MRAC is pleased to announce our Creative Connections grantees for 2026. From all seven metro counties, the following individuals will bring art, music, dance, workshops, and much more to our region all year long!
Anoka
Kymberlay Hafner
Creating a short film to celebrate women who shaped Minnesota’s labor history and today’s unions, connecting working-class identity through art and storytelling.
Natasha Pestich
Uniting community members in a creative, hands-on initiative to construct and paint personalized decorative flower boxes for the St. Anthony Parkway dog park fence line.
Carver
Jon Schmidt
Expanding arts access for families, teens, and adults with beginner friendly ceramic experiences, including pottery demos, hand building classes, and artist talks in Carver county.
Dakota
Sharon Lennartson
Sharing Dakota heritage through hands-on regalia making, connecting participants with Dakota culture and traditions.
Jolanta Young
Amplifying the voices of local artists through free podcasts, photos, and events that celebrate creativity, diversity, and access to the arts.
C Fausto Cabrera
Supporting justice-impacted Minnesotans through paper-making workshops, reimagining their pasts through creativity, dialogue, and a public exhibition of their art.
Shahidi
Hosting an Afro-Diaspora open mic event featuring poets, musicians, and vendors, to uplift voices, build community, and celebrate cultural roots.
Abe Haillasellise
Producing a dance-theater show in collaboration with predominately Black youth dance ensembles highlighting three historical African queens.
Hennepin
Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
Introducing Minnesotans to writing as a path to connection, transformation, and resilience through accessible courses, public conversations, and essays exploring writing as transformational practice.
Mary Prescott
Creating and performing an evening-length music performance for solo piano, Thai percussion, electronics, and voice.
Felicia Cooper
Hosting an evening of short-form puppet shows that encourages new participants and first-time performers by providing workshops and creative problem-solving sessions.
Dralandra Larkins
Leading a residency of writing workshops to explore identity and healing, culminating in a live community performance at Mirror Theatre.
Bianca Rhodes (BLovely)
Sharing the untold story of three young Black men lynched in Duluth with casting, auditions, and a table read that centers community, truth, and justice.
rafa kern
Developing a queer play reimagining a Talmudic story about the fall of the Second Temple and the origins of Jewish textual tradition.
Jordan Edelheit
Bringing together birthing folks, birthworkers, those on fertility journeys, and those in early postpartum to sing in community, build connections, and support holistic wellness.
Benjamin Caswell
Providing rehearsal and performance opportunities for emerging choral conductors from underrepresented communities.
Rina Rossi
Creating opportunities for Minnesotans to connect with, learn about, celebrate, and participate in old-time music and dance traditions from the Midwest.
Darby
Promoting creative confidence and a deeper connection to local plants through multicultural knowledge–sharing and plant-based fiber crafts.
Basil Considine
Creating and presenting an original stage musical with three theatre professionals over 60, and collaborating with middle school–age actors.
Bozena Scheidel
Hosting a year-long series of basket making, river walks, and cultural ecology workshops connecting participants to the willow tree’s roles in craft, land stewardship, and the history of the Mississippi River.
Nyasa Ann
Creating a film showcasing the incredible workers of local grocery store and communities in the Twin Cities who are reimagining environmentally sustainable foods.
Ricardo Beaird
Presenting an immersive performance that begins as a ghost tour and transforms into a participatory line-dancing night.
Sarah M. Greer
Gathering Minnesota singers for a multi-hour singalong event to explore community singing, connection, and improvisation.
Sara d’Ippolito-Reichert
Commissioning new works for guitar from underrepresented composers and presents their premieres in a free concert in the Twin Cities.
Anjali Gopal
Creating a community workshop series in the Twin Cities teaching Kolata, a folk dance from Karnataka, India, culminating in a public performance and cultural exchange.
Sarah Larsson
Bringing together dancers from Ukrainian, Somali, Ashkenazi Jewish, and Southeast Asian American dance groups, exploring the way dance represents each group’s cultural history.
Christy Costello
Exploring the evolution of Minnesota punk through live performance, video documentation, and an intergenerational workshop at a multilayered day-long event.
Halie Bahr
Presenting a trauma-informed restorative justice series on creative dancemaking as violence prevention at the Hennepin County Correctional Center and Tubman Chrysalis Center.
Calvin Stalvig
Leading a ceen craft apprenticeship program at the Center for People and Craft, connecting youth and local artisans in woodworking, fiber art, and traditional craft.
Nakara Forjé
Facilitating a journaling workshop that combines hip-hop music, movement, and community building as a unique wellness experience.
Divya
Empowering South Asian immigrant and diaspora dancers with rich cultural dance traditions to transition from performers to choreographers through a structured training and mentorship program
Liqing
Creating an experimental film re-imagining stereotyped Asian portrayals in Hollywood film as fully dimensional and sharing the resulting “alternate archive” through a public screening and discussion.
