Kumah 2025
Performers and Presenters
AC Rose
Led by composer, songwriter, and singer Robbie Kaufelt (known to many in Greenwich Village as America’s leading cheese monger), the NYC-based group blends rock, folk, country, blues and gospel. Robbie’s recent compositions include the musical SoHo High, the score for the soon to be released Michael Mailer film Cutman, and the visual album How The Other Half Lives, story-songs which feature the lives of working people from 9/11 to the present.
A powerhouse group of artists arranges, produces, and performs Robbie’s tunes. Keyboardist Pierre Piscitelli is a NYC born-and-raised pianist, educator, arranger, author and YouTuber. Drummer Isaac Gardener is an actor and musician from Mississippi, who starred as Blue Man in Blue Man Group, and plays with Yuli Beeri (also his wife) in Y&I. Bassist Mike Roninson performs with a variety of artists in the NYC area, including Brooklyn Beats and Broadway star Norbert Leo Butz. Classically-trained guitarist Dave Acker is a performer, educator, and in-demand session player who has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, including Patti Austin, Little Anthony, Bernard Purdie, The Coasters, The Drifters and Lou Christy.
Known for the starring role as Genie in Disney’s Aladdin, Broadway veteran Juwan Crawley - also known by the stage name Impress - is a multi-talented singer, actor, director, and pop star. Bending the rules of gender and genre, Impress is pleased to join AC Rose on a third project.
Creative producer Brian Binsack has producedaward-winning projects—including Academy Award-Winning and Nominated works—with his agencies Wild Dogs International and The Rumor Mill.
sujatha baliga loves everyone, no exceptions. (Yup, including that person.) Her work is characterized by an equal dedication to crime survivors and people who’ve caused harm. A former victim advocate and public defender, baliga was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship in 2008 which she used to launch a now nation-wide restorative youth diversion program. For her decades of work in conflict transformation and restorative justice, she was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow.
During her many years as the Director of the Restorative Justice Project, sujatha helped communities across the nation implement restorative justice alternatives to juvenile detention and zero-tolerance school discipline policies. Today, she's dedicated to using this approach to end child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. sujatha is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conferences; she speaks publicly and inside prisons about her own experiences as a survivor of child sexual abuse and her path to forgiveness. She is working on her first book, Angry Long Enough, to be published by One World/Penguin Random House in 2026.
sujatha earned her A.B. from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and has held two federal district court clerkships. Her personal and research interests include the forgiveness of seemingly unforgivable acts and Buddhist notions of conflict transformation.
sujatha’s faith journey undergirds her justice work. A long-time Buddhist practitioner, she’s a lay member of the Gyuto Foundation, a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Richmond, CA, where she leads meditation on Monday nights. She makes her home in Berkeley, CA, with her partner of 28 years, Jason, and their 19-year-old child, Sathya.
Sujatha Baliga
Cory choy is an Award-winning DIRECTOR with a broad skill set. I direct commercial, animation, music video, documentary, and narrative feature film. I am currently working on a science fiction/horror anthology narrative podcast, a fashion-thriller film, and an animated musical. I aim to understand where people are coming from, to help them bring out the best in themselves and others.
Cory Choy
Julian is a founder member and artistic director of Improbable Theatre, the company that has been winning critical and public acclaim for its shows. Julian is the co-director and co-designer of the international and West End phenomenon Shockheaded Peter.
Julian Crouch
Raquy Danziger is an internationally acclaimed musician, artist, teacher and composer. Considered to be one of the foremost experts and virtuosos on the oriental goblet drum known as the darbuka, Raquy is renowned for her electrifying performances. Through her concerts, compositions, and teaching methodology, Raquy has made a significant contribution toward elevating the darbuka from a humble folk drum to a shining solo instrument fit for a concert hall. Through her mission to introduce the darbuka to people all over the world, Raquy has inspired a new generation of players.
