2022-2023 EAL MENTEES
Qori Cohaila
Qori Cohaila, (she/her) is an emerging Indigenous-Latinx artist based in Austin, Texas. In her childhood lay her love of art where she was surrounded by native artwork and artists. Embedded in her Aymara heritage and Meshika traditions is the foundation of why she does art. To translate her stories, myths and songs into a visual form.
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Qori’s passion for art was cultivated in that way and she believes in showing a piece of her in everything she creates. Now she advocates for using art and creativity as a tool to help her community, creating art to uplift and share her culture in a beautiful artistic experience. As a mixed media artist her work takes form in a combination of paints, ink, collage and digital media to create an abstract explosion of color and emotions.
Currently, Qori is involved with an Indigenous led nonprofit Kalpulli Texas Quetzalcoatl, and working in an international nonprofit organized to lend resources to Amazonian school-children, Children of the Sun foundation. As well as an avid community member of the NAC (Native American Church) where she’s currently a practitioner and supporter of traditional native practices and relations. Now in her journey with EAL she’ll have the opportunity to not only further her artistic capabilities but showcase her dream of storytelling through visual art.
Stevie Hawes
Stevie is an agender musician and Actual Pikachu. They currently work as a piano accompanist for Ballet Austin and a few other ballet studios in the area. Aside from the piano, Stevie has also built skills on several other instruments, notably the flute and alto saxophone.
In their free time, Stevie does livestreams on Twitch; when they're not playing video games, they're performing covers of game music on flute, usually in costume. Examples of their music covers can be found on YouTube under the name SymphonicElectric. Their ultimate dream is to be a video game composer themselves (maybe even for Nintendo, how cool would that be?) The world of video game music is rich and varied, and Stevie hopes to inspire others – including non-gamers – with their passion for the craft.
Zaelí Kane
Vermont-raised Zaelí Kane studied Art + Sociology at Goldsmiths University of London, and enjoyed a private apprenticeship in Provence, France with the late peintre-militaire, Louis Frégier.
Over the last decade, Zaelí’s multidisciplinary, ecocentric work has become increasingly devoted to signal-boosting themes of the Irish Diaspora. Her current performance piece, Away With the Fa*ries, is an immersive, dialogical storytelling act using traditional Gaelic tropes to address modern mental health issues from a de-colonized perspective.
Get in touch with Zaelí and learn more about her projects at www.Patreon.com/EverythingWeNeed
Lily Nguyen
Lily Nguyen is an artist who uses animation, traditional painting techniques, and digital illustration to tell multifaceted stories. When she isn’t drawing in one of Austin’s local coffee shops, she’s teaching art foundations to the next generation of artists.
After studying character animation at the California Institute of the Arts, Lily was given the opportunity to work with living animation legend Glen Keane on his directorial debut, Over the Moon. After working on several projects at Netflix Animation, Lily moved back home to her hometown in Austin to pursue stories authentic to herself and her heritage.
Robby Sciortino
Robby Sciortino (he/him) is an actor, director, deviser, and overall theatre-maker, originally from Las Cruces, NM. His work as a director and deviser explores existential and societal trauma through science fiction and paranormal lenses. As a member and activist of the LGBTQ+ community, Robby’s goal is to include and portray realistic Queer stories that go beyond the pain and suffering of the community.
When working with an ensemble, his mission is to best utilize each collaborator and their unique skill sets while honing in on the creative vision for the piece. His goal is to create theatrical experiences that leave audiences asking more questions than answering them. Robby is currently a company member of the Paramount Story Wranglers and the Cold Frame Collective.