Articles

Augusto Valverde and Alex Harz had never met one another before I introduced them this past June. They were both presenting their work at the Fifth-Annual SeriesFest, a Denver-based festival and marketplace dedicated to showcasing innovative episodic content from around the world.

For generations, Chinese culture has traditionally enjoyed and celebrated cross-gender artists. Peking opera is the most well-known of all Chinese operas, which finds its home in Beijing. But in Peking opera, men have played the part of women for centuries.

Adventure, exploration and information: These form the foundation of Dorian Gregory and Nichole Cruz’s The 4to5 Club, a new podcast and website focused on health and wellness.

Leda Popoviq is a Michigan interior designer who’s originally from Albania, a small Balkan country in Southeastern Europe with deep roots dating back to around 1225 B.C. Its people are derived from an ancient tribe called the Illyrians. The name Albania was the evolution of old phrases meaning “Land of the Eagles” and “Children of the Eagles.” Albania’s flag is red with a two-headed eagle in the center.

Longtime entrepreneur Arlene Rivera, 55, is a has been doing hair for three decades. She operated salons in Puerto Rico before relocating to the Rocky Mountains and is a self-proclaimed “hair doctor” who believes that understanding curly and wavy hair is about more than simply knowing an individual’s ethnicity.

People with curls and locs have long endured inadvertent (and sometimes overt) microaggressions. Increasingly, however, natural hair in all its forms is all the rage.­­

Baruch Inbar is an award-winning artist, illustrator, writer, designer and children’s book author. Born in Moldovia (the former Soviet Union), Inbar’s family immigrated to Israel when he was 6. Due to various family hardships, he spent many of his formative years (ages 10 to 18) in foster care. The artist’s foster home, where many other children had experienced abuse and neglect, was structured much like a boarding school.

As a young child in Santiago, Chile, where I lived near my father’s family, I learned Spanish and English simultaneously and was always encouraged to make art. My Chilean father and American mother ran a theater company there with players from many different countries.