Megan Flød Johnson (she/her) is a socially engaged “theatre for youth” artist who brings together youth and their communities through play to spark social action. She co-creates with communities around the country exhibits, events, residencies and performances for the very young.

THE NEST (2014) is an evolving installation about an illusive creature inhabiting public spaces revealed through child-led curation and storytelling. Children’s ideas transform space into a layered, narrative playscape capturing identity(ies) of place, youth assets and reflections on welcoming a stranger. THE NEST was developed at Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (remounted in 2017) and has since traveled to Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Noah's Ark at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, and summer 2019 as an exhibit with the St. Louis Public Library system. THE NEST is the subject of a documentary by filmmaker Alicia Rice called When Kids Meet a Creature.

Megan resides in Saint Paul, MN where she is a Teaching Artist and Program Developer for SteppingStone Theatre and Art Center of Eden Prairie. She holds an MFA in Theatre for Youth and graduate certificate in Socially Engaged Practice from Arizona State University and BA’s in Theatre and Music from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI.

Fellowship Statement

I am a socially engaged “theatre for youth artist” who brings together youth and their communities through play to spark social action. I seek to disrupt dominant narratives and expectations for young people to designate new spaces for process, dialogue, experimental thinking, play and welcoming multiple points of view. Youth agency is central in my work, which experiments with models of participation through performance, unstructured play and hands-on making.

I am working on developing a mobile version of my installation playscape, THE NEST about an elusive creature whom children build a temporary home for in public spaces. I will experiment with different models of engagement for the project including city-hosted events, guerrilla pop-ups, and an original performance. I hope to bring pop-up NEST experiences to youth and families in places where they already are—in parks, parking lots, apartment buildings, clinics, schools, and/or shopping malls. 

Photo by Alicia Rice.

Antonio Duke (he/him) is a Twin Cities-based actor, playwright, and teaching artist. He worked with Pillsbury House Theatre as part of the Summer 612 Micro Grant (2011 & 2012), Late Nite Series (2012) and Naked Stages Fellowship (2018) where he created his solo performance play Ashes of Moons. His solo performance play Tears of Moons was part of the Guthrie Theatre’s Solo Emerging Artist Celebration. Antonio’s plays The Death of Kings and The Fog premiered as staged readings at the Guthrie Theatre for The New Griots Festival. His play The Sly Sambo appeared as part of the Fresh Ink Series at the Illusion Theatre. The Fog garnered him The Many Voices Mentorship from The Playwright Center. He's the recipient of the 2019 Artist Initiative Grant through the Minnesota State Arts Board for his solo performance play Missing Mississippi Moons. Training: University of Minnesota/Guthrie BFA Actor Training Program.

Fellowship Statement

My artistic aim is to create stories from the black diaspora as authentically as possible. In my writing I focus on mythology. Within mythos lies intimate and epic circumstances that I am driven to explore. I conjure most of my muse from black spiritualities; specifically, those deities from the Afrocentric Yoruba, Santeria and Voodoo traditions. In my work, I speak about trauma, both personal and historical. Performing traumatic events with Afrocentric cultural aesthetics is important to me because it provides me with the chance to connect with my ancestors. In doing so, I follow in a lineage of West African storytellers called Griots. Stories are strange spells. They are conjurations in our mouths. Playwriting and performance is a spiritual manifestation act rooted in an ancient practice of Afrocentric storytelling. It is through this practice that I can sit with the ancestors that I have yet to meet.

Photo by Bruce Silcox.

Considered one of America's leading spoken word poets, Caridad De La Luz (she/her), aka La Bruja, is a multi-faceted performer named in the “Top 20 Puerto Rican Women Everyone Should Know” (La Respuesta). Known as a “Bronx Living Legend,” Caridad has received a Citation of Merit from the Bronx Borough President as well as The Edgar Allan Poe Award from The Bronx Historical Society. She has performed at The Apollo, Lincoln Center, Gracie Mansion, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, City Hall in New York City and many international venues. Since her 1996 debut performance in the famed Nuyorican Poets Café, she continues to host Monday Night Open Mics where people from all over the world come to perform. The New York Times called her “a Juggernaut" and she is currently cultivating her own art space in the Soundview area of The Bronx called “El Garaje” where she lives.

