 These days, it seems easier to talk online than in person. ILI Alumni Fellow, Shey Rivera Ríos, is trying to change that. Shey Rivera Ríos isan artist and former artistic director at AS220, an internationally renowned arts center in Providence, RI. Rivera uses the mediums of performance, video, installation, and narrative to produce works exploring gender, family history, and colonization in Puerto Rico. After eight years at AS220, Rivera accepted a new role as Director of Inclusive Regional Development at MIT CoLab, in the Urban Studies and Planning department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
  Rhode Island Black Storytellers (RIBS) recently had their 21st Annual Funda Fest: A Celebration of Black Storytelling which will take place from Westerly to Woonsocket, Peace Dale to Providence on January 26 to February 3rd. ILI Fellow Valerie Tutson who is the Creative Director of RIBS and Fund Fest founder wanted a space for storytellers to share, teach and entertain with stories from the African Diaspora. Funda means “to teach and learn” in Zulu and KiSwahili which for an entire week the festival aims to do with storytelling, cultural experiences, and workshops for all ages to experience.
Funda Fest is a week-long free fun festival that the whole family can experience through concerts, workshops, and cultural arts programming across Rhode Island at these different venues: schools, K-12, community and cultural arts centers, libraries, and theatres. What inspired Valerie Tutson to create such a wonderful event was when she was working with Johnny Cakes, a storytelling festival in Rhode Island. Valerie loved the festival so much she wanted the community around her to experience a different culturally rooted storytelling festival. When Valerie attend NABS festival, a Black Storytelling Festival, she wanted that same experience in the schools, for the children and others to see high-quality black arts grounded in black traditions. Valerie explained that the name “Funda” was inspired when she was a senior in College she met Gcina Mhlophe, South African storyteller and writer. They became very good friends over the love of storytelling. Valerie took some time off and spent a lot of time in South Africa where she learned the word “Funda” which means to teach and to learn in Zulu. “Because before there were teachers, schools, and library, the storyteller is, was and continues to be the teacher and Funda looks like fun! Which we hope people are experiencing and learning while having fun” as Valerie explains the story behind the naming of Funda. After 21 years, Valerie has seen the growth of Funda and how this year is different from the others. RIBS had 43 school programs but after Funda, Valerie and her team received calls all over the state asking for storytellers for events like Black History Month. One of RIBs goals was being a launch pad for storytellers to work in the community beyond the Funda festival which seemed to click this year. “It felt really good” Valerie expressing her gratitude that after a generation later after starting Funda, it finally has turned the corner for the next group of people to value it. ILI Fellow Kyoung Park guest blogs on Arts Leadership and the future of his own practice.  Kyoung's Pacific Beat's PILLOWTALK (The Tank, Jan. 2018). Photo: Walter Wlodarczyk I’ve been thinking a lot about Arts Leadership. Last year, I realized Kyoung’s Pacific Beat has outgrown its current limits and that I need to re-imagine its future for the long-term. It was easy for me to imagine what we’d strive for creatively, but I was stumped by what it’d look like to paint that picture in numbers and what it’d take to make it happen. I think of my mentor, Lee Breuer, who started as a playwright and director, and did not return to his creative writing until his 70’s, having lived a life in the theater teaching and directing. I think of Abe Rybeck, who reached out during a moment of crisis to tell me that he, too, started as an artist and then spent a lifetime building an institution.
ILI Fellow Kahōkū Lindsey-Asing helped promote “Ōlelo Hawaiʻi Month” in February that celebrates and encourages the use and normalization of Hawaiian language. Here is his perspective and experience from this year’s activities:  Pūnana Leo o Mānoa Hawaiian Medium Education Preschool students attending the “2017 Ke Au Hawaiʻi- Year of the Hawaiian” ceremony at Washington Place, Honolulu. “...for me, every month is about celebrating, encouraging, and normalizing Hawaiian language. ”In September 2018, ILI Partner First Peoples Fund hosted the first of three place-based intensives for ILI Fellows in Lakota Territory/South Dakota. The five-day leadership immersion brought together the second cohort of ILI Fellows for shared learning, personal exchange and direct experience with the true history and sacred places in Lakota Territory.  2018/19 ILI Fellows Cohort at Red Shirt Overlook in Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Photo by Melisa Cardona “This work is so important,” said First Peoples Fund President Lori Pourier. “The partners who came together to start ILI have long term relationships, but we need to widen the circle and provide space for other arts & cultural leaders who voices are an important part of the larger story.”
Get a glimpse into the ILI intensive experience through this day-by-day look.
ILI Facilitator Nijeul X. Porter (l) and ILI Fellow Joe Tolbert (r) at Pe Sla (Black Hills). Photo by Melisa Cardona
ILI Fellow Christopher Sims shares his thoughts and experiences from Lakota Territory  ILI Fellows Robert Martinez (l) and Christopher D. Sims (r) “This is professional and spiritual development I will need to continue my work - the work we are all doing
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