THE EAST SIDE ARTS COUNCIL IS COMMITTED TO BRINGING ARTISTS TO SCHOOLS and community centers TO INCREASE PASSION FOR THE ARTS.
East Side Arts Council is honored to work with the following multidisciplinary teaching artists, who provide quality arts instruction for our programs. Throughout the year, we place teaching artists in contract teaching positions in after school programs at schools and recreation centers, summer programming, in-school artist residencies, virtual workshops, and senior arts programming. The artists in this roster have been chosen through an interview process based on both their artistic skills, their ability to teach students, and their experience and passion for working with youth and seniors on the East Side.
Caroline Alkire
Visual Arts - Website
Caroline Alkire is a mixed media and collage artist based in Minneapolis, MN. She cuts up her own photographs, vintage magazines and books to create surreal, whimsical, and vibrant scenes. She often experiments with different mediums such as photography, embroidery, illustration, and prose to bring her work to life and convey emotion or significance.
Mayumi Amada
Mixed Media
Born and raised in rural Japan and always loved art but struggled to access education in it until she came to the U.S. for college. She then changed paths and dedicated herself to her arts education. She has been a very active and successful visual artist since then, showing her work locally, nationally, and internationally including a solo exhibit at Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Ananya Dance Theatre
Contemporary Social Justice Dance - Website
Ananya Dance Theatre is a pioneering force in contemporary dance and enjoys a growing profile throughout Minnesota, the United States, and the world. Led by Artistic Director Ananya Chatterjea, their 11-member ensemble of BIPOC women, and femmes, creates original dance theater, drawing on social justice themes inspired by the lives and stories of women around the globe.
Photo by Paul Virtucio, courtesy of Ananya Dance Theatre
Dave Branch
Comic Book-Making
Dave Branch teaches sketching, digital art, and comic-book making. He has taught at various parks and recreation centers on the East Side, as well as Humboldt Middle and Highland Middle schools with the Flipside after school program.
Leanna Browne
African Dance - LinkedIn
Leanna teaches a very popular Umfundalai dance (a pan-African contemporary dance technique) class combined with African dance history at Maxfield Elementary. Through this class, she covers dance techniques from multiple countries and cultures within the African continent.
Malia Burkhart
Puppetry, Storytelling - Website
Malia's residencies revolve around collaboration with teachers, with the belief that integrating current study topics transforms students' understanding of the subject, channeled through their own creative choices. As a May Day Parade Artist, she organizes, designs and leads public workshops for a people and puppet-powered parade. She has also been a parade artist for the Dream Community Festival in Taiwan (2005), and leading puppetry workshops on board the Peace Boat, a Japan based peace tourism organization that travels around the world (2004). She also has worked with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, COMPAS, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, teaching a myriad forms of puppetry and mask-making.
Eric CarRanza
Music
Eric Carranza is an artist and music educator based in the Lowertown Arts district of Saint Paul. In creative endeavors, he has a rich and diverse pool of projects to juggle (Excessive, Hot Date, batteryboy, Yeti Steady, etc.) as well as musical composition and sound design for mobile games, apps, ads, and more. He is also locally known for his community and art forward events, with various twin cities venues and organizations as well as Springboard for the Arts, Walker Art Center, Saint Paul Art Crawl and many others.
LAURINE CHANG
Spoken Word Poet, Writer
Laurine (she/they/elle) believes that art work is heart work. Rooted in moving with authentic joy and intention, they use poetry and writing as a therapeutic tool and creative outlet to strengthen self-awareness, self-love, emotional intelligence, and badassery. Laurine Chang is a Twin Cities grown second-generation Hmong American spoken word poet, writer, and performance artist. Their work currently centers around societal and generational trauma, family and domestic violence, living with invisible disabilities, and narrative healing.
Layne Elliot
Visual Arts
Layne Elliott is a mixed media artist, musician, and teacher based in Saint Paul, MN. They studied at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where they focused on renaissance painting techniques and education. Since 2020, they have been teaching art to kids of all ages through various organizations in the Twin Cities. In Layne's Multimedia Art class, kids get to experiment with a variety of materials and techniques- building real art skills while also making fun crafts along the way! With a focus on drawing and painting, students will get to try their hand at printmaking, collage, fiber arts, and more. In their personal art practice, Layne finds joy in using vibrant colors and classical painting techniques with hopes to build representation and community for LGBTQIA+ experiences in the realm of fine arts.
