OUR PEOPLE
Milene Monteiro
Milene Monteiro is a communication consultant, performance educator and group facilitator. Native from Bahia, Brazil and based in California, she has worked as a consultant and group facilitator since 1994 in Brazil, Peru, England and California. At the core of her practice is a conviction that individual stories are powerful, and when embodied, shared and supported by the strength of the collective, stories work as a tool for social transformation. In her consulting, teaching, and performance production practice, she focuses on understanding the performance strategies that marginalized communities employ to combat social, racial, political, and economic inequity. Milene holds an MA in Communication Studies with a specialization in Performance Studies, from San Jose State University, where she was also a professor for five years. In addition to her academic education, she is trained in Expressive Arts and Drama Therapy, and she is on the RDT alternative training track of the NADTA. Her commitment to culture changes through the arts led her to actively engage with the private sector and artistic communities, facilitating workshops and training in a variety of environments. In her free time, Milene adapts her research on intercultural performance to creative work by writing comic books, play scripts, and producing documentary films.
Nikki Yeboah
It is Nikki’s belief that storytelling is a transformative act. Stories have the power to move us, persuade us, and most importantly, connect us to worlds and people beyond ourselves. She carries this belief into her practice as a solo performance artist whose work interrogates issues of race, gender and migration through storytelling. Her work has been staged at the Marsh Theatre (San Francisco), Links Hall (Chicago) & the Chicago Cultural Center. Nikki holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Studies Department of San Jose State University. In the classroom and in the field, Nikki uses oral history and performance to facilitate dialogue around issues of gender and racial inequality, social justice, and intercultural communication.
Elisa Chaves
Elisa Chaves is a psychotherapist and somatic educator specialized in working with children, adults and families, native from Brazil and based in California. Her work is deeply informed by her own journey of self-discovery and healing. Elisa’s background as a dancer and her belief in the wisdom of the body has guided her to deepen her studies in Somatic Therapy. Her love for arts and its healing power has drawn her into developing expertise in Expressive Arts and Drama Therapy. As an immigrant herself, she is passionate about helping other immigrants to understand how migration and trauma shapes one’s identities. Prior to becoming a psychotherapist, Elisa has worked with different social and environmental justice causes developing public policies that address social inclusion of disadvantaged groups in Brazil. These experiences inform her therapeutic practice of addressing the systemic and cultural factors that influence one’s mental health. Elisa Chaves is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW 89596) with an MSW degree from UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare.
Ticiane Barros
Ticiane Barros is a family therapist and specialist in psychopedagogy based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She worked as a preschool coordinator for over 15 years, guiding parents and assisting children with learning disabilities. In her experience with children with the most diverse learning experiences, Ticiane realized that for the healing process to be fully achieved it was necessary to approach the children’s family system and its members. Her therapeutic practice includes embodied intervention tools such as psychodrama and systemic family constellation. Ticiane believes that when we can own, embrace and accommodate our personal narrative, our ancestrality, our parents as they are, it is finally when we achieve emotional autonomy and family functionality. In her free time, Ticiane is also an artesian who expresses her love and caring for humanity by crafting unique artifacts.
Ollie
Ollie is our Oleear mascot, an amalgamation of all of us, she represents the importance of connection and community to the Oleear family.
