Our Team of Artists

a percussionist and flute (shakuhachi and fue) player. He was a founding member of Senshin Buddhist Temple’s Kinnara Taiko, one of the first taiko groups formed in the United States.His playing has been featured in film and theater productions, and he teaches and performs frequently in Southern California, including through the Music Center’s school program and as an artist in residence at Metropolitan State Hospital.

In addition to providing vocals, instrumental and dance performance for Quetzal, Martha has collaborated and toured with numerous other bands and performing artists. A Chicana artivista (artist/activist), feminist music theorist and academic, Martha is assistant professor of Chicana/ Latina/ Studies at SCRIPPS / Claremont College, having earned a PhD in Feminism from the U. of Washington/Seattle, and a BA in Ethnomusicology, UCLA. Among numerous awards and honors, she received a Fulbright Garcia-Robles Fellowship (2007-08) for her research on transnational musical social movements across the Americas and Europe, with a specific focus on innovations of women in the music and dance of the fandango culture. She performed FandangObon at the 2016 Smithsonian Festival, participated in panel discussions on the and was MC for the 2018 NEA National Heritage Awards Concert.

Quetzal Flores is the founder of the eponymous Grammy® Award winning (2013 Bet Latin Pop, Rock or Album) East LA Chican@ rock group and co-creator of FandangObon's BAMBUTSU theme song. The musical ensemble is influenced by an East LA rock soundscape composed of Mexican ranchera, son jarocho, cumbia, salsa, rock, R&B, folk, and fusions of international musics. During the past two decades, the musical force of Quetzal has created a unique cultural platform that has sounded against conditions of oppression and marginalization. As a culture producer he has remained tied to sharing information with young people through projects with LAUSD's Migrant Education Program at Second Street Elementary School in Boyle Heights Quetzal has worked with the Aliance for California Traditional Art and more recently East Los Angeles Community Corporation.

Alison De La Cruz  (she/he/they/siya/DeLa) is a senior artivist leader, facilitator, cultural organizer, multi-disciplinary theatre artist, educator, contemporary ritualist and elder. DeLa is a collaborative leader with over twenty years of arts and cultural production, relationship and programmatic development, budgeting, staff and project management experiences and skills. They have raised over $3.2 million throughout their career to capacitate artists, communities and the organizations that serve them. De La Cruz has collaborated with local artists and produced community events of all sizes, developing Los Angeles’ world class cultural ecosystem for over 20 years.

(“The Dance of the Family” in Guinean Soussou language)  was founded in 2015 by Jahanna Blunt have been drumming and dancing together since early childhood. Their parents are all among some of the first generation of people in Los Angeles to study, practice and celebrate the traditions of djembe music. This name was chosen to acknowledge the bond between the company members, to acknowledge their parents and elders whose footsteps they are following in, and to acknowledge their ancestors whom they honor each time they practice or perform this beautiful art form.

Maceo Hernandez (AR), aka the “Demon Drummer from East LA” has been performing taiko, a classical Japanese drum, for over 20 years, beginning as a teenager with Montebello Sozenji Taiko. He was soon invited to live and train in Japan as a member of the world renowned Ondekoza with whom he has performed in Asia, Europe, North America, including at Carnegie Hall the day after completing the NY Marathon with the troupe.

Family duo leading hadrah and songs of the Sufi tradition. Imam Kamau Ayubbi (AR) and daughter Asiyah Ayubbi (AR) have presented the tradition of spiritual spinning of the Naqsbandi Sufi Order Whirling Dervishes during 2017 FandangObon, as well as have added their voices to the FO repertoire. A Sufi artist, poet, conga-lover, Kamau works as a chaplain at the University of Michigan Hospital. He is trained in spiritual care and guided meditations. Kamau grew up in a family of artists (Nobuko Miyamoto is his mother.) and activists and as such as maintained a very artistic and spiritual identity.

Image: Daren Mooko

(Director, FandangObon and Associate Artistic Director, Great Leap) He is an award-winning multimedia performance artist, playwright, visual artist and teacher who has been presenting his solo work nationally and internationally since 1989, including WHAT? NO PING-PONG BALLS? produced in 2018 by Great Leap. His works combine personal narrative with historical context to explore the many facets of social identity.

Poet Laureate of Boyle Heights, Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara is also a singer, songwriter, producer, writer, performance artist, and impresario. In the 1970s he made his mark in music with his band Ruben & the Jets, produced by the legendary Frank Zappa. Ruben has been a long-time associate of Great Leap as a cultural mentor in the Collaboratory program, and a key element of FandangObon as emcee. His autobiography, Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singe, was published in 2018 by UC Press and is required in many university courses.

Image: Getty Images

A taiko drummer and dancer. She is a co-founder of SHIN3, a group that performs taiko storytelling, music, and dance to foster appreciation of Japanese culture. Elaine works as a kindergarten teacher at the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple. Trained in Japanese folk dance, she is also a dance leader, who provides coordination and instruction for Southern California bon odori festivals. She has worked with Nobuko Miyamoto to choreograph several new pieces of repertoire.

He began training at the age of 13 in son jarocho, the traditional music from Veracruz Mexico that is a mix of indigenous Mexican, African, Spanish and Arabic sounds. He joined the ground-breaking Grupo Mono Blanco at age 15, and for the next 11 years, he participated in fandangos throughout Mexico and toured the world with the group. Recognized as an accomplished sonero, one who has to play various instruments within the tradition, as well as to sing and dance (zapateado), he then began teaching both in Mexico and in the US.