In addition to drumming, Raquy plays the mystical twelve-string King Kemenche Tarhu, and is a disciple of the Azeri kemenche master Imamyar Hasanov and Arslan Hazretti.
Raquy has released thirteen albums, five darbuka method books, and two volumes of her original compositions. Her educational offerings are available through her online darbuka school: Darbukaschool.com. More than two thousand students are currently enrolled in her courses.
Raquy has performed, taught, and been a featured guest at festivals in Germany, Egypt, Poland, Japan,Russia, Canada, Ukraine, Mexico, Bosnia, India, USA, Italy, Uzbekistan, Israel, Spain, Greece and Turkey.
When the world shut down in 2019 she immersed herself in the ancient art for of illumination painting and wrote a vegan cookbook.
Raquy and multi instrumentalist Liron Peled have a duet called Raquy and the Cavemen which mixes traditional rhythms and melodies with a hard rock vibe.
Raquy Danziger
A feature on the design work of Tony Award-Nominated Julian Crouch
A feature on the design work of Tony Award-Nominated Julian Crouch
Itamar Dotan Katz
Itamar Dotan Katz was born in 1990 in Jerusalem, Israel and is a photographer focusing on communities and landscapes affected by conflict. He began his journey with the visual arts, studying filmmaking and directing short films in High School. He continued his education in filmmaking and philosophy at the Tel-Aviv University while developing his career as a bartender and hospitality expert which allowed him to travel all over the world.
He graduated from the International Center of Photography's Creative Practices Program and the Photojournalism and Documentary Program in 2020
Martine Duffy
Martine Duffy (they/them) is a musician, spiritual leader, playwright, and program producer based in the East Village. Their work in all fields seeks to make Jewish ideas and traditions participatory, liberatory, and creative. Martine is Programs Manager at The Neighborhood: An Urban Center for Jewish Life, Ritual Leader at Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom of Williamsburg, and holds an MA in Jewish Storytelling.
Giulia Faria
Giulia Faria is originally from Queens, New York. She acquired most of her training at the New York Theatre Ballet School and later attended Laguardia High School of Performing Arts as a dance major. She went on to join New York Theatre Ballet as an apprentice in 2015, performing in ballets such as The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and The Alice-in-Wonderland Follies. In 2017, she spent the year training with New York Dance Project under Nicole Duffy and Davis Robertson and rejoined NYTB in 2018 as a company member where she went on to perform masterworks by legendary choreographers such as Merce Cunningham, José Limón, Jerome Robbins, Antony Tudor, Frederick Ashton as well as contemporary choreographers Pam Tanowitz, Gabrielle Lamb, Richard Alston among others, and most recently, title roles in story ballets’ Cinderella and The Firebird. After 7 seasons with NYTB she is now a freelance artist based in New York City.
Saha Gnawa
SAHA GNAWA brings North African futurism to the U.S., uniting the founders of Innov Gnawa with leading figures from New York City's jazz and contemporary music scenes to reimagine modern Gnawa music.
Refined via late-night sessions at LunÀtico in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, SAHA GNAWA explores trance-like states through its intuitive interplay, allowing ancestral rhythms and melodies to drift into unknown territories. What emerges is both an authentic performance of centuries-old Gnawa tradition and a bold step into new dimensions of sound—where traditional song forms dissolve into ecstatic dance tracks laced with subtle electronics.
Gili Getz
GILI GETZ is an Israeli-American actor, photojournalist and activist. He served as a military photographer for the IDF and as a news editor for Ynet. His work in recent years has been focusing on American Jewish politics and he is published regularly in Jewish and Israeli press, and by Princeton University in the book "Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel" by Professor Dov Waxman. Gili has been working for peace in Israel/Palestine and against the occupation for many years promoting freedom and dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians. His latest one-man play “The Forbidden Conversation” explores the challenges of having a conversation about Israel-Palestine in the American Jewish community. The play premiered at the Center For Jewish History in the spring of 2016 and has been touring the country since. He is currently working on his new photography book that will explore the last decade of the American Jewish left.
