About the Artists
Artists are listed in alphabetical order
Batalá New York is the premier all-womxn, Black-led, percussion ensemble activating partnerships, community building, and cultural awareness through high-energy performances of Afro-Brazilian music and dance. They are transforming images of women by presenting a loud, fearless, diverse and resilient community of female drummers. They perform all over the New York region in concert halls, at community centers, parks and gardens, on the streets, at protests, and at renowned cultural institutions.
Batalá New York is one of approximately four Batalá groups that are all women and women-led. The Batalá bands principally play Samba Reggae, a world music that incorporates Brazilian Samba and Caribbean Reggae. We play the compositions and arrangements of Mestre Giba Gonçalves, founder of Batalá, and other mestres on metal drums with polymer skins.
Their music, instruments and costumes are primarily from Salvador da Bahia in the northeast of Brazil. All Batalá bands engage in fair trade and collaboration with the same drum makers, textile artists, printmakers, and other artisans in Salvador de Bahia.
They are an all-volunteer, non-profit, 501c3 organization.
Bridges: A Pan Afrikan ARTS Movement is a collective of multidisciplinary artists who cultivate & activate community arts practices both locally and internationally. This Brooklyn based organization has worked in collaboration with local artists and organizations. In New York, Sudan, and South Africa. Bridges has presented events and workshops like: South African Freedom Day in Brooklyn, Women of Words Poetry Festival, We are Solutions, Black Love, AMPLIFY! Youth Arts in Action, Juneteenth: Sounds of Freedom, and smallgirl rising : Connecting the Divine Black Feminine. Bridges has been a long time partner with STooPS and is always excited to bring engaging arts experiences to the youngest STooPS community members.
This year, Kiddie Korner Joy as Resistance features Jua Jibu Children's Theater and Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy.
Jua Jibu Children's Theater is a part of Bridges A Pan-Afrikan Arts Movement. Make an Impact is an energetic production that encourages children to care for one another and their environment – with children championing the cause of endangered elephants. The production is going to a festival in South Africa in the summer of 2027.
Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy is dedicated to empowering youth through creativity, cultural pride, and community. The Cultural Arts Program (CAP) is Ifetayo’s flagship Saturday performing arts academy for youth ages 2-18. We offer year-long courses at multiple levels in dance, music, theater, visual arts, and martial arts. https://ifetayo.org/programs/
@bridges.pan_afrikanarts
BROWN RICE FAMILY (BRF) is today's freshest eight-member World Roots ensemble jamming towards Global Solidarity and Organic Happiness. While their sound typically traverses a global landscape of Afro-beat, Latin, and Jazz, their roots are deeply anchored in the soul of the Caribbean. Comprised of members from across the globe, BRF creates a colorful, rhythm-driven experience that is as educational as it is danceable.
@brownricefamily
Un viaje sonoro latinoamericano: an interactive musical journey for children and families exploring diverse South American rhythms through storytelling and song.
Lina Silva is a Brooklyn-based arts educator, music teacher, and founder of Arte Sensible. As the director of Cantos al Viento, she leads immersive, community-based musical experiences for infants and children. Her work brings families together to celebrate South American roots, fostering connection and joy through a vibrant, multilingual repertoire.
Using a brush held in his mouth, Dig Ferreira creates live drawings inspired by conversation, presence, and shared experience. The performance explores how joy, creativity, and human connection can become living acts of resistance and collective documentation.
Dig Ferreira is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist based in New York City whose practice explores territory, identity, migration, memory, and human connection through drawing, performance, sound, and wearable sculpture.
For the past decade, he has developed DOC-DRAWING (Drawing as Documentation), a live drawing practice performed with a brush held in his mouth. Through conversation, observation, and presence, Ferreira transforms encounters into visual records that document people, places, and the unique energy of different territories.
Working between Brazil and the United States, his projects investigate how the body becomes a living archive of experiences, cultures, and histories. Through DOC-DRAWING and FORGING ARMORS, he creates spaces for dialogue, reflection, and collective memory, using art as a tool to connect communities and preserve stories that might otherwise go unseen.