Fellowship Statement

As an artist connected to ancestral knowledge through my Puerto Rican, Bronx and Taino roots, I create work that speaks about our realities and injustices, as well as to Feminist, Latinx, LGBTQ and POC communities. My goal with this grant is to expand my knowledge of Indigenous practices by visiting artists and healers of First Nations along the Northwest Coast of North America, Peru and Africa. With this knowledge, I will expand my creativity and offer healing circles in The Bronx where I’ve lived my entire life. Through meeting new contacts, I will also be able to invite healers and artists to create and share their knowledge in my space, El Garaje, through creative residencies in the future. My artistic work has always included healing, which is why I chose the stage name “La Bruja” (aka The Witch). My intention is to create transformation via art and Indigenous worldview healing practices.

Photo by Ted Lopez.

Janani Balasubramanian (they/them) is a writer, game designer, and immersive theater maker whose work has been presented on stages across North America and Europe, including The Public Theater, High Line, MoMA, Abrons Arts Center, Andy Warhol Museum, Red Bull Arts, Ace Hotel, Brooklyn Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Residency support for this work has included the NEA, Public Theater Devised Theater Initiative, and Mount Tremper Arts. Balasubramanian is currently a 2018-2020 Van Lier fellow at the Public Theater as well as artist-in-residence with the brown dwarf astrophysics group at the American Museum of Natural History. Current projects include Rogue Objects, a live audio game about a celestial object struggling with its consciousness; Transference, a collaboration with stellar astronomer Dr. Natalie Gosnell; Harold and Okno, a Cold War era novel about an extraordinary friendship; and Night Chicken, a farm animal jazz musical.

Fellowship Statement

I am invested in continuing to explore audio-immersive games as a theatrical form. Additionally, I am interested in collaborating with artists in music, film, and VR to develop even newer forms together. I also seek to build from the methods I have developed while in residence with the brown dwarf astrophysics group to collaborate with scientists in other fields. I hope to discover what I, as an artist, can learn from each scientific field’s research practices, and contribute to the rich, historical, and ongoing exchange between theater and science. Finally, I hope to build my fluency with relaxed performance and other accessible theater-making methodologies, and create both large-scale and intimate performance experiences that expand our notion of what contemporary theater can look like, and who and where its audience can be.

Photo by Anna Hadjo.

Mazz Swift (she/her) is violinist, vocalist, composer and conductor working at the intersection of composition, improvisation, and performance. She engages audiences with her signature weaving of improvisation and composition, combining elements of classical, folk, rock, jazz, free improv and electronica to create a rich, unique and diverse musical experience. As a violinist, Mazz plays electric and acoustic instruments and has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists from Butch Morris to Bruce Springsteen and Idina Menzel, and with her own band, MazzMuse. As a composer, Mazz has received commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, and others. As an improviser, Mazz plays with Nicole Mitchell, The Silkroad Ensemble, and her collaborative trio HEAR in NOW. She is active as a conductor and educator, and has performed and taught workshops in free improvisation and Conduction (conducted improvisation) on six continents. Mazz lives in Brooklyn.

Fellowship Statement

I believe fiercely in the power of improvisation to improve people's lives. As a violinist, vocalist, conductor, and composer, I incorporate improvisation into everything I create and have witnessed its transformational force in performances, workshops, conversations, and collaborations. Practicing, hearing, and witnessing improvisation creates profound human experience.

I revel in the art and craft of composition—conjuring textures and moods, generating vibes and grooves, constructing a whole from many parts. My practice of mindfulness and compassion through meditation—in music and in life—compels me to use whatever power I have to foster awareness: in myself, in my music, and in the world, with an aim toward radical change. I want to uplift anyone who is willing to listen. In every area of my life, I aspire to transform and be transformed.

