Executive Artistic Director/ Choreographer of Creative Outlet in Brooklyn, NY, Jamel Gaines has more than 28 years of choreographing experience in inspiring, motivating, and nurturing dancers and artists. Jamel’s choreography includes Spike Lee’s "Annual Tribute Concert to Michael Jackson" and televised choreography on "So You Think You Can Dance." In addition, Gaines has created and staged over 25 repertory and concert productions in NYC and around the globe. He has worked with distinguished artists such as as Jennifer Holiday, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Savion Glover, Malik Yoba, George Fasion, Ornette Coleman, Ossie Davis, Olatunje Babatunde, Max Roach, Cassandra Wilson, and Rick James.

American writer, actor, director, and singer-songwriter Carl Hancock Rux is the author of several books including the Village Voice Literary Prize-winning Pagan Operetta (1998). Rux also has four CDs to his credit. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Prize. Most recently, Rux was commissioned by Lincoln Center to pay tribute to civil rights activists John Lewis and C. T. Vivian, in a film directed by Carrie Mae S. Weems. Mr. Rux has taught and or been in residence at many institutions globally. He is the co-artistic director of the experimental theater company, Mabou Mines in New York City.

The research of Tavia Nyong’o spans black queer cultural and performance studies, contemporary art and aesthetic theory, speculative genres, afrofuturism, and black sound studies. Nyong’o’s first book, The Amalgamation Waltz: Race, Performance, and the Ruses of Memory (2009) won the Errol Hill award for the best book in black theater and performance studies. Nyong’o also writes for publications such as Artforum and n+1. In 2019, he curated “Dark as the Door to a Dream” at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, as part of the Studium Generale Rietveld Academie. He is a long-standing member of the editorial collective of Social Text. He is currently a professor at Yale University and the Curator of Public Programming at the Park Avenue Armory.

Alvin Hall is an award-winning broadcaster, best-selling author, and financial educator. Alvin created, produced, and hosted the podcast series, Driving the Green Book by Macmillan Podcasts, which received the 2021 Ambie Award for the "Best History Podcast" and the 2021 New York Festivals Gold Award for "Best Narrative Documentary Podcast." He has authored a number of best sellers, and the US edition of his book, Your Money or Your Life, received the WHSmith People’s Choice Award and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. His work in radio includes The Green Book (BBC Radio 4) and Alvin Hall Goes Back to School (The Takeaway, PRI with WNYC, winner of a New York Association of Black Journalists), among others. He has also appeared on NPR’s The Moth.