Elite Bklyn Jumpers believes everybody jumps. Elite Bklyn Jumpers started in 2021 doing community jump Tuesdays at Grand Army Plaza.
Since then we taught at after schools summer camps, block parties, open street events and more.
We love teaching first time jumpers how easy it is to jump double dutch. We love how happy folks are once they finally finish jumping double dutch for the first time because they did something that they thought they would never be able to.
So if you're new to jumping double dutch or an experienced jumper we would love for you to join us for some double dutch fun.
@elitebklynjumpers
Sacred Space, Sacred Self: Building & Activating Your Spiritual Altar
A transformative workshop where you’ll craft your own personalized aromatherapy blends and bath salts. Using intentional scent combinations, you’ll create uplifting, calming, or balancing self-care blends designed just for you. Whether you’re seeking focus, relaxation, or a burst of positive energy, this hands-on experience will guide you to create daily rituals of self-care and intention.
Camille Gordon Fanfair is the founder and visionary behind Essence of ASÉ, a Brooklyn-based holistic wellness brand offering therapeutic handcrafted products and healing experiences rooted in ritual, intention, and ancestral wisdom. Inspired by the Yoruba concept of ASÉ, the innate power to manifest through intention, voice, and action, Camille created the brand as a natural extension of her own healing journey.
The Dream Fighters Lab - Powered by Curiosity, Culture, and Science
Step into the world of Dream Fighters —an interactive storytelling experience where history, imagination, and science collide. Audiences will meet three groundbreaking Black men in STEM before jumping into a fast-paced Jeopardy-style challenge packed with fun, discovery, and excitement. Dream Fighters Lab is designed to spark joy, creativity, and big dreams in audiences of all ages.
Shemeka Foster is a storyteller, producer, and author dedicated to inspiring the next generation through powerful, purpose-driven media. With a background in film and television, she has developed stories from concept to screen, helping shape imaginative worlds for companies including PBS, Disney, and Sony Pictures Television.
She is the founder of Fight4UrDreamz Productions, a multimedia company committed to inspiring boys of color to dream big through storytelling rooted in education and creativity. Through the company, she plans to develop projects across film, books, and digital media that celebrate Black achievement and expand how young audiences see themselves in the world. Shemeka is also the author of the middle-grade book Dream Fighters A to Z: Extraordinary Black Men in STEM, which introduces young readers to 26 groundbreaking Black innovators in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Designed to build vocabulary while spotlighting real-life role models, the book encourages children to explore STEM fields and believe in their own potential.
Whether on screen or on the page, her mission remains the same: to create inspiring narratives that empower young people, celebrate overlooked voices, and remind every child that their dreams are worth fighting for.
Kendra J. Ross is a proud Detroit native working as a dancer, choreographer, teaching artist, facilitator and community organizer in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. As a dancer in New York City, Kendra has worked with Urban Bush Women (UBW), Andrea E. Woods/Souloworks, Ase Dance Theater Collective, Monstah Black/ Motion Sickness, MBDance, Moving Spirits Dance Company, RAKIA!, Melanie Green, Movement of the People Dance Company and as a guest artist with Oyu Oro. Kendra completed a European tour dancing with Adira Amram and DJ Kid Koala in Vinyl Vaudeville 2.0 and performed with Gyptian at the MTV Iggy awards. Kendra’s choreographic work has been presented at the Florida A&M University, the off Broadway show 7 Sins, Museu de Arte in Salvador, Brazil, Dixon Place, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Actors Fund Theater, and Mark Morris Dance Group. She has been an Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Bates College, Marymount Manhattan, and The Neighborhood Project Through 651Arts, a BAX Space Grantee, and a Visiting Artist at Atlantic Center for the Arts. She was recently the 2022 Inaugural BedStuy Artist in Residence at The Laundromat Project. She was a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Along with sharing her art world-wide, Kendra serves as the Founder/Director of STooPS Art & Community that uses art as a catalyst to strengthen ties between different entities in Bed-Stuy and as a Facilitator with UBW’s BOLD (Builders, Organizers, and Leaders Through Dance) network.