Sue costello sepulveda
Visual Artist - Website, Instagram
Susan Costello Sepulveda, is an abstract artist residing in the land of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota. Susan has always been a gifted artist and is consistently exploring different art mediums to elevate her artistic style. Her color palette is bright, yet soft, a harmony of color working simultaneously throughout the painting. The artist's aesthetic choices are intuitive rather than premeditated. Her style is nuanced by a range of inspiration derived through observations of nature and color. The personal edge that Susan brings to each painting alters and enhances recognizable subject matter, cultivating an imaginative, tranquil visual experience.
Susan attended Brown College and received an Associates Degree in Advertising Design. Currently she is sharing her artistic endeavors with the youth and seniors in the community through interactive activities in art. She participates in the local art scene displaying her work with local galleries and art fairs, Including the Solidarity Street Gallery.
Jennifer Chilstrom
Visual and fiber art - Instagram
Jen Chilstrom is a multidisciplinary artist with a Master’s degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has taught at various St. Paul public schools, parks and recreation centers, and public libraries on the East Side. Her classes ignite creativity in students of all ages. She’s also worked with our Artmobile and Creative Connections for Seniors programs. Her classes bring attention to the natural world through bricolage, textile design, foraging for natural pigments and dyes, drawing, painting, weaving, bookmaking, and fashion design.
Andrea Conger
Scandinavian Dance
Andrea Conger teaches Scandinavian Dance to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders at Phalen Lake Hmong Studies Magnet in St. Paul as part of the Global Dance Residency in partnership with ESAC and Phalen Lake Hmong Studies.
Andrea has danced with professional folk ensembles for many years. She is now a professor of anthropology and ethnochoreology (the study of culture and movement) and runs Adventures with Anthropology.
Gita Ghei
Metal Arts - Website, Instagram
Sculptor Gita Ghei is a longtime friend of the East Side Arts Council, and is grateful for the connection she has to the Eastside that she made though working with summer artmobile workshops and public art and education projects. Gita creates public art in solo projects, and as a community collaborator in the Twin Cites and greater Minnesota. In her current studio, she maintains a studio teaching practice for teen interns in metal casting, and works in Saint Paul Public High Schools. Gita's work celebrates natural, shared resources and citizen stewardship. She is a metal sculptor, and she works with sunlight, shadow and green energy. She believes both individual self- expression and materials science are integral parts of the artistic process.
JANETTE TAFOYA GILES
Visual and fiber art
Janette’s art practice is built from having an emotional heart and a curious mind. Their practice explores personal themes such as Disability, Queerness, Mexican mixed culture, hardship, joy, and hope. Additionally, their interest and studies in nature, justice, kindness, communication, color, imagination, storytelling, change and the human body often find their way into their art. They frequently play and experiment with multiple mediums including (but not limited to) watercolor, ceramics, fiber arts, photography, and collage. Jan practices art in hopes of using it as a bridge for communicating experiences, dreaming better futures and building understanding.
Margaret Hasse
Poetry - Website
Originally from South Dakota, Margaret was educated at Stanford University and the University of Minnesota. Her newest and sixth collection of poems, Shelter, a collaboration with a visual artist, was released in fall 2020. She has been a poet-teacher in schools, communities, prisons, and formal writing programs. She’s available for readings, poetry teaching, mentorships, editing, and collaborations.
Graci Horne
Visual Arts - Website
Graci is a Dakota visual artist born and raised in Minnesota. Graci has extensive experience teaching arts to intergenerational audiences, including leading a workshop with the Minneapolis Institute of Art in partnership with the 2019 exhibit “Hearts of our People: Native Women Artists.” She also worked as an independent curator for their exhibition advisory board. She teaches regularly at the MIA, and works as an artist with Z Puppets and In the Heart of the Beast.
Rayna Howard
Choreography/Dance
Rayna teaches creative Movement pulling from various styles: hip-hop, African/dance hall, modern, interpretive dance and yoga. Dance is more than just and art form for her, it is a source of release and a healing practice. This past year she taught hip-hop at Ramsey Middle School and yoga through Saint Paul Rec-Centers. What she enjoys most about teaching is the collaborative creation between her and her students.
Diane Jarvenpa
Poetry/Creative Writing - Website
Diane Jarvenpa is the author of five books of poetry. She is a teaching artist with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project MN. She is also a singer-songwriter performing under the name Diane Jarvi. She loves bringing different arts and artists together to create something new and is always inspired by all the poets who share their work in her classes at ESAC.
