COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD

Murielle Borst-Tarrant is of the  Kuna/ Rappahannock Nations.  

Author, playwright, director, producer, cultural artist, educator, and human rights activist.  She works on the deconstructing of methods of the arts in Native communities in urban areas across the country and in the New York City education system.  She consults many urban and non- urban universities on the development on Native theater programming. Nominated for the Rockefeller grant in 2001, won a Native Heart Award and was the only Native American Woman to have her work to be selected by the Olympic Games in Sydney Australia at the Sydney Opera House for her one woman show “ More than Feathers and Beads”. She served internationally  as the Special Assistant to the North American Regional Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which one of her mandates was arts and culture. Directed Muriel Miquel  “Red Mother” nationally and Internationally. Keynote Speaker for the Indigenous Women’s Symposium  at Trent University. Global Indigenous Woman’s Caucus Chair ( North America ) in 2013 to May of 2014.  Selected to speak on Repetition, Tradition and Change: Native oral history and contemporary art practice in hostel post- colonial times at the International Conference at the Muthesius Academy of Art in Kiel Germany and the Norwegian Theater Academy.  She is the Artistic Director of Safe Harbors NYC. Native Consultant for Regional Tony award winner LaMaMa Experimental Theatre for their Indigenous Initiative. She produced, written and directed “Don’t Feed the Indians- A Divine Comedy Pageant!” at LaMaMa Theatre. Recent Mellon Playwright Fellow.  

Steven Burton is a member of the Ramapough Lenape Nation and the Oneida Nation. Mr. Burton is a Native Veteran of the United States Air Force, serving the United States of America for 5 years from 1978-1982. 

Mr. Burton is currently Commission Co-chair of the New Jersey Commission on American Indian Affairs, which is part of the New Jersey Department of State. Mr. Burton has served as a Ramapough Lenape Representative since 2014. The Commission serves as a liaison among the tribes and the State and Federal governments. It is empowered to develop programs and projects to further understanding of New Jersey's American Indian history and culture. 

Mr. Burton is dedicated to ensuring that the American Indian Tribal members and communities within the State of New Jersey have full opportunities for their own cultural, educational, social, economic, physical, mental health, and welfare development. Previously, he served as the Deer Clan Chief for the Ramapough Lenape Nation from 2011-2012. 

Mr. Burton is a family man, married to Cheryl Burton and a proud father of two daughters and one son. 

Christine Haunani Akane Nakagawa (Kanaka Maoli) is a descendant of the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands as well as Japanese and Filipino immigrants to the illegally annexed and occupied Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. She holds a bachelor of science degree in Legal Studies from St. John’s University, where she founded the first student organization for Native American and Pacific Islanders at its Queens campus. Through St. John’s Indigenous, she was responsible for hosting several cultural workshops as well as servicing the population of indigenous students and faculty who were historically marginalized and misrepresented by the institution. She resides in the neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens, on the ancestral land of the Matinecock peoples. Christine is committed to servicing the needs of low income individuals and families of color, specifically for those of the Pasifika diaspora in the Northeast and in solidarity with Black, Indigenous, Latina/o/x, Asian, and queer community struggles worldwide. Christine’s favorite word is sovereignty and how it applies to land, housing, healthcare, education, and everything in between. Aʻohe hana nui ka aluʻia - no task is too big when done together - is her favorite ʻōlelo noʻeau (Hawaiian proverb).

Henu Josephine Tarrant, Rappahannock, Ho-Chunk, Kuna & Hopi,  is a lifetime Native NYC community member. 

A third generation New Yorker and second generation Jerseyite. All of which she feels has had a huge influence on her very urban experience as a Native woman in the performing arts. She is a graduate of the American Musical & Dramatic Academy’s prestigious integrated Musical Theater Program. She has studied & workshopped her pieces at Dartmouth with New York Theater Workshop and attended the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation. Her most recent works includes Native Theatre: Where Are We Now? (Howlround.com) A horror short she directed for Howlround Theatre Commons, Misdemeanor Dreams (Abrons Arts, NY)  with Spiderwoman Theater, her one-woman show Red Moon Blues (New York Theater Workshop NXT Door, NY) both written & performed by Henu in contemporary song & dance., 48 Hour Forum (The Lark, NY) with the Noor Theater, DOGFIGHT (Second Stage Theater, NY) with Roundabout Theatre Company, Ajijaak On Turtle Island (The New Victory Theater, NY) with IBEX Puppetry, Material Witness (Northwest Coast/Northern Ontario Tour 2018/19) with Spiderwoman Theater/Aanmitaagzi, & Don't Feed The Indians-A Divine Comedy Pageant (La MaMa E.T.C, NY) with Safe Harbors NYC. She also co-starred in the short film The Return Home featured at The 3rd Annual Native + Indigenous Film Festival at NYU (written & directed by Angelo Baca) and was a featured vocalist on the soundtrack of Dawnland (Composed by Jennifer Kriesberg). She is currently focused on serving as the interim Managing Director of Safe Harbors NYC. A theater organization focused on producing & creating Native Theater in New York City. She is particularly excited for the Reflections of Native Voices Festival where she serves as the Artistic Executive Producer.