@thekendrajross
Kendra is joined by J'nae Simmons and Courtney Cook.
Courtney J. Cook, from Norfolk, VA, now resides in Brooklyn, NY. A Virginia Governor's School of the Arts graduate with a B.F.A. in Dance and Choreography from VCU, she serves as Associate Artistic Director and BOLD facilitator with Urban Bush Women, and won a 2018 "Bessie" Award for her work with UBW, Maria Bauman, and Marguerite Hemmings. Her collaborations include FLUXX (2018-2019) and Cannabis! A Viper Vaudeville (2022). She debuted at Houston Grand Opera in 2023's Intelligence and at The Met Opera in 2024's El Niño, and returns to the Met this December for Porgy and Bess, choreographed by Camille A. Brown.
J'nae Ruiz, artistically known as J’nae Simmons is a movement based artist, trainer and fiber explorer who believes movement of many types are foundation to communication and connection. J’nae earned her BFA in Dance with honors and minor in personal training, summa cum laude from LIU Brooklyn. Training under notable teachers like Donna Uchizono and Alenka Cizmesija she has performed at the Kumble Theater, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out series and the Kennedy Center. In 2023 and 2024, she received the Van Lier Fellowship award and apprenticed with Urban Bush Women. J’nae is currently working inside her own solo practice, developing her own work.
Block Party Host
Koku is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, actor, singer, and the founder of KokuTV. She has interviewed hundreds of people in the entertainment industry including Queen Latifah, Adam Sandler, Anthony Mackie and Gabrielle Union. She has been a fixture on many red carpets in New York City and Los Angeles, and has been a guest at TriBeca Film Festival, the Academy Awards, The Emmys, and more.
Koku of KokuTV (YouTube) & blackfilm.com.
@kokupuff
YouTube: @KokuTV
Ovila Lemon is 1 half of Mut'Sun. Mut'Sun pronounced (moot-son) is a signature name to describe the tag team efforts in painting collectively with her then 9yr old son Cleson. What sets her work apart is her vibrant use of color. Coming from over 20 years in the fashion industry, Ovila combines urban edge, Black culture and icons, to create her unique visual and wearable art. A lot of artists use color as if there are rules in creating art, in her eyes there are none and she teaches that to her son.
Additionally, Ovila founded and runs ART SO BROOKLYN, a traveling art course and camp providing high quality art technical training, practical experiences, and lessons about the business of art to low income Youth of Color. ART SO BROOKLYN provides an afterschool program, in studio art lessons, and camps during the summer and school breaks to train the next generation of visual artists and makers. This self funded endeavor has been a life saver for the youth and their families.
@woww_emgrl
@art_so_brooklyn
CUMBIA COLOMBIANA WITH LA MANGA
Let's travel together to Colombia, to the Caribbean Region where Black, Indigenous, and Spanish roots came together to bring CUMBIA to the world. In this performance, the audience will learn how to play Cumbia by using body percussion and sing with us in Spanish while honoring the legacy of Afro-Colombian women musicians like Toto La Momposina and Petrona Martínez. An immersive and iterative experience for all ages and families.
Bold, magnetic, and undeniably danceable, La Manga delivers a one-of-a-kind performance that combines the powerful grooves of Afro-Caribbean Colombian traditions with the dynamic presence of an all-female band. Rooted in tradition yet alive with contemporary energy. La Manga ignites the stage with a vibrant fusion of cumbia, tambora, and chandé, driven by the pulsating heart of tambor alegre, tambora, llamador, and maracas to create an experience that’s both culturally authentic and universally engaging. Every performance, aka MANGAZO, is a joyful explosion of culture and sound that leaves audiences buzzing long after the final beat, honoring their Colombian heritage while pushing it into exciting new territory.
