Wisdom Circle with Heritage Works

A Wisdom Circle: Finding Your Tribe & Supporting Black Women in Arts and Culture 

Join Heritage Works in partnership with The Charles H. Wright Museum for an inspiring evening of conversation on the experience of art, culture, and sisterhood. Featuring the dynamic trio of Stephanie Hughley, Mikki Shepard, and Baraka Sele, the three renowned women will discuss their professional journeys as pioneers and pillars in American arts and culture. They will share behind-the-scenes stories of how they negotiated space and created history-making art, while supporting each other, which multiplied what was possible and what they accomplished. 

Moderated by Michon Lartigue, Senior Vice President of The Wright Museum, the evening will provide a unique experience of hearing firsthand their experience of building sisterhood and mentoring other women of color in the arts. 

JOIN US

GM Theater 
Thursday, November 14th, 6pm - 9pm. Doors open 5:30pm! 
Free and open to the public!

Register now!

Meet the Women

Baraka Sele

Baraka Sele has more than 40 years experience as a performing arts consultant, curator and producer. Prior to being self-employed, she served in leadership positions as Assistant Vice President of Programming at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), as the first Artistic Director of Performing Arts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco and Vice President of Performing Arts of The Houston International Festival (THIF). Consulting clients have included: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (NY); August Wilson African American Cultural Center (PA); Dance USA (DC); Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (NY); Double Edge Theatre (MA); International Association of Blacks in Dance (DC); International Festival of Arts and Ideas (CT); National Endowment for the Arts; Newark School of the Arts (NJ) and many other arts organizations and individual artists. 

National and international awards and recognition include the 2020 Harriet Tubman National Freedom Award. Her curatorial work has received an award for Sustained Programmatic Excellence from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) and an Isadora Duncan Special Achievement Award in Dance for Curating / Presenting "Katherine Dunham: The Legacy and the Legend" at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Her humanities programming at NJPAC received a Citation as a National Model of Humanists at Work In Public Life by the White House Millennium Council. Her work has been featured in numerous publications: Dance magazine; Essence magazine; American Theatre magazine; Americans for the Arts magazine; The New York Times, to name a few. Sele has been a guest speaker at conferences / universities / seminars. She has served on local, national and international advisory committees / boards / panels. She has traveled and worked with artists throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, and the Caribbean, supporting collaboration and presentation with artists of diverse communities and cultures to facilitate cultural equity / cultural democracy / intercultural exchange. 

Born in Detroit and raised in rural Michigan, Ms. Sele is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University where she also taught while completing her graduate studies. Her poems have appeared in The Detroit News and literary periodicals such as Nostalgia: An Anthology of Writings from Detroit and Black American Literature Forum. A collection of her poems was published by Detroit-based Lotus Press, founded by Detroit's Poet Laureate, Naomi Long Madgett (deceased), At Rutgers University / Newark she was appointed a fellow at the Institute of Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience and taught a graduate course in "Leadership and Diversity."

Mikki Shepard

Mikki Shepard is a producer, presenter, curator and philanthropist. Her professional work has concentrated on building new and reimagining existing performing arts institutions, creating and producing unique arts programs and innovative performance presentations, and advising foundations on major arts initiatives. She has been an influential voice in support of Black art and culture, contemporary dance and in community and audience engagement and access. Ms. Shepard currently serves as a consultant in organizational and institutional program development and strategic planning and implementation, is a senior advisor to foundation and nonprofit arts organization leadership nationally, and mentors emerging and mid-career executive and artistic leaders in the performing arts field. 

Ms. Shepard is a member and former Board Chair of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and member of the Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation board. Past board memberships include: the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), Brooklyn Community Foundation, and Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ). Ms. Shepard has been an advisor to The Ford Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Heinz Endowments, August Wilson African American Cultural Center, and New Jersey Performing Arts Center and others. She served as a Tony Awards Nominator from 2016 - 2019.

