Friday, April 23 was an evening of boundary-pushing performances! In the fourth installment of our Unmuted spring performance series, mentees and mentors share their stunning odes to nature, family, self and beyond, with pair emcees Amanda Musmacher and K. A. Jagai guiding us through.
We were also thrilled to honor mentor alum Naima Coster, author of What’s Mine and Yours (Grand Central Publishing), as an Agent of Change. You can still catch the full show above!
Watch the Pre-Show Q&A
What People Are Saying
“Thanks for all of the shared work—I have shared with my family and friends back home in Ireland and they are all absolutely blown away by the quality and beauty of the pieces. So proud to be part of this program!”
–Aoife Sheridan
Meet the Pair Emcees & Honoree
MENTEE EMCEE
Amanda E Musmacher
Amanda E Musmacher is an artist living in Queens, New York. Their art consists of written work, photography, illustration, and music. They try to capture the essence of what city life entails and the effects of living in such areas.
MENTOR EMCEE
Kat Jagai
K. A. Jagai is a queer and multiracial editor, writer and artist from Brooklyn, NY. They are a graduate of Bennington College. Their work has appeared in Frontier Poetry, Electric Literature, Thank You for Swallowing and elsewhere. In both art and writing, they are seeking that light within themselves and others that can only be seen when one is forced into the dark.
HONOREE
Naima Coster
Naima Coster is the author of What’s Mine and Yours, an instant New York Times bestseller, as well as a Read with Jenna and Book of the Month Club pick. Her debut, Halsey Street, was a finalist for the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and longlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. It was recommended as a must-read by People, Essence, BitchMedia, Well-Read Black Girl, The Skimm and the Brooklyn Public Library among others. Naima’s essays have appeared in the New York Times, Elle, Time, Kweli, The Paris Review Daily, The Cut, The Sunday Times, Catapult and elsewhere. In 2020, she was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree. Naima has taught writing for over a decade in community settings, youth programs, and universities. She is currently affiliate faculty in the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University in L.A. Naima tweets as @zafatista and writes the newsletter, Bloom How You Must. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Meet the Performers
Abigail Favorito & Stephanie Golden
Angie Galindo Perez & Kym Richardson
Anne Rhee & Sun Young Lee
Denise Domena & Emely Paulino
Doha Ahmed & Cynthia Amoah
Elaine Ng & Anne Lefever
Irene Hao & Lauren Vespoli
Isabella Soddu & Brooke Mazurek
Lauren Lee & Lillian Patterson
Lena Habtu & Sammi LaBue Hatch
Luz Calix & Kara Gelber
Megan Xing & Jihii Jolly
Paromita Talukder & Priscilla Guo
Sheyla Javier & Shannon Carlin
Sydney Johnson & Natasha Piñon
Viktoria Pavlova & Nevin Mays
Winnie Liang & Caroline Wray
Yasmin Zayed & Aoife Sheridan