a focus in art and social change from University of California, Berkeley.
Development; Founding Member: General Circle, Operations Circle, Artistic Circle
Dr. Jaclyn Harte is founder of Harte Grants, an organization dedicated to lifting and championing female-identifying leaders, founders, and the programs who serve them. In the last 6 years, she has worked on a portfolio of more than $30 million in grant work including: preparing institutional grant proposals, submitting renewal applications, and working on program implementation through operations and assessment. Dr. Harte's writing helps organizations to celebrate their work through compelling storytelling and inclusive data research.
Her favorite part of this work is watching ideas come to life and positively impacting the staff who carry out the program, and the children, families, and students who they serve. Her work includes: Piloting a neurofeedback program for people living with HIV/AIDS in transitional homes, Housing First pioneering homes for vulnerable populations, Trauma-Informed Care for domestic violence survivors, Capital Improvements, General Operations, Emergency Funding, Endometriosis Research, Mindfulness for LatinX college students, Equine Assisted Therapy, Bay Area Performing Arts, and City and Municipality Civil Engineering projects.
Dr. Harte lives in New York City, but was born and raised in New Jersey.
Organizational Partner; Fierce Vulnerability Network Mentor; Creative Collaborator
Kazu Haga is founder and coordinator of East Point Peace Academy, a core member of The Ahimsa Collective and Fierce Vulnerability Network. He is author of the book Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm.
Kazu is an experienced trainer, certified in several methodologies of nonviolence and restorative justice. Having received training from elders – including Dr. Bernard Lafayette; Rev. James Lawson and Joanna Macy – he teaches nonviolence, conflict reconciliation, restorative justice, organizing and mindfulness in prisons and jails, high schools and youth groups, and with activist communities around the country.
He was introduced to the work of social change and nonviolence in 1998, when – at age 17 – he participated in the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage, a six-month walking journey from Massachusetts to New Orleans to retrace the slave trade. He spent a year studying nonviolence and Buddhism while living in monasteries throughout South Asia, and returned to the US at age 19 to begin a lifelong path in social justice work.
He spent 10 years working in social justice philanthropy, while directly being involved in and playing leading roles in many movements. He became an active nonviolence trainer in the global justice movement of the late 1990s, and has since led hundreds of workshops worldwide.
He is the recipient of several awards, including: the Martin Luther King Jr. award; and the Gil Lopez Award for Peacemaking.
Kazu is an avid meditator and enjoys being in nature. He is a die-hard fan of the Boston Celtics and of mixed martial arts – the latter of which he is still sometimes conflicted about.
He resides in Oakland, California.
Creative Collaborator / Educator; Get Free Festival Guest Artist / Teacher
K’niin Abbrey is a performance artist with a concentration in digital art forms, as well as street/club dance improvisational movements and techniques.
Specializing in movement innovation and total body integration methodologies, K’niin emphasizes in musical aural skills and meditative approaches to movement, in order to heighten ones creativity and self-awareness. He finds joy traveling extensively to theatre spaces and Hip Hop communities internationally -both to compete and to teach his unique approach.
Additionally, Abbrey has collaborated with various award winning productions and companies as a principal dancer sharing his artistry and expertise; Companies such as, the Emmy nominated production Hip Hop Nutcracker, Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre and the Groovaloos, to name a few. All with the intention to bring powerful, performative, creative and thought-provoking street dance and digital art to the dance theatre world.”
Organizational Collaborator; Founding Member: ED Hiring Circle
Leigh Robbie Gaymon-Jones is a people-centered creative; she is a mover, a maker, a grower and a builder. She is moved by beauty, landscapes and human connection.
Leigh’s training and practices sit at the intersection of ecology and art. She is committed to land-based movements, and roots her creativity in performance and design.
Leigh attended Temple University for her undergraduate studies, received a Postgraduate Diploma from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance, and completed an MFA in Creative Inquiry at California Institute of Integral Studies. She has also studied and taught sustainable farming practices at the Center for Agroecology.
Currently at Solidaire Network, Leigh works with social movements to foster long-term building of liberatory futures.
Organizational Partner; Restructuring Steward
P. Leonie Smith is a first-generation Canadian of Jamaican heritage and is founder of The Thoughtful Workplace, a consultancy that uses a relational and skill-building approach to coaching, training, and mediation. Her work and life are centred around sharing people-centred modalities – such as Nonviolent Communication, Restorative and Transformative Justice practices, and Sociocracy – to support people who are traditionally marginalised to show up in their full humanity.
She also is founder and executive eirector of People of Colour for Nonviolent Communication (POC4NVC), an international network for Black, Indigenous People of Colour (BIPOC) who are connected to principles of nonviolence. She also is a trainer and core team member for East Point Peace Academy, a nonviolence training and consulting organisation based in Oakland, California.
Through the use of these and other tools, she supports groups and teams to find ways of working that reduce harm by understanding and sharing practical skills to address the impact of systemic racism and oppression. She has more than 20 years of experience in senior management positions in nonprofit organisations in communications, fundraising and human resources.
She is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