The 1983 landmark Dance Black America festival produced by Mikki Shepard for the Brooklyn Academy of Music inspired and was the subject of acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Tiona Nekkia McClodden's The Trace of an Implied Presence - a multichannel video installation and performance exhibition on the living history and influence of contemporary Black dance in the United States - presented at The Shed in 2022. Other honors include: a 2017 Bessies, NYC Dance and Performance Award, APAP's Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award (2017) for exemplary service to the field of professional presenting, and was the first recipient of Association of Arts Professionals (APAP) Halsey and Alice North Award for Committed Excellence and Service to the Presenting Field (2014). Ms. Shepard was recently honored by MoCADA, the Museum of Contemporary Diaspora Arts in an outdoor a permanent sculpture series Brooklyn Bronzes by artist/architect Kholisile Dhliwayo and curated by Amy Andrieux, that celebrates Brooklyn's living legends who have contributed greatly to arts, education, and advocacy through their work.

Ms. Shepard produced NYC FREE, the first multidisciplinary arts festival, for the August 2021 inaugural season of Little Island Park in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan that supported over 400 contemporary performing artists over 20 days. Ms. Shepard served as Executive Producer of the Apollo Theater from 2006 - 2016. She led the development and implementation of the Apollo's new institutional vision and organizational infrastructure. Under her leadership, the Apollo Theater's new artistic vision celebrated and re-envisioned the Apollo's legacy. Under her leadership, a key aspect was the Apollo's 21st Century global program of large-scale productions and festivals that included the Apollo's first global festivals - Breakin' Convention - A Hip Hop Dance Theater Festival and WOW, Women of the World Festival, the revitalization of Amateur Night and its digital presence, the creation of Apollo Club Harlem, the Apollo Music Café and Apollo Comedy Club and international tours of original Apollo productions such as James Brown: Get on the Good Foot, A Celebration in Dance. 

Ms. Shepard was the Director of Arts and Humanities at the Rockefeller Foundation. As Executive Producer and co-founder of Brooklyn's 651Arts, she produced Betty Carter: Jazz Ahead, 100 Years of Jazz and Blues Festival, Sung and Unsung/Jazz Women, Dance Women/Living Legends, and Lost Jazz Shrines and commissioned and presented major dance productions with the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), such as Ralph Lemon's Geography and Donald Byrd's The Harlem Nutcracker. Under her auspices at 651Arts, the Africa Exchange Program, a Ford Foundation international initiative, was created. This landmark program supported the collaboration and the creation of new work between artists from the U.S. and African countries. She created and produced over 25 performing arts programs for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, including Steps in Time: A Tap Dance Festival, DanceAfrica, Dance Black America: 300 years of Black Dance in America.

Stephanie S. Hughley

Stephanie S. Hughley is currently a Performing Arts Consultant. She is a relationship builder who maintains a high professional profile and is able to access financial resources and develop unique collaborative ventures with other organizations, public and private, for profit and non-profit. For more than 50 years she worked in the performing arts and cultural community as an artist, curator, educator, general and company manager, presenter and producer. She has shared her years of experiences and skills with a variety of artists, arts, cultural, educational and community organizations. 

She began her career in the arts as a teacher and professional dancer and danced her way to New York in 1974 where she transitioned from dance into the theatrical community. In 1975, she began her work in the New York Theater community and as a member of Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers (ATPAM) spent more than 15 years as a General and Company Manager for Broadway, off-Broadway, National and International Touring Companies. In 1988, as the first Artistic Director, together with her team conceptualized and implemented the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, GA and returned several years later to become the Executive Producer of the Festival. In the Interim, she worked as the Producer of Theater and Dance for the Cultural Olympiad of the Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA. In 1995, Ms. Hughley joined the staff of New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) as the first Vice President of Programming and from June 2009 to November 2011, Ms. Hughley returned to NJPAC as VP Programming & New Media, once again supervising all programmatic decisions. She served most recently as Vice President of Education, Humanities, BAM Cinema & Cinématek at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, NY (BAM).