Teaching Artists

KID smART artists are professionals in their field with experience working with the children in New Orleans’ public schools. KID smART teaching artists meet twice monthly to share effective strategies for teaching, for assessing student progress and for evaluating their work with students and teachers. KID smART is committed to building the capacities of teaching artists through on-going research of best practices. Currently, KID smART is focused on identifying national and international best practices for using the arts to work with children who have been or are experiencing trauma.

Teaching artists have an indispensible role as catalysts for creativity. Our artists inspire children to make positive changes happen in their own lives.

Ed Bishop started his professional career in New Orleans with Free Southern Theater and Dashiki Theater where he was inspired to seek out, participate in, and present the best in professional and community theatre as a director, actor, arts educator, producer, stage manager and sound designer. He has worked with several nationally-recognized organizations throughout the eastern United States including the American Theater Project, the Black Fire, Everyday Theater Youth Ensemble, and the National Endowment for the Arts as Artistic Director, administrative staff member, or board member. Ed has garnered artistic recognition and awards including prestigious Helen Hayes Awards nominations in Washington, D.C.

Rachel Carrico is an actor, dancer, writer and a devoted arts educator. In St. Louis she taught high school English and Drama, performed with several modern dance ensembles, and educational theater companies including The Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Missouri Fine Arts Academy, Upward Bound, Opening Act and the Step Up Women’s Network. Rachel holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she served as the Graduate Fellow for Community Engagement. She has studied the intersection of arts and community engagement with Roadside Theater in KY, Urban Bush Women in Brooklyn, and with Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani in Lima, Peru and appeared throughout New York in experimental theater and dance. In New Orleans, Rachel continues to launch original, collaborative performances and publish and present her writing on performance theory and community-based art.

Vignette Ching is a multidisciplinary artist/activist who finds innovation in the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated things. She seeks to address and redress the state of health and healthcare in today’s society through a holistic perspective. Vignette received her B.A. in Theater Arts and attended Tulane University for graduate studies in social work and public health. She has designed and implemented a variety of workshops, support groups, and curricula in mental and reproductive health, as well as intimate partner dating violence. While in New York, she worked as a teaching artist for Learning through an Expanded Arts Program (LEAP), teaching literacy skills through dance, music, visual art, drama, and cooking. Currently she works as the programming director for Gris Gris Lab, an international healing/art space in New Orleans, La and collaborates with a women of color theater collective.

Jacques Duffourc is a multi-talented artist working as a musician, puppeteer, muralist and sculptor. Mr. Duffourc has a background teaching puppet-theater to students ages 6 to 12, guiding the students in animated sculpture and set design. He is co-founder of Measle Bumpkin Presents Puppet Troupe and has experience in conceiving, producing and performing puppet-theater at Young Audiences, Southern Repertory Theater, the State Palace Theater, the Vortex Theater in Austin, Texas, and many other venues. In addition, Mr. Duffourc is a composer and performer with two full-length recordings of art rock.

Aminisha Ferdinand recently returned home to her native New Orleans following a decade of studying, teaching, and performing throughout the United States and abroad. After completing an M.A. in Educational Theatre, she worked with Invisible Children in Gulu, Uganda, partnering with a classroom teacher to integrate arts and participatory activities into student lessons. In New Orleans, she continues to approach theatre education as an opportunity for young people to express their individual creativity and academic learning in their classroom and community. She also facilitates youth activities at the monthly Sankofa Marketplace in the Lower 9th Ward.

Jarrell Hamilton is a dancer, choreographer, actress and activist currently residing in New Orleans, La. She has had the privilege to study her craft at NOCCA/Riverfront, NORD/NOBA Center for Dance, and Southern Methodist University/ Meadows School of the Arts. Within these highly-accredited schools she has performed and worked with a score of local and national choreographers. Jarrell has been honored the Coming Up Taller Award in Washington, D.C. by Laura Bush and Outstanding Dancer from the Meadows School of the Arts Dance Department. Currently, she teaches her love for dance throughout the city of New Orleans, using her craft as an outlet for social change.

Andrew Hoogvliets spent most of his childhood in the Caribbean Islands and had unlimited exposure to Afro-Latin rhythms and percussion. Andrew has studied percussion for the last seven years, and has been reaching out to troubled neighborhood youth with drums for the last five years. Pre-Katrina, Andrew worked with The International School of Louisiana and with students of Morris F.X. Jeff Elementary School bringing drums into the classroom. He continues to challenge youth to broaden the creativity within them. The areas covered in his basic teachings are: self-esteem, memory enhancement, coordination, respect for others and self-discipline, teamwork, problem solving and basic math.