Impress
The architect of chic. Less than a god, but more than a queen. Born of a realm where music transcends boundaries and artistry reigns supreme. Impress ignites the night with irresistible melodies, divine pleasures, and awe inspiring freedom. A night of dance-fueled reverie driven by the irresistible pulse of pure pop. Shed your inhibitions, unfurl your truest self, dance, love, and witness the glory that is Impress. Impress has been seen on stages around the world, locally here in New York City in Aladdin on Broadway where they made history as the first non-binary Genie, and the youngest person to ever portray the role. Additionally they have sold out concerts all over NYC at Venues such as Ars Nova, where they just completed their Artist Residency, City Winery - The Loft, and have performed at venues such as Lincoln Center, National Sawdust, The Bowery Electric, Baby’s Alright and many others. In addition to their music and Broadway Career they have been seen on Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and were in the original Cast of Spamilton Off-Broadway which earned them a Clive Barnes Award Nomination. With over 10 Million views on their videos on Social media they are the artist everyone is waiting to see.."
Broadway Veteran Juwan Crawley
Baba Israel
Baba Israel is a Hip Hop/theater artist, poet, educator and curator raised in New York by parents who were core members of the Living Theatre. He has toured and developed projects in thirty four countries, often working as a cultural ambassador with the US State Department. Baba is part of Bronx Banda with Arturo O'Farrill and has shared the stage with artists such as KRS ONE, Lester Bowie, Outkast, and Philip Glass. He has been awarded the NEFA NTP Grant, The Map Fund, The NYSCA Individual Theater artist Award, New Music USA among other grants. He is a core member of Hip Hop/Soul project Soul Inscribed who recently completed the American Music Abroad program and released their second album Tune Up on Tokyo Dawn Records. He co-created A viper vaudeville produced by HERE and premiered at LA Mama. He holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College where he studied with Daniel Alexander Jones. He is the Artistic Director of the Performance Project based at the University Settlement, where he supports the development of community centered performance and social practice arts with intergenerational participants. He is developing programs that combine music and improvisational theater with Dementia patients and their caregiver as well as arts experiences for homebound elders. He is currently in the studio working on a solo album in collaboration with Grammy Nominated producer/musician Matt Geraghty and Sean Nowell. He has a new event that he is touring to venues called Lift Up, which combines live interviews with artists and activists with improvisational Hip Hop and Jazz.
Jerriese Johnson Gospel Choir
The Jerriese Johnson Gospel Choir is deeply active in the life of Middle Church and in the broader community, but its heartbeat is the people who come and sing. From the very beginning, Jerriese’s invitation has been simple and profound: “Just Come Sing.” We proudly embrace and live into this spirit of welcome. No auditions are required—everyone who loves to sing and desires to be part of a vibrant, loving community is welcome.
Diana Jones
New York Times featured Folk/Americana Artist
Since her 2006 breakthrough album, My Remembrance of You, Diana Jones has been a major literary voice in contemporary song. “Songs come in a flurry of inspiration. I don’t understand it but I’m grateful.” But a journey of adoption and reunion as mysterious as her songwriting led to the gritty, authentic, Americana storytelling that has become her life’s work and her live show.
Saskia Lane
Brooklyn-based SASKIA LANE is a Juilliard-trained bassist, composer, performer, puppeteer and educator. For nearly a decade, Saskia was an integral part of the renowned Salzburg Festival, lending her multifaceted skills as a musician, actor, and puppeteer to the cherished annual production of JEDERMANN. She is a member of The Chekhov Project where she is both a resident composer and performer for site specific works. In addition to her life as a performer, Saskia composes and directs operas for the very young, OTOYOTOY (2017), NOOMA (2019), and CAMILLE’S RAINBOW (2022), premiered to great acclaim at the esteemed Carnegie Hall. Her fourth commission, HUDDLE, had its premiere this spring of. Her work has received residencies at Park Avenue Armory, Watermill, St. Ann’s Warehouse The New Victory Theater, and BRIC. A classically trained musician with a strong grounding in jazz, Saskia has appeared with artists as diverse as Jay-Z and Beyonce, Marc Ribot and the Kronos Quartet.
