upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
Vena is the director and founder of Urban Africa Cultural Arts. She is a dancer, storyteller and teacher, drawing primarily from African and African American traditions. She aims to make the connections between hip-hop culture and West African movement and rhythmic patterns and also seeks to work against homophobia and sexism, which prevents boys from participating in dance and girls from participating in drumming. Vena's work is often directed toward helping women heal from abuse, but she ultimately creates it to empower the entire African American community with love, self-esteem, history, culture, and knowledge of one-self.