Chris Kaminstein is an actor, writer, director and arts instructor. He is a proud member of Goat in the Road Productions, an emerging New Orleans theater company devoted to creating new work, fostering the growth of local theater artists, and educational outreach. Chris has appeared in plays at the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Chashama in New York City, and at Spoke the Hub in Brooklyn, among others. He is also a co-founder of the comic, improvisation based theater company Farmers for Flight. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University in theater studies, and has many years experience teaching improvisation, writing, acting, and movie making. Chris has a long standing interest in creating original theater pieces from personal stories, and explores that work both in professional and educational settings.

Maritza Mercado-Narcisse was born in Newark, New Jersey and raised in Los Angeles and New Orleans. She is a graduate of New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and continued her studies with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Maritza has performed with Tsunami Dance Company, Confederacy of Dances, Happensdance, Battery Dance Company and collaborated with ArtSpot Productions/Moving Humans. In the fall of 2005, Maritza was awarded a Creative Development residency from The Jacob’s Pillow Foundation and returned to the Pillow in June 2007, as both a choreographer and performer on the INSIDE/OUT Stage, with the NOBA Company. Maritza was one of six choreographers chosen for the 2007 Jacob’s Pillow Choreographers Lab and is a 2007 Louisiana Division of the Arts Artist Fellow. In summer 2008 her work was featured on the Kennedy Center Millennium stage.

Heather Muntzer develops and implements arts integrated curriculum for youth residents of the Forest Park Housing Project in Algiers. Most recently, she led a summer intensive arts class at Country Day for elementary and middle school students. She has taught K-8 art in California while pursuing a Masters in Education and is certified in Secondary Teaching in the Arts.

Gabrielle Reisman is a playwright, director, actor and theatre producer. She is a member of The NOLA Project, an ensemble company focused on producing new works and attracting new audiences to theatre through multi-disciplinary productions. She serves as Co-director for Mongoose Productions, a short film production company based in Illinois and works with organizations such as the Le Chat Noir New Plays Festival to press for the expansion of new theatre in New Orleans. Her work as a playwright has been produced in Chicago, New York and New Orleans. She incorporates improvisation, collaborative script writing and video into her teaching to focus on team building and the development of students' individual voices.

Meret Ryhiner inspires and creates the magic of Circus for youths and adults. A native of Switzerland, Ms. Ryhiner has been featured with her Tight Wire and Balancing Trapeze Acts in many circuses in the USA and Canada. She has trained countless children in circus skills for over 16 years. A graduate of the Circus Arts Center in Equilibristics and certified as an instructor for Circus Acrobatics at the Circus Arts Center, New Jersey, her training includes classical ballet and ethnic dance in Switzerland and Spain, the Martha Graham School and Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, New York.

Erin “Voice” Touré is a New Orleans-based professional rapper, producer and recording/visual artist with a background and training in audio, video, photography and painting. She is the owner of her own independent record label, Featherperm Records, and currently has an album out entitled Gumbo. She creates music that is empowering to women and doesn’t glorify or perpetuate ignorance or toxic lifestyles. Voice uses students’ familiarity with Hip Hop music to help them examine themselves, society, the music and their class work.

Andrew Vaught is a drama instructor and co-founder of Cripple Creek Theatre Company in New Orleans. Mr. Vaught has a background working with inner-city children and has created original theatre pieces with them. He has a B.A. in History, Drama and Distinction from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He has supervised the creation and performance of student theatre work and created and designed curriculum aimed specifically at inner-city and at-risk youth.

Seva Venet moved to New Orleans from Los Angeles where he worked as a professional musician and supplemented his income by teaching guitar. His musical range spans Traditional Jazz, Cajun and Zydeco, Country and Western, Blues and Rock and Roll. Seva's teachers include Bill Harkleroad (a.k.a. Zoot Horn Rollo), Ted Greene, and his uncle Nik Venet. He was introduced to the New Orleans Traditional Jazz style. In New Orleans Seva found his teachers for New Orleans Jazz in Tuba Fats and his band where he picked up banjo and branched out to work with hundreds of other local musicians. Today he leads his own band, the Storyville Stringband, and works as a side man with the Treme Brass Band, Dr. Michael White, Greg Stafford, Shannon Powell, Lars Edegran, Lionel Ferbos, Preservation Hall, Panorama, The Palmetto Bug Stompers and many other New Orleans greats.

Rachel “Raejoi” White lives on the Northshore in Old Mandeville. In her early college years she ran a small sewing business and served as the afterhours wood shop monitor, assisting peers in creative projects and power tool use. After graduating in Art Education and Fine Arts, she spent three years teaching art to under-privileged middle school children in both Lafayette and St. Tammany parish. Sculpture is Raejoi’s specialty but she has a wide array of visual art talents which include working free lance graphics and web design, window treatment fabricator, and sculptor/artist. Raejoi is an environmentally conscious artist. Learn more about her on her website: www.raejoi.com.