Claudette Bryant, an active member of The Shinnecock Indian Nation, is the Founder and Executive Director the GLBT Project, Inc. She was born and raised in Queens, NY and spent every summer on “the Rez” her true home.  Claudette attended school in North Carolina where she earned her Bachelors in Communications and went on to earn her Master of Public Affairs from The University North Carolina at Greensboro.  As a proud member of her community, Claudette is passionate and empathetic in her role as a mom and in her work when it pertains to Indigenous and/or LGBT concerns. Her favorite quote “When people believe in their ability to love, grow and change, they make decisions that reflect this conviction”. In addition to being a mom and an Executive Director, Claudette is a substitute teacher with the NYC Department of Education teaching Humanities to 7th grade.

Seth Hoy is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He holds a B.A. in English from Boston College and has dedicated his career to advancing civil and human rights. Seth is currently the Director of Communications at Legal Services NYC, the nation’s largest provider of free civil legal services, which works to uplift and empower low-income communities across the city by preventing evictions and preserving housing; demanding access to high-quality education, health care, and economic security; ensuring safety and stability for survivors of domestic violence and immigrants; and fighting for the dignity and respect of all New Yorkers, including LGBTQ communities, New Yorkers with disabilities, and people of color. Previously, Seth served as Director of Public Information at the NYC Commission on Human Rights which fights discrimination citywide. Seth is also a member of Legal Services NYC’s Indigenous Affinity Group which seeks to eliminate the invisibility of Indigenous people, give voice to indigenous perspectives within the organization, and increase outreach and awareness of Legal Services' programs among urban Indigenous communities in New York City.

Kaylena Bray (Haudenosaunee/Seneca) is a member of the Seneca Nation of

Indians. She holds a B.A from Brown University, and MSc from the University of Oxford in Environmental Change and Management. Kaylena’s research and work are focused on raising public awareness about the vital links between food systems, Indigenous knowledge, and biocultural health. She has collaboratively brought multimedia exhibitions to international United Nations forums, the National Museum of the American Indian, and community venues. Her work spans social entrepreneurship programming at Ashoka, and she worked for several years strengthening urban California Native food systems with The Cultural Conservancy before co-founding a social enterprise, Musa Agaves. Currently, she is on the executive committee of Alianza Milpa, an Indigenous-led fund supporting seed diversity in Native and Indigenous communities across Turtle Island. She is pursuing a Doctor of Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and sits on multiple committees to support Indigenous participation and knowledge in underrepresented spaces.

Abigail Pérez Aguilera,  researches and writes about contemporary indigenous movements, ecofeminism, forced displacement, gender violence, global politics, environmental humanities and non-human agency in international politics. Her work appears in UNESCO Bulletin IESALC Reports on Higher Education, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology and “Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos” (ed. Joni Adamson and Salma Monani; Routledge, 2017).  She is a Key Researcher at the Humanities for the Environment, Latin American Observatory. She is the co-founder of the Indigenous Ecocriticism Special Interest Group in the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.  She is currently working on a manuscript on The Non-Human in Global Politics: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Construction of Expertise. She currently teaches in Global Studies at The New School, where is is also an affiliated faculty at the Tishman Environment and Design Center, and its Indigeneity and Sustainability project (https://www.tishmancenter.org/indigeneity).

Leonardo E. Figueroa Helland is an Associate Professor of Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management at The New School. He leads the Indigeneity and Sustainability project of the Tishman Environment and Design Center (https://www.tishmancenter.org/indigeneity). Centering Indigenous and decolonizing perspectives, his work addresses social, environmental and global crises with a view to nurture justice, whole health, the regeneration of the commons and the defense of Mother Earth. His research underlines the key role of Indigenous resurgence, the revitalization of Indigenous knowledges and the restoration of Indigenous lands and governance in addressing planetary challenges across multiple interconnected fields. This includes addressing challenges in fields such as social/environmental/climate justice, biocultural diversity, food systems, health, nutrition, migration, governance, social ecologies, reproductive justice and economics. Building and extending beyond his doctoral work on Indigenous Philosophy and World Politics, some of his latest writings appear in the Journal of World Systems Research, the journal Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, and the volume on Social Movements and World-System Transformation. He is currently working on a manuscript tentatively titled Anthropocene Collapse / Indigenous Resurgence: Decolonizing Pathways beyond Planetary Crises

Chief Reggie Ceaser is a Medicine Man and Chief of the Matinecock Tribe of Long Island. He has taught Asian healing arts for thirty years at the Swedish Institute and was on the NY State Board of Education. Chief Reggie is a practitioner and instructor in many forms of massage therapy, including Tui-na, Thai massage, Shiatsu. Thai Herbal medicine, auricular and foot massage. He has had a private practice for over forty-five years in Queens. Chief Reggie is also a cultural consultant and brings education to the community surrounding Indigenous groups of Queens and Long Island.