Jeremiah Lockwood
Jeremiah Lockwood is a singer, guitarist, composer and scholar with an intimate knowledge of musical traditions and techniques that stretch from Piedmont blues to the cantorial tradition of his family. His work engages with issues arising from peering into the archive and imagining the power of “lost” forms of expression to articulate keenly felt needs in the present. Jeremiah's music career began with over a decade of apprenticeship to legendary Piedmont Blues musician Carolina Slim. He also trained under his grandfather Cantor Jacob Konigsberg and performed in his choir. Jeremiah’s band The Sway Machinery seeks inspiration from diverse realms of experience related to the cultural geography of New York City. Jeremiah is a current Research Fellow at the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience at UCLA. His first book, Golden Ages: Hasidic singers and cantorial revival in the digital era, was recently published by University of California Press. Since 2022, Lockwood has spearheaded a touring project with Hasidic cantors, producing concerts, accompanying cantors and arranging their music for string quartet. Lockwood has presented the “Golden Ages: Brooklyn Hasidic Cantors” concert at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, among other prestigious venues. Lockwood continues to maintain an active performance schedule with The Sway Machinery, with Gordon Lockwood, his duo project with percussionist Ricky Gordon, a fellow disciple of Carolina Slim, and as a touring member of The Ebony Hillbillies, pioneers of African American old-time string band music.
Di Shikere Kapelye aka The Inebriated Orchestra aka Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars performs high-energy Eastern European Yiddish music, klezmer, in concerts, festivals, parties, parades… everywhere. They have released 5 acclaimed recordings, and the pandemic-era live concert film, The Rooftop Concert. The band has collaborated with artists including Yiddish singers Eleanor Reissa, Lorin Sklamberg, Sarah Gordon, and Michael Alpert; Kosher Gospel singer Joshua Nelson, Serbian Roma trumpet king Boban Marcoviç, Brazilian percussion band Maracatú New York; klezmer clarinet legend Margot Leverett; Cairo’s Hasabella Brass Band, and more. They are often featured at the HONK NYC Festival, and have toured internationally. Their dance-party recording Chronika featuring DJ Joro-Boro, Yossi Piamenta z”l, Michael Alpert, Sarah Gordon and more — released on the Borscht Beat label — was in the Top Ten of the World Music Charts Europe, and has been getting extensive international radio play.
Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars
Shaul Magid
Shaul Magid (Hebrew: שאול מגיד ; born June 16, 1958) is a rabbi, Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. From 2004 to 2018, he was a professor of religious studies and the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Chair of Jewish Studies in Modern Judaism at Indiana University as well as a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. From 1996 to 2004, he was a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; he was chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy from 2000-2004.
Julie Peppito (b.1970, Tulsa, OK) transforms the waste of our culture into objects of strangeness and beauty. She has been creating sculptures, tapestries, and installations that are about connection, repairing the Earth, and the human condition for over 30 years.
Peppito received an MFA from Alfred University in Alfred, NY (2004) and she received her BFA from The Cooper Union in New York, NY (1992). Her work has been the subject of 10 solo exhibitions. She has shown at many non-profit and commercial venues including: Kentler International Drawing Space (Brooklyn, NY), The Brooklyn Botanic Gardens (Brooklyn, NY), The Long Island Children’s Museum (Long Island, NY), Heskin Contemporary (New York, NY), PS122 (New York, NY), and The CAMP Gallery (Westport, CT/Miami, FL) among others. Peppito received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture (2001). Her playground art is at Washington Park, James Forten Playground, and other Brooklyn, NY parks. Her work has been on the cover of The New York Times Metro Section and covered by Will Heinrich from the New York Times. She's been featured on CBS Sunday Morning with Martha Teichner, on NY1, and other news outlets. Her 11th solo exhibit will open April 11, 2025 at The Contemporary Art Modern Project in Miami, FL. Peppito creates and teaches art in Brooklyn, NY.