Luis Fitch
Giving underrepresented artists tools to earn through licensing and passive income, bridging art and commerce.
Lara Mimosa Montes
Leading a series of poetry writing workshops open to the public in celebration of National Poetry Month.
José A. Luis
Bringing together dance artists in a live discussion to speak on each other’s work covering past, present, and future endeavors.
Marisa B. Tejeda
Collaborating with students at St. Paul’s Avalon school to devise original performance pieces, exploring storytelling, movement, and self-expression, culminating in a shared community showcase.
Martha Bird
Providing free basketry classes to benefit people living with mental illness, culminating in a community celebration reception.
Ket
Creating and sharing original Lao and bilingual Lao American music, videos, and performances at major Minnesota cultural events to preserve heritage and engage diverse audiences.
Chris Stedman
Expanding access for a story project collecting narratives of LGBTQ+ mutual aid for use in an audio series.
Paul Herwig
Animating overlooked surfaces of the urban landscape, creating unexpected moments of light and joy for passersby.
Laura Harada
Performing world music programs for seven senior communities, collaborating with two multi-instrumentalists similarly well-versed in a variety of styles played on traditional instruments.
Alex Church
Producing a theater show that teaches audiences techniques for mental health crisis intervention while connecting them to quality local crisis resources.
Molly Beth Griffin
Hosting six events for Minnesota picture book writers and illustrators to gather and share craft knowledge and discuss the creative process in a supportive artistic community.
Patty Ryan
Presenting two musical concerts on a theme of storytelling performed by Trio Zenia and Minnesotan Black and LGBTQ+ artists in historically black communities in Ramsey country and Duluth.
Aileen Razey
Bringing together an educational concert series for the Kingfield community, offering an artistic and educational opportunity to reflect on their relationship with nature, culminating in newly commissioned music.
Emily Jarrett Hughes
Integrating traditional circle dances, strength-building movement, and seasonal cultural practices in a women’s wellness dance class.
Precious Jackson
Creating small-group events for 8–12 children, guiding participants through three stations designed to encourage self-expression, creativity, and self-love.
Taja Will
Leading a artist affinity group for disabled artists, with four meetings where artists will author Access Riders, connect for mutual support, and a host a virtual panel.
paige carlson
Teaching special sculptural art forms to community members with an interest in healing in community through the arts.
Siama Matuzungidi
Presenting an uplifting and educational Congolese singalong program for children and seniors, featuring catchy songs, traditional instruments, and stories that evoke the artist’s rural African childhood.
Juan Diego Perez la Cruz
Connecting migrant artists for an experimental photography project with fragmented, poetic exchanges that will create visual dialogues and a digital archive of migration experiences.
Grover Hogan
Hosting a three-hour art-making workshop, projector-based performance, and psycho-esoteric gathering for young adult artists who are interested and/or afraid of failure.
Alyssa Stormes
Creating a nonfiction hybrid short film with orchestra students participating in a filmed workshop as lead subjects.
Moira (Miri) Villiard
Hosting a series of creative workshops with families and individuals impacted by incarceration.
A. Pavan
Presenting two lecture-demonstrations on appreciation of Hindustani (North Indian classical) drumming tradition, covering the breadth of the art of Tabla drumming for diverse audiences.
Shari Aronson
Presenting free puppetry performances inspired by Yiddish folktales about a town of fools for senior audiences at five community sites in the Twin Cities.
Emiko Rainbow
Celebrating and amplifying local Minnesota AAPI creatives through storytelling, art, and connection at a public event with panel discussions, live readings, and hands-on family art activities.
Pooja Goswami Pavan
Organizing two concerts, each with an accompanying lecture-demonstration, presenting rarely heard, semi-classical and folk music from the Benares region of North India.
Annika Johansson
Supporting a quarterly outdoor dance workshop series where dancers will improvise and collaboratively compose movement for a specific location.
Deborah Jiang-Stein
Producing an audiobook of a memoir story of prison-birth, enabling people in prisons with literacy barriers to access a transformative narrative reflecting their own lived experiences.
Qian Xu Yin
Leading a singing-based training to help teachers prevent vocal strain, especially for international educators, while strengthening classroom communication and ensuring more effective, sustainable teaching.
Jeffrey Brooks
Composing a significant new work for high school wind ensemble that will be premiered by the East View High School Symphonic Band in Apple Valley.
Brotha Ase
Presenting a free after-school drumming and storytelling program teaching West African rhythm, cultural connection, expression, and community for Twin Cities youth.
Dio Cramer
Exploring the role of graphic design in political movements, combining art-making, design skills, and community discussion, in free workshops.
Bobby Rogers
Teaching artists how to design and deliver pitch decks that transform ideas into opportunities.
Gudrun Lock
Holding public events and talks to support local dialogue about the neighborhood-based project new artwork for the artist’s living archive at the Minneapolis Central Library.