Eric William
Jones
Theatre Arts
Eric William Jones is an actor, director, musician, and teacher from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After receiving his BA in Theatre from Macalester College in St. Paul, he worked with many theatre companies in the Midwest, including Frank Theater, Walking Shadow Theatre Company, the Milwaukee Entertainment Group, and Milwaukee Cooperative Performance. Eric received his MFA in Ensemble Based Physical Theatre from Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, CA in 2018 before moving back to the midwest to co-found CAHOOT?! Physical Theatre.
Kalpulli KetzalCoatlicue Aztec Dancers
Indigenous Traditional Dance, Indigenous Music and Regalia Design - Facebook, MN Daily Article, Youtube, Youtube, Youtube
KetzalCoatlicue (Precious mother earth) is a Kalpulli (a community) of Indigenous people joined by the desire to learn, share and live in the Indigenous dance tradition of Mexico. KetzalCoatlicue pursues this spiritual, mental, and physical vocation with music from the sacred drum, concha (armadillo), conch shells, seeds and other instruments gifted by the natural environment. Their group consists of multi-age dancers with varying years of experience. They are located in South Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Photo by JD Duggan, Lake St in Minneapolis, 11/7/20
Tiana LaPointe
Filmmaking
Tiana began her career as a documentary filmmaker at a young age with a short video as a school project. Later she would create a documentary about the Two Bulls family in their attempt to protect their sacred land from desecration. Since then, the tone of her work, which is to be a story-keeper for Indigenous communities and to teach other Native people to do the same.
MEM LLOYD
Visual Artist
Mem Lloyd is an artist, teacher and community gardener who has been passionately involved in the East Side Arts Council since it’s beginning. Her early work with ESAC included the creation of an after-school program called East Side Art Kids, which engaged children with visual arts, music and movement. She has also taught art in schools, rec centers and nursing homes to students of all ages. As a public artist for ESAC, Mem designed and helps to maintain Phalen Poetry Park, which includes a poet’s post and a flower garden in the shape of a dragon.
Alanna Morris-Van Tassel
Dance, Visual Arts
A sought-after educator in the Twin Cities, Alanna’s children classes use the creative arts imagination and play as a springboard to facilitate learning and self-development. Her adult classes combine a variety of classical and contemporary forms supported by ideology of the West African Diaspora traditions to inspire communal and personal healing and connection to Spirit.
Peter Morrow
Music
Peter has worked with ESAC for years now teaching through artist residencies at Phalen Lake Hmong Studies as well as Artmobile. His focus ranges from songwriting, music composition, and even making your own instruments.
Photo of Peter teaching during Artmobile 2019
Tamina Muhammad
Visual Arts - Facebook, Instagram, Etsy, eBay
Tamina Muhammad is an award winning illustration artist and Professional Face Painter. She has won international competitions, online competitions and local competitions. She studied illustration at Pratt Institute in Manhattan New York. She was born in East Orange New Jersey and has been in the Twin Cities with her family for 6 years. Tamina has been drawing since childhood and is inspired by the world around her. Her work is a reflection of her street art style and her multi-cultural heritage. Her art is influenced by graffiti style art she learned in her youth, motherhood, her native ancestry, as well as her time in the Southwest. She works with watercolor, acrylic, Prisma Color Markers, colored pencils and ink. Her art is showcased in Galleries, Magazines, T-shirts, Record Covers, Newspapers, Comic Strips, Clothing and so much more...
Karla Nweje
African Dance
Karla Nweje is a choreographer, performer, literary artist, and arts educator. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance & Composition from Brooklyn College/CUNY. While continuing to choreograph, perform, and write, Ms. Nweje’s work also included service as a dance specialist in public high schools and as an instructor for dance studios and outreach programs. Additionally, she has served as a coordinator for several arts and youth development organizations targeting under-served populations.
Marie Olofsdotter
Poetry, Book-Making - Website
Marie Olofsdotter is a Swedish-born artist who creates books for young readers, paints, works in mixed media and writes poems. Her accolades include a Minnesota Book Award, a Loft Mentor Series Award in Poetry, and grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. In 2013, she created the Official Minnesota State Fair Commemorative Art. Marie has inspired young and old alike to be creative for over 25 years. She credits her work as a teaching artist to her two years in clown school in Stockholm and California because it motivated her to bring her visual and literary arts to large audiences, and she swears by the Steve Linsner quote that says, “A clown is a poet who is also an orangutang.”