Julie Peppito
Mireya Ramos
Latin Grammy Award-Winning Founder of Flor de Toloache
Latin Grammy-winning, multiple Latin Grammy and Grammy nominee vocalist, musician, composer, producer, arranger and founder of Flor de Toloache– NY’s only all women mariachi. Mireya embodies all of her musical influences whether classical, mariachi, salsa, merengue or hip-hop, always creating a unique and refreshing sound. Her versatility, natural improvisational skills and beautiful tone has made her one of the top Latin artists in New York City. She is currently promoting her debut solo album self titled “Mireya” which include collaborations with Flor de Toloache, Gaby Moreno, Haydée Milanés, Camilo Lara, Adrian Quesada, Velcro and the legendary Mike Garson.
Jenny Romaine is a director, designer, performer and puppeteer. She is co-founder/artistic director of the OBIE winning Great Small Works visual theater collective and music director of Jennifer Miller’s CIRCUS AMOK. Romaine teaches/ directs in theaters, schools, parks, libraries, museums, prisons, universities, street corners, and other public spaces, producing work on many scales, from gigantic outdoor spectacles with scores of participants, to miniature shows in living rooms. Jenny was a sound archivist at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research for 13 years and for several decades has drawn on Yiddish/Pan Jewish primary source materials to create art exploring diaspora consciousness. Her /Great Small Works projects include Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls about Yiddish puppeteers Zuni Maud and Yosl Cutler, The Sukkos Mob (featured in the film Punk Jews), community Purim Shpiln with the Aftselakhis Spectacle Committee in cahoots with JFREJ, Vu bistu geven? / Where Have You Been? a Quebec-based adventure parable that asks questions about diasporic Jewish relationships to land. She is currently a lead artist with Naming The Lost Memorials. She was the first recipient of the Adrienne Cooper Award for Dreaming in Yiddish (2014) and received a MAZAL/Risk-Taker Award from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (2015). Jenny is featured in Dazzle Camouflage: Spectacular Theatrical Strategies for Resistance and Resilience, a monograph by Ezra Berkley Nepon.
Jenny Romaine
Erika Sasson has spent the last twenty years creating opportunities for difficult conversations while reimagining how we relate to each other in the aftermath of harm. She is an attorney and practitioner who designs and facilitates restorative justice processes, whether in response to serious harm or to build positive group dynamics. She is a 2023 recipient of The David Prize for extraordinary New Yorkers.
Erika’s work in restorative justice is focused on designing and implementing novel approaches to complex harm, including intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and homicide. She also consults on long-term projects with organizations that want to create restorative justice programming, or that need to navigate complex conversations in pursuit of a healthier workplace. Her work is anchored by her experiences learning directly from Native American peacemakers from across North America.
Over the last two decades, she has worked in and around many areas of the criminal and civil legal systems, with experience in litigation, racial disparities, conditions of confinement, family separation, and the creation of alternatives to incarceration for both misdemeanors and felonies. Outside of the legal system, Erika launched the first neighborhood peacemaking program in Red Hook, which was inspired by Navajo peacemaking practices. She also took restorative justice to New York’s highest-suspending schools.
Erica Sasson
Basya Schecter
Basya Schechter is best known as the founder and composer of Pharaoh’s Daughter, a genre-defying world music ensemble that blends neo-Hasidic chanting with a rich tapestry of global sounds—from klezmer to Middle Eastern melodies, electronica, and jazz. With her earthy, soulful voice and a band of top NYC musicians, she has toured the world, bringing her unique fusion of Ashkenazi and Sephardic influences to stages from Central Park SummerStage to remote villages in South America.