The first all-female percussive collective in New York focused on the cumbia tradition. La Manga has been an opening act for the multi-GRAMMY-winning artist Arturo O’Farrill, The Klezmatics, Vieux Farka Touré, Flor de Toloache, Yasser Tejeda, Samir Langus, Las Mariquitas, Ramon Chicharron, and has collaborated with international Chilean artist Pascuala Ilabaca.
@lamangabk
Interactive Afro-Latin movement workshop exploring rhythms of the Black diaspora, joy, liberation, and the cultural traditions of Quisqueya (Haiti and Dominican Republic).
Mónica Ortiz Rossi creates spaces for well-being. Known for her dynamic stage presence and soaring vocals, Rossi, who is of Dominican descent, leads a top-tier ensemble of musicians whose infectious energy transcends the stage. Rossi has lent her vocals to Kemo The Blaxican‘s (of Delinquent Habits) Latin hip-hop album La Receta as well as Giovanny Blanco and JasWho’s live Spigga performances in Los Angeles. Upon her return to her native Brooklyn, New York, she worked with numerous projects including Afro-Latin projects San Juan Hill, led by Frank Diggz, Badinba, and La Madrugada, all formative experiences for creating the Afro-Latin music and dance ensemble Sanctuario.
@sanctuariomusica
Art Crawl Guide
Nzinga Joseph is a lifelong Bed-Stuy resident. She is an all around creative, from painting to writing to pottery, often putting melanated bodies at the forefront. She is passionate about black art and history, especially looking at how communities have been transformed and changed over time. An advocate for the deaf community and a lover of ASL and deaf culture, she continues to learn more about it and involve herself. Recently graduated from NYU Gallatin, she intends to begin her masters program this coming fall.
@Themelanatedqueenz
Block Party DJ & Sound
TONIBNYC is a Brooklyn based Female Creative who loves to DJ. Computer Science Tech by trade brings great pride working alongside other professionals and providing great service. Her passion to clash art, love and a beat empowers the culture as she continues to heal with music in her everyday works and journey. TONIBNYC is a Brand to Watch out For!
Wukkout! is a high energy, inclusive and dynamic, Soca dance fitness experience designed to make you sweat and have fun, just like you would at a Caribbean Carnival. No experience necessary and all levels are welcome so grab yuh rag, grab yuh flag and be ready to Wukkout!
Krista Martins is a Choreographer, Group Fitness Instructor and Entrepreneur. With over 20 years experience in the commercial dance industry, Krista melded her dance background with her love of soca, fitness and community, to create Wukkout! - a soca dance fitness class and nationally accredited instructor training program - as a way to diversify the fitness space through a truly inclusive and welcoming experience. More recently, Krista is also using her expertise as a small business owner to help other dance and fitness professionals grow their brands and build their businesses.
@wukkout
@thisiskrtisamartins
Quenia Ribeiro - Afro-Brazilian Samba
From the streets of Salvador Bahia to the stages of Rio's Carnival, let Quenia take you on a journey through Samba, Brazil's living, breathing heartbeat. Rooted in West and Central African traditions, this demo performance weaves together Samba No Pé, Samba Reggae, Samba Afro, and more, giving you a taste of the full Afro-Brazilian dance experience. Feeling inspired? Catch her class at Cumbe every Wednesday, 7:30–9pm, and go deeper.
NY Chicago Style Steppers - Chicago Style Steppin'
Smooth. Sexy. Soulful. Chicago-Style Steppin' is the sophisticated partner dance born from Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, and the Bop, set to the sounds of R&B, Soul, and Funk. Born in Chicago and perfected on dance floors across the country, this demo brings the elegance and energy of one of Black America's most beloved social dances to life. Get a taste, then come learn the steps yourself.
STooPS Art & Community values creators. We are an artist-centered organization. We recognize that without artists there would be no art, and we honor both the product and the creator. We believe in fair compensation rooted in a communally-determined value system, and we are committed to paying all creators in a way that meets their needs and expectations. Exposure is not sufficient compensation.
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