Photo by Nisha Sondhe Photography.

Dameun Maurice Strange (he/him) is a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and award-winning composer whose conceptual chamber works, choral pieces and operas are focused on stories of the African diaspora, often exploring Afrofuturist themes. In 2011, he partnered with award-winning choreographer Erinn Liebhard to present Railing Forward, a suite inspired by the legend of John Henry. The following year he was commissioned by the contemporary dance ensemble Alternative Motion Project to compose music for their premier program, Prometheus, Fire bringer and Lost in My Mind. This relationship would last 5 years and include NTimeBeautyN, HeartBeatRed, Penumbra|Corona.



In 2013, Dameun presented his first composition recital of new works, New Constellations at the Baroque Room in Saint Paul. In 2015 he presented his third composition recital which featured a cantata for Chamber Choir, Poet and Soprano, Resonant Frequencies: Love and Revolution. Strange was awarded the Minnesota Emerging Composers Award by the American Composers Forum in 2015 which led to the development his first opera, Mother King.

Fellowship Statement

I am a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist whose conceptual chamber works, choral pieces and operas are focused on stories of the African diaspora, often exploring Afrofuturist themes. I am compelled to express through sound and poetry, the beauty and resilience of the Black experience, digging into a pantheon of ancestors to tell stories of triumph, while connecting the past, present, and future. While my sound experiments have many dimensions, I use West African polyrhythms, with classical music forms, contemporary jazz harmonic explorations, along with found sounds and historic recordings to create modern Afrofuturist performances that disrupt the notion of genre and what Black music is and can be and moreover what Blackness is and can be.

Photo by Jim Nihart.

Walken Schweigert (he/him) is a performer, composer and director from Saint Paul, MN. He is the founder and artistic director of Open Flame Theatre, an all queer/trans ensemble that creates surrealist and queer-centered work. Walken is a 2009 graduate of the Dell’ Arte International School for Physical Theatre, and a 2006 graduate of the Perpich Center for Arts Education (Theatre Major). He has worked with the Taller Xuchialt and Ronda de Barro in Leon, Nicaragua; toured with and been mentored by the internationally renowned Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, MA; and has busked on the streets of 11 countries. A classically trained violinist, he has been part of over a dozen musical ensembles of varying genres, from klezmer to metal. Walken was recently the recipient of a JFund award from the Jerome Foundation via the American Composers’ Forum for the composition of his second opera, The Garden, to be produced by Open Flame Theatre and Philadelphia Community Farm.

Fellowship Statement

I see my role as an artist as someone who crosses, transgresses and thrives in between boundaries. My mission is to create original, multi-disciplinary performances rooted in the queer/trans experience. Through exploring the surreal and fantastic, I seek to liberate the imagination which I recognize as a vital part of the larger struggle for justice and freedom.

What is the relationship between ritual and performance? Between song and story? How do we celebrate together? How do we grieve together? How can we harness the power of story and song to liberate our imaginations and expand our creative potential? What new traditions/rituals/rites of passage can we make for and with each other that affirm and express who we truly are? This is what I hope to explore in my fellowship. I hope at the end of it I will have made an honest contribution to a transforming cultural fabric.

Photo by Connie Chang.

Alicia Hall Moran’s (she/her) critically-acclaimed albums (Heavy Blue, Here Today) embrace Opera, Soul, Jazz, Theatre, and Visual Art. Shows/explorations include “the motown project”; “Black Wall Street: Tulsa Race Riot of 1921”; and “Breaking Ice: Battle of the Carmens.” Further collaborations live inside the artworks of Carrie Mae Weems, Adam Pendleton, Joan Jonas, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Simone Leigh/Liz Magic Laser, Carl Hancock Rux, and Ragnar Kjartansson, and are exhibited worldwide.