Chris Kalogerson
Performing a show of patriotic music show for Minnesota veterans who are unable to get out of the veterans home and hear live music.
Sho
Teaching the community how to document their lives and heritage through photography, helping them connect with others, and led by a local Japanese photographer.
Maya
Fostering opportunities for the creation and staging of original performance art about peace via a writers’ workshop, a theater showcase, and an open mic at the second annual Anti-War Theater Fest.
Ramsey
Sean Tsai
Empowering Asian American youth voices through learning how to tell short narrative stories with paper cutout animation.
Marz Lovejoy
Creating a short documentary highlighting Minnesota’s only two Black home birth midwives.
Elisabeth Sundberg
Exploring the concept of home with the ESL students at the International Institute of Minnesota in a month-long arts programming project.
Louis Kaufman
Providing hands-on experience making cordage and yarn from the abundant burning nettle plant while sharing cultural stories, crafted items, and games.
Sirena Thaovangsoua
Pairing AAPI creatives to collaborate on a short story and its manga/webtoon adaptation, with a free community event in May 2027.
Riiyo
Bridging art, ecology, craft, and somatic practice, this program cultivates creative literacy that is relational, embodied, and inclusive.
Kao Kalia Yang
Hosting a free fiction writing workshop for the community on the east side of St. Paul.
Ritika Ganguly
Convening inter-generational community walks to unveil the hidden soundscape in our built and wild environment.
Gabby Doran
Creating and performing an original music theater, a fun romcom that educates audiences about various landmarks around Minneapolis.
Georgia Fort
Inviting audiences to see themselves across time to witness the grace and grit of our elders and to imagine a future of joy, wisdom, and rest.
Hadley Evans Nash
Bringing innovative somatic healing through Shakespeare program to a local juvenile detention center and a shelter for survivors of sexual assault.
Dan Lugo
Creating communal live music and dialogue experiences to reintegrate body, soul, and spirit to address loneliness.
Barak adé Soleil
Developing a collaborative performance reflecting the expansiveness of Blackness intersecting with disability, queerness, neurodivergence, and trans and nonbinary aliveness.
Aria Dominguez
Presenting a series of public literary events at New City Center for Healing Justice, with local poets reading their work, followed by a conversation and audience Q&A.
Cassie Sawyer
Coordinating mutual aid pop-ups and crochet processing groups.
Claire Donovan
Fostering a welcoming Twin Cities creative community for LGBTQ+ adults and allies through junk journaling workshops that nurture connection, called “Scrap and Yap.”
Isabel Nelson
Offering a pilot course in community theater at MCF-Lino Lakes for incarcerated residents enrolled in the TRIAD (Treatment, Recovery and Independence from Alcohol and Drugs) program.
Kelly Tokay
Teaching free art classes for ages 4–12 at Spruce Park in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
David J. Buchanan
Casting of key acting roles in a new a psychological thriller exploring imposter syndrome and AI’s influence.
Xiong Xy
Interviewing Hmong refugees living in Minnesota on their journey from Southeast Asia to America in the post-Vietnam/Secret War era.
Jamie Marshall
Presenting a musical performance designed to challenge, move, and heal, with selections spanning folk, pop, classical, choral, musical theatre, poetry, and prose.
Lucina
Documenting the vital role of Black aunties through film and photography and examining how their care strengthens families and the broader community.
Pop Wagner
Presenting an evening of entertainment with tunes, storytelling, puppets, and rope tricks.
Cia Sautter
Offering free dance and story classes to elementary age children for a summer camp at Turtle Lake school, in partnership with Mounds View Schools Community Education programs.
Marissa M Wegner
Teaching adults with mental illness mosaics, an uncommon art form, aiding in mental health recovery.
J
Creating multidisciplinary art events that expose young, first-time African American single moms and their children to all forms of cultural interactive art experiences in the Twin Cities.
Scott
Tapan Sharma
Performing a mix of award-winning, personal, progressive, punny, punching-up stand-up comedy, poetry, storytelling, and sketch.
Fatuma Ali
Organizing and leading a workshop for early to mid-career aspiring photographers with a focus on young Black and POCI artists.
Washington
Karina Kelton Marin
Presenting a creative sewing and knitting series for Spanish-speaking families to build connection, healing, and cultural pride through hands-on, intergenerational art.
Sivanuja Balaji
Exploring Indian classical dance and theatre through movement, expression (abhinaya), and gesture (mudras) with students to tell stories from mythology and connect with daily life.
Birdy
Teaching the Lam Mahasay dance and its meaning to help new students connect with Lao culture, inspiring them to preserve heritage and traditions while appreciating this beautiful dance.
Pachiaaa
Inviting adults and children of all ages to color Hmong paper dolls, connecting art and heritage through simplified traditional outfits that reflect their identity.