The 2019-2020 Arts & Culture Leadership Incubator Faculty Team

Arts & Culture Leadership Incubator Faculty

Tracy Francis

Tracy Francis is a theatre director, arts producer and film programmer. She has directed and developed theatre work in New York at Atlantic Theatre Co, NYTW, HERE Arts Center, The Culture Project, NY International Fringe Festival, Queens Theatre, Red Bull Theatre, Manhattan Shakespeare Project, NY Arab Comedy Festival, Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn Lyceum, LaMama Culture Hub, PEN World Voices Festival, and others.  Internationally at the Falaki Theatre (Egypt), Ubumuntu Festival (Rwanda) and LaMama Umbria ( Italy) and regionally with Portland Center Stage, Boom Arts, Teatro Milagro, Corrib Theatre, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. She is a 2017 Theatre Communications Group Rising Leader of Color fellow, a TCG Global Connections grant recipient, a core member of Theatre Without Borders , a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, an associate member of SDC, and serves on the Hillsboro Arts and Culture Council. In addition to free-lance artistic work she currently works as the Festival Director for the Cascade Festival of African Films, and as a teaching artist, program coordinator, and grant writer for PlayWrite inc. www.tracyfrancis.com

Roberto González

A native of Havana, Cuba, Roberto has an intense passion for the arts and his culture.  In 1997 he graduated from the Institute of Higher Education of Havana with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Audiovisual Communications Media.  He also studied music at the Ignacio Cervantes and Félix Varela conservatories in Cuba.  In his professional life, he combines his two great loves: the production of videos and the creation of original musical compositions on his acoustic guitar. Roberto has more than twenty years of experience working in a variety of community and public radio and television stations in Cuba, Costa Rica, and the United States. He has spent the last twelve years working for Tualatin Valley Community Television (TVCTV) in Washington County producing video and television programs.  A selection of his best videos have won multiple national awards at the annual National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) festival. For Roberto, also known as Tico González, telling stories that reflect the life experiences of human beings, either through audiovisual art or musical composition, forms the essence of his creative expression. For more information you can visit his website: www.ticogonzalez.com

Jessica Mehta

Jessica Mehta is an award-winning poet and author of over one dozen books. She’s currently a poetry editor at Bending Genres Literary Review, Airlie Press, and the peer-reviewed Exclamat!on journal. During 2018-19, she was a fellow at Halcyon Arts Lab in Washington DC where she curated an anthology of poetry by incarcerated indigenous women and created a pop-up virtual reality poetry experience, Red/Act. As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and native Oregonian, place and personal ancestry inform much of Jessica’s work. Jessica is the owner of the multi-award-winning writing company MehtaFor and founder of the Jessica Tyner Scholarship Fund, the only scholarship exclusively for Native Americans pursuing an advanced degree in writing or a related field. She has undertaken writing residencies around the globe including at Hosking Houses Trust with an appointment at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England and the Acequia Madre House in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Learn more at www.jessicamehta.com.

Toni Tabora-Roberts

Toni Tabora-Roberts brings more than 20-years experience in nonprofit and private sectors with expertise in leadership development, program management, communications, community engagement, and organizational development. She has particular experience and passion for arts, culture, media, education, sustainability, and social justice. Toni founded Esper House, a management, project, and communications consultancy in 2015. She is co-producer/co-facilitator of RACC’s board training program, Art of Leadership, and is co-producer/co-facilitator of Arts Workers for Equity’s Racial Equity in the Arts Self-Assessment Learning Circle. Other diverse groups Toni has worked with include OPB, Portland Parks Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, City Club of Portland, MediaRites, Shaking the Tree, Unit Souzou, Hand2Mouth, and KBOO Community Radio.  She currently serves as Board Chair for APANO CUF and is a core member of Arts Workers for Equity. She makes time to create through writing, lettering, terraria, and whatever else strikes. Toni is a proud mama, wife, daughter, and tita.