KindHumanKind Musicians

Aurora Nealand

Aurora Nealand is a sound artist and multi-instrumentalist (saxophones, accordion, voice) based in New Orleans, LA. Nealand has become a prominent force in the New Orleans music scene since she first arrived in 2004 and is the founder and leader of the non-traditional Traditional Jazz band, The Royal Roses. Nealand's other musical projects include The Monocle, Redrawblak Trio, and the Instigation Orchestra. She is an avid devotee of the musical mystery alter-ego band, Rory Danger & the Danger Dangers. Nealand regularly works as a musical facilitator with Found Sound Nation (under Bang on a Can) -an organization, which facilitates international musical collaboration and sonic diplomacy, and she has taught at the Walden School for Young Composers. Nealand was voted "Best Female Performer” (2016 Gambit awards), and "Best Traditional Jazz Band (The Royal Roses)" in the 2015 & 2017 Big Easy Awards. She is the co-founder of SONO (Sound Observatory New Orleans), which facilitates workshops of new music in the New Orleans region. In spring 2018, she was a co-curator of and performer in Southern Sonic at the CAC.

Alexis Marceaux

Alexis Marceaux is multi-instrumentalist and songwriter from New Orleans. At age nine, she began taking classically voice lessons. Marceaux took this knowledge of classical training to the Musical Theater department at NOCCA, where she became skilled in every aspect of performing. Returning to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, after studying music at Southeastern Louisiana University, she formed Alexis & the Samurai and soon thereafter, Sweet Crude. Presently, she keeps a busy schedule touring internationally, just finishing an extensive European tour and ramping up for festival season. Her 2019 calendar includes appearances at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Bottlerock, Electric Forest and Summer Fest.

free feral

free feral is a multi-disciplinary artist whose musical practice incorporates cello, viola, guitar, vocals and loops. they have collaborated with Leyla McCalla, Junebug Productions, and many others. As a composer they score film and radio projects, including Last Call, on which they also serve as a producer, editor and host. Their multimedia piece, Sing River Shout: a Ritual in Reparations, reclaims the narrative of the 1915 film Birth of a Nation, for the film’s black characters through score, editing, and sound scape. In their songwriting, they explore landscapes of love, depression, abuse, and oppression through blues and other folk traditions.

Tif Lamson

Born and raised in Lafayette, LA, Tif ‘Teddy’ Lamson grew up playing and performing music. She studied percussion at the University of New Orleans and, following the devastation of Katrina, onward at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 2008, she co-created the music group known as GIVERS. After the release of their debut LP, IN LIGHT, the group became a staple on the national festival circuit and performed on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live! TV Show. Tif went on to record on or be featured on artists' records such as Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Anders Osbourne, Rickie Lee Jones, and Grammy-nominated Valcour records' Rediscovering Lomax in the Evangeline Country-Lomax Tribute Compilation, alongside many others. She currently engineers and produces records at Marigny Studios as she continues to explore musical endeavors including projects such as: Jelly Toast Neva Wright and the My Bads, a fourth GIVERS release, and a Solo debut effort in the works.

KindHumanKind Production Team

Joshua Courtney* (Lighting Designer) is a New Orleans based artist who received his B.A. in Theatre and Film from The University of New Orleans in 2014. Recent credits include: Baby Doll (Lighting Designer, Le Petit); The Pillowman (Lighting Designer, The NOLA Project); Satchmo at the Waldorf (Lighting Designer, Le Petit); Executrix (Director); Foreign to Myself (Lighting Designer, Goat in the Road); Caligula (Lighting Designer, Cripple Creek Theatre Co.) He is a proud ensemble member of Goat in the Road.

Shannon Flaherty* (Producer, Assistant Director) is a performer, arts administrator, and educator originally from New Hampshire. She is co-Artistic Director of Goat in the Road, and recently directed The Distance of Sound, which she created with GRP ensemble member Darci Fulcher. She has performed in and helped create many GRP productions including The Stranger Disease, Foreign to Myself, and Numb. Shannon has also appeared on stage with Skin Horse Theater, Cripple Creek Theatre Co., and Dillard University. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 2006 and has been living in New Orleans since 2008.

Dylan Hunter* (Sound Designer) is a sound designer and theater maker, as well as being an ensemble member of Goat in the Road, a composer, and an Olympic hopeful. Recent work includes his duo-tastic nightmare-cabaret electro-folk drag snack, Creep Cuts, with Evan Spigelman, and his one-man, happy-sad robot show, The Night with Mister Bismuth. Big thanks to Aurora, Chris, and Shannon for trusting me...I mean, him...to do this.

Chris Kaminstein* (Director) is a writer, director, improviser, teaching artist, and co-Artistic Director of Goat in the Road.  Directing/writing credits include The Night with Mr. Bismuth, The Stranger Disease, Foreign to Myself, Uncle Vanya Quarter Life Crisis, and Numb.  Other writing credits include Talkback, written with Andrew Larimer and produced by the NOLA Project.  Chris has appeared onstage with Southern Rep, Cripple Creek, NOLA Project and is part of Machine A, an improv duo with performer Cecile Monteyne.  He is a teaching artist with Goat in the Road’s flagship educational program, Play/Write.

Kourtney Keller (Projection Designer) is a mother, daughter, comrade, artist, teacher, karaoke singer, wife and human (most of the time).  Over the years her sketchbooks have turned into hard drives and her paintings have become mp4’s.  She builds things out of legos and cardboard with her son to keep her fingers and brain on the same page.  She is thrilled and proud to be part of the KindHumanKind team.

Jebney Lewis (Set Designer) is a sculptor, set designer, community artist, and musician. He works with neighbors, youth, and other artists to re-interpret local sites and histories through the lenses of the visual and performing arts.  Past projects have included a vocal requiem for Philadelphia trains performed from a hand-built railway pump-car; a roadside collection of Kuomoni folk sayings gathered with children in the Central Himalayas, and a sonic map of the City of New Orleans that plays field recordings and displays writings of teens on questions of what “home” means, and on how the city is changing. He holds BA in theater arts from the University of Washington, and MFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

Kiyoko McCrae* (Costume Designer) is a theater maker and filmmaker, currently developing Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the Fever with Leyla McCalla, commissioned by Duke Performances. She recently co-directed and performed in Landscape with Figures with Andrew Ondrejcak for its regional premiere at CAC New Orleans. She co-directed and co-wrote the immersive theater production, The Stranger Disease with Goat in the Road Productions. She has designed costumes for Goat in the Road Productions, Prospect Theater Company, Junebug Productions and others. Kiyoko received her BFA in Theatre Arts from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. www.kiyokomccrae.com

Daniel Pruksarnukul (Projection Designer) is a Creative Producer who currently teaches Acting in the Musical Theatre Department at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.  He is a company member of Mondo Bizarro, and his latest projection design work was seen in The Way at Midnight.

Kit Sternberger* (Stage Manager) is a graduate of the University of New Orleans and a member of Goat in the Road Productions with whom she has stage managed Foreign to Myself, The Stranger Disease, The Distance of Sound, and The Night with Mr. Bismuth. Most recently she stage managed Balloonacy with The Radical Buffoons.

* denotes Goat in the Road ensemble members

KindHumanKind ran March 29 - 31, 2019 at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans (900 Camp St.). It was supported by a grant from the Threadhead Cultural Foundation, a Community Partnership grant from the Jazz & Heritage Foundation, as well as a grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.