Raised in an ultra-Orthodox home in Boro Park, Basya broke away and traveled through Israel, Africa, and the Middle East, re-tuning her guitar to emulate instruments like the oud and saz. This exploration sparked a musical evolution, resulting in five Pharaoh’s Daughter albums, two solo works, and collaborations like Darshan with rapper Eprhyme. She’s also working on spiritually rooted projects like Songs of Desire, based on Song of Songs, and Dreaming in Aramaic, inspired by mystical texts. Ordained as a hazzan in 2016, she helped grow Romemu Brooklyn while continuing to explore mantra, poetry, and sacred music in fresh and unexpected ways.
School for Creative Judaism Choir
Nuli Cohen, Josephine Cohen-Butterworth, Alexander Clarke, Artie Freedman, Maxine Rosenblum, Ezzy Shulman, and Manu Shulman.
Abby Stein
Abby Stein is a rabbi, educator, author and activist. Raised in a Hasidic family, and is direct descendent of its founder the Baal Shem Tov; she was ordained in 2011. After leaving the Hasidic community, and coming out as a woman of trans experience, she has given 400+ speeches, around the world, raising awareness on LGBTQ issues in Judaism, antisemitism, media, and more.
Her book, Becoming Eve, was published in 2019. In 2020 she was named by Prospect Magazine 1 of The World's Top 50 Thinkers.
Kanon Sugino
Kanon Sugino (she/her) is a Japanese American dance artist born and raised in New York. After attending Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and graduating Summa Cum Laude from Purchase College, SUNY with a BFA in Dance and a BA in Arts Management, she joined Nimbus Dance as a company dancer. She is now working with Doug Varone and Dancers and MICHIYAYA Dance. She has performed works by Bill T. Jones, Peter Chu, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and more. As a choreographer, she has presented work at the We Belong Here: AAPI Festival, split bill performances at Arts On Site and the Triskelion Theater, and self-curated shows at the Puffin Room Art Gallery and the Triskelion Theater. In recent years, Kanon was awarded the Asian American Arts Alliance's Jadin Wong Fellowship in Dance as well as The Clive Barnes Award.
The New Shul Band
The New Shul is all about music. Tonight we have a few of our regulars, New Shul Ritual Leader Daphna Mor on voice and recorder, Zafer Tawil on Oud and Dumbek, musical director, Yonatan Gutfeld on guitar, Arnan Raz on tenor sax, and Frank London on Shofar.
Amanda Treiber
Amanda Treiber is a choreographer, teacher, and freelance dancer based in New York City. Her choreography has been presented by organizations such as New York Theatre Ballet, The Little Orchestra Society, Kutztown University, The International Collective, CounterPointe, and the Battery Dance Festival. She has received grants from the NYC Artist Corps, choreographic residencies at Sky Hill Farm Studio, and was a semi-finalist in the 2023 international Goodmesh Concours competition.
Amanda's work is rooted in interdisciplinary collaboration. She has partnered with composers Phyllis Chen, Lauren Vandervelden, Kornel Thomas, Chilean bassist Manuel Figueroa-Bolvarán, and visual artist Marcy Rosenblat. The Dance Enthusiast described her work as “an unforgettable experience... that left a lasting impression on the audience.”
As a former principal dancer with New York Theatre Ballet, Amanda performed lead roles in masterworks by Jerome Robbins, Antony Tudor, Agnes DeMille, Merce Cunningham, and José Limón. She originated roles in new works by leading choreographers including Pam Tanowitz, Gemma Bond, Richard Alston, and Antonia Franceschi. Her performance credits also include Gemma Bond Dance, Co•Lab Dance, David Gordon’s Pick Up Performance Company, Tom Gold Dance, and appearances with The International Collective. She has been featured on FX’s Pose and in the Park Avenue Armory's production of De Materie.
Her international appearances include the 11th Annual Classical Ballet Gala in Managua, Nicaragua, and the 15th Festival Internacional de Ballet de Trujillo. She also performed at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Blake's Barn at Jacob's Pillow. Amanda holds a BFA in Dance from Florida State University.