Residencies/commissions include Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, National Sawdust, MoMA, ArtPublic, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, The Kitchen, and River to River. Her contemporary sensibilities were tapped for Broadway’s Tony-winning Porgy and Bess, starring as Bess on National Tour. Her artistry with husband/pianist Jason Moran has yielded Bleed/Whitney Biennial, Work Songs/Venice Biennial, Two Wings: Music of Black America In Migration/Carnegie Hall; and the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change fellowship. Ongoing, Alicia balances composition with solo vocalism in symphonic works: through 2020 in Gabriel Kahane’s emergency shelter intake form and Bryce Dessner’s Triptych.

Fellowship Statement

As a mezzo-soprano and composer, my sense of harmony, evidenced in film, recorded output and stage performances, both entices and subdues established notions of Performer and Performance. Profound historical divisions are the jump-off points for my previous musical investigations. Class difference in the review and catalogue of Black Music is another interest. My practice is non-hierarchical and plainly observes the music of the West.



In my forays, textual and sonic, Voice itself is an embodiment. My aim has been to find a new harmony inside of my work between Performance, Performer, and Practice. The Jerome Fellowship enables deeper exploration of venues previously off limits, collaborations too impractical to previously entertain, and visual realms that were technically unavailable. Traveling to Natural settings will sharpen specificity in my work. I will re-engage my recent work on ice to continue the investigation: metaphors for expressions of fragility and civility in critically trying Times.

Photo by Charles Roussel/Prototype Festival.

Composer/Pianist/Producer Migiwa Miyajima’s (she/her) career path began on a very different trajectory from composing music—she worked as a director of real estate ads, an IT engineer, and an editor-in-chief of a travel magazine in Tokyo. But in 2004, at the age of 30, she decided to become a musician. Five years later, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, a historic New York-based ensemble, invited her to join their team. She was the associate producer for two Grammy Award-nominated albums by the orchestra in 2011 and 2014. In 2012, having received a Japanese government scholarship as a composer and a Japan-US Friendship Commission Fellowship, Migiwa made her move to New York. Her ensemble Miggy Augmented Orchestra’s debut album Colorful was released by ArtistShare in 2018. She is one of the recipients of the 2020 New York City’s NYC Women’s Fund For Media, Music and Theatre.

Fellowship Statement

Experiencing the massive 2011 earthquake in Japan transformed my approach to my life’s work as a composer. I witnessed the inconceivable ability music has to speak to us as a people during chaotic times. Since then, I am most interested in music as a language that speaks to our emotions directly. After moving to the United States and seeing fear and lack of happiness turned into hatred and division, it feels that this is the time for me as a composer/musician to cultivate what I learned in Japan. In my upcoming project, I am practicing how to make my music work on fear or insecurity and how to cultivate positive energy through it. I am delighted to be inspired by this amazing community while I am tackling this profound theme.

Photo by Hayato Sakurai.

Anthony Jones (he/him) grew up in a hotbed of jazz education in Berkeley California where he was steeped in music at home and trained in some of the earliest jazz education programs in the nation, including Berkeley High School and UC Berkeley’s Young Musicians Program. While still in high school, Jones was part of an innovative cooperative quartet that performed bold experimental music around the Bay Area and on an East Coast tour where they were exposed to the still thriving loft jazz scene. Jones co-founded the Jessica Jones Quartet and the Pitch, Rhythm and Consciousness Trio and subsequent configurations with Charlie Burnham; both groups record and perform extensively. He has appeared as sideman with Don Cherry, Muhal Richard Abrams, Peter Apfelbaum, and Joseph Jarman, among others, including in national and international jazz festivals.

Fellowship Statement

There is a natural geometry and architecture to my hearing that I try to explore and reveal through my improvisation and composition. The use of contemplative silence and restrained placement by the musicians is the kind of language I am developing with my band as a unit, and what I am exploring in my compositional direction. My compositions and playing call on all aspects of the African-American music continuum, including the intersection of free improvised music with R&B and jazz. The resulting music has an exploratory, modern searching bent. The current focus of my work consists of the use of certain musical phrases, gestures, and forms from, but not limited to, this music. I seek to develop this both as a composer and a player, in different ensembles but with a particular focus on Pitch, Rhythm and Consciousness.

Photo by Marc Greene.