Juan Parker
Visual Arts - Instagram
Art has always been a part of him since he was a child. Juan Parker was born and raised in North Minneapolis. He graduated from Hennepin Technical School with a degree in Commercial Art. He has freelanced for several small businesses, painted murals, taught classes to young children, adults, and senior citizens.
Charlotte Rose-Tauer
Visual Arts - Website, Instagram, Twitter (X)
Charlotte "Mama" Rose is an artist, psychic and mother of two based in St. Paul, MN. Equally passionate about breaking down old systems and building things anew, she contributes psychic information to fields of science and technology in addition to being an artist and activist. Charlotte is outspoken in conversations on women's rights, gender and race equality, human sexuality and more. Her artwork often speaks to trauma survivors, fellow parents, gender-non conforming people and those whose inner-child is seeking representation. Charlotte is passionate about her music, visual art, poetry, writing (including a regular column in the Edge Magazine) and teaching children how to love themselves at every stage of their creation process.
Mark Safford
Puppetry
Mark Safford, one of the founders of Barebones Puppets, has been foundering for the last sixteen years. Mark or his puppets have appeared at the Ordway, the Red Eye, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Theater de la June Lune, the Minnesota Opera Co., Bedlam Theater, and in many public parks and riverside squats for the Barebones Halloween Extravaganza of which he was a co-founder and active supporter and participant for the last fifteen years.
See More Perspective
Spoken Word - Website
Xicanx writer, producer, and performer SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE has been described as a “Chicago Institution”, “Walking creativity” and “The hardest working, most unjustly slept on artist in the Twin Cities”. As an artist and educator committed to liberation, he’s dedicated his life to studying, creating, teaching, and performing hip hop, spoken word and social justice. See More creates in various capacities across disciplines as a solo artist, collaborator, producer, and music director. He’s collaborated with and produced music for nationally renowned artists including Slug of Atmosphere, Olivia Gatwood, Kevin Coval, Kyle ‘Guante’ Tran Myhre, Sierra Demulder, Neil Hilborn, and Idris Goodwin. See More has also had the pleasure to share stages with Umar Bin Hassan of the Last Poets, The White Stripes, Ded Prez, Sage Francis, and many others.
Nebo Skorich
Nebo Skorich is a Minneapolis-based artist dedicated to bringing the community together through creativity. Teaching about subjects she’s passionate about has always been a way to connect with people. Between plant work, flow arts, and paper making, she shares her healing arts journey with her community with each opportunity she gets.
Edna Stevens
Stevens is a choreographer, performing, and teaching artist that has taken her craft locally, nationally and internationally. She has performed and offered instructional dance presentations and performances in Korea, Japan, and Nigeria and led Gospel devotions in Senegal. She instructs classes, workshops, and residencies at various locations yearly in the Twin Cities. Born in Liberia and raised in New York, Edna's unique style blends both her African roots and American flavor. Edna is the founder and Artistic Director of Universal Dance Destiny (UDD), a pioneer non-profit dance company. Edna's goal is to continue connecting people of all communities through the history, meaning, and movement of dance. She believes that creativity is limitless and is excited to share her joyful energy while teaching for East Side Arts Council!
Clau Valentino
Visual Arts
Clau came from Argentina to Minneapolis in 2009 and started working with Greta McLain in 2011. In Argentina, she spent three years studying expression. Corporal, a contemporary dance technique that expresses emotions through body movements, at the National University Institute of Art (IUNA) in Buenos Aires, and documentary photography at the Association of Argentine Graphic Reporters (ARGRA). She learned the craft of painting and mosaics with Greta and started working as a project leader in 2014 at Goodspace murals company.
Jannie Vang
Hmong Dance
Jannie is a choreographer and dancer who specializes in Hmong dance and other Asian dance styles. Jannie trained and now teaches with the dance school Iny Asian Dance Theater (IADT) where they teach a wide range of different Asian inspired dance styles. IADT is one of the largest and oldest Hmong dance Schools and is known nationally in the Hmong community. Jannie has been dancing for sixteen years and teaching for ten. She is also a senior dancer on the dance team MN Sunshine and the dance teacher for the only all-male Hmong dance team; Hmong Heroes
See Xiong
Hmong Dance
See Xiong teaches Hmong Dance at Farnsworth Aerospace Upper Campus as part of the Flipside after school program. See has been a dancer and dance instructor with Iny Asian Dance Theatre and Hmong International Academy.
Yang Moua Yang
Visual Arts - website
Yang has taught at various parks and recreation centers on the East Side. In the summer, Yang teaches crafts and leads visual arts projects to neighborhood youth as part of our Artmobile summer program.