Kashimana Ahua believes each new day brings a new song from within if we take the moments to write it. She believes that everyone should write songs and after she teaches she envisions leaving a strong community of songwriters ready to share their stories through songwriting. Participants learn to use observation, listening, improvisation, collaborative writing [...]
Karla Nweje
Karla is a choreographer, performer, literary artist, and arts educator. After obtaining teaching credentials, she worked as a NYC high school language arts teacher by day and a performer by night. During this time, she used movement and theater arts techniques to enhance the learning process in her classroom. The positive results she witnessed affirmed [...]
Julia Klatt Singer
I cannot imagine my life without words. I love words, love them for their sounds and their meanings. I love what happens when we play with them. In a residency I encourage students to not only find their words, but also the power within them. I left writing to teach high school social studies, then [...]
Joyce Sidman
Portraits of Joyce Sideman on Friday, Dec. 8, 2017, in Wayzata, Minn. (HMH/Andy Clayton-King) Requests not available: Joyce is not taking new programs. Joyce Sidman is the author of almost twenty children’s books, including the Newbery Honor-winning Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, and two Minnesota Book Award winners. She recently received an [...]
Jon Lurie
Jon Lurie joined the COMPAS artists roster in 2008 following a two-decade stint as a print and radio journalist in Native American communities from Texas to Alaska. He also served as editor of The Anchorage Press and Rake Magazine. Lurie has received two Gold Awards for his long form journalism by the Minnesota Newspapers Association [...]
Joan Griffith and Guest
Joan Griffith is known in the Midwest as a teacher, performer and composer. She has toured and recorded extensively as a classical and jazz guitarist, a bassist and a mandolinist. The 2011 CD “A Girl Named Vincent” with Prudence Johnson, the 2008 jazz CD, “Sambanova” with pianist Laura Caviani, her 2009 CD “Alma Brasileira” with [...]
Jen Scott
As a teaching artist, Jen Scott loves creating a safe space where students can open up as much or as little as they like, and take the risk that is the right size for them in that moment. Most of the class is spent with the students engaged: working as a group, moving from one [...]
Heidi Jeub
Heidi Jeub is a teaching artist with over two decades of experience, specializing in bookbinding, visual journaling, and abstract painting. Since 2003, she has shared her passion for art with students of all ages, drawing on her own experience as an “alternative learner” to create engaging, interdisciplinary lessons that connect art to subjects like literature, [...]
