Theme: Piece Together

Claiming our identities, we reveal our strengths and what makes us unique. By sharing our knowledge, our experiences, and our true selves, we discover what is common among us. We cannot connect without listening. Through empathy, we learn how each piece comes together.

Walker Art Center
725 Vineland Place
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403
United States

Alex West Steinman

Empire Builder

Alex West Steinman is co-founder of The Coven, a creative, comfortable, and safe workspace for women and non-binary folks where her focus on whole self, empowerment, education, and wellness has cultivated a dynamic, diverse community. As a former ad agency communications director, Diversity Fellow at the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, MadWomen board member, Bush Fellow, and named 40 under 40 by the Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal, Alex has a knack for strategy and opportunity. She breathes transformation. From trying to fit within a heteronormative culture to finding her voice, Alex now mentors others to become confident leaders.

Carol Bruess

Relationship Researcher

Research shows we all can live longer if we attend to the quality of our relationships. Carol J. Bruess, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of Communication and Journalism and former Director of Family Studies at the University of St. Thomas, MN. She currently serves as Resident Scholar in the Cassandra Voss Center for equity, identity, and dialogue-across-difference at St. Norbert College, WI. For more than 26 years as a professor, researcher, author and speaker, Carol’s primary interest has been in studying how families, couples, and members of all relationships create joy, happiness, longevity, and connection through micro-moments of interaction and ritual. She is particularly passionate about studying and understanding how the digital age is impacting our abilities to have healthy lives, fabulous relationships, and robust conversations.

Jocelyn Hagen

Composer

Jocelyn Hagen composes magical, dramatic and deeply moving music. A majority of her work features our most universal instrument: the human voice. Her commissions include Conspirare, The Minnesota Orchestra, the American Choral Directors Associations of Minnesota, Georgia, Connecticut and Texas, the North Dakota Music Teachers Association, Cantus, the Boston Brass, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and The Houston Chamber Choir. Recently, Jocelyn was inspired by the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci and has created an original score synced with video and animations from da Vinci’s writing. Jocelyn uses multimodal and compositional narrative to deepen our understanding and allow us to “rehear music” in a new and unique way.

Kate Beane

Public Historian

Kate Beane (Flandreau Santee Dakota and Muskogee Creek) holds a BA in American Indian Studies and a PhD in American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She served as a Charles A. Eastman Pre-doctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College, and as a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is currently a public historian and works in Native American Initiatives at the Minnesota Historical Society.

Rachel Allyn

Holistic Psychologist

As a sex therapist and pleasure expert, Rachel is integrating new research on the mind-body connection into her psychotherapy practice. By incorporating psychotherapy with the body’s movements in dynamic ways, which she calls “bodyfulness,” Rachel helps women and couples overcome barriers to fully reclaim sexuality and pleasure in their lives. If we can tune in to our bodies, embrace our emotions and manage repression and self sabotage, we may be able to reclaim true pleasure in our lives. Her practice of 18 years has specialized in relationship & intimacy issues, anxiety, depression, and loss.

Vie Boheme

Multimodal Artist

Vie Boheme eliminates the boundary between the seen and heard to reveal vulnerability and authenticity. Her sound is a fusion of Soul, Funk, Jazz, R&B and Pop music blended with athletic agility and choreographed expression. Viie uses poetry, monologue and song in collaboration with dance to explore complex and sometimes dark narratives. She has choreographed and performed with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Guthrie Theater with The Moving Company and has choreographed for The Children’s Theater. Vie has been co-creative director for Stokley Williams and a dancer with Camille A. Brown & Dancers.