Idris Goodwin is an award-winning breakbeat poet, playwright, and Director of The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College. He was recently named a 2021 United States Artist Fellow. In addition to the recently released poetry collection Can I Kick It?, he’s had several publications from Haymarket Books including Inauguration (co-written with Nico Wilkinson), Human Highlight: Ode To Dominique Wilkins, and the play This Is Modern Art, co-written with Kevin Coval. He’s appeared on Nickelodeon, HBO, Def Poetry, Sesame Street, NPR, BBC Radio, and the Discovery Channel.  His plays include And In This Corner: Cassius Clay, How We Got On, Hype Man, and This is Modern Art. Goodwin is the co-host of the Same Old New School podcast on Vocalo Radio.

Read Fleming's Executive Artistic Director biography.

Crux Cooperative is a worker cooperative of Black artists working in XR that creates and produces content, provides XR consulting for organizations, and acts as a home for Black creators. Crux empowers Black storytellers and immersive artists, giving life to new worlds of creative possibility through sustainable and abundant wealth and ownership.

Crux has worked with organizations like Microsoft, New York Live Arts, International Documentary Association, Metastage, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Black Public Media, and more to create groundbreaking, thought-provoking, and accessible immersive experiences.

Nick Leavens is a producer and writer/director serving as executive producer of Ali Summit. In addition to his work with Crux Cooperative, he’s the founder of INCISIVE LLC, a broad-based consulting practice for arts and social justice organizations specializing in Ethical Institution Building. 

Leavens has 20 years of experience in film and theatre, having produced hundreds of live events in the U.S. He has worked at The Museum of Modern Art, Eyebeam, Atlantic Theater Company, The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, Art Omi, North Star Fund, and the Lower East Side Film Festival, and on projects with Anna Deavere Smith. He was the Founder and Artistic Director of |the claque| and Artistic Director of the New York Arab Comedy Festival, and has lectured at universities across the U.S. and Australia.

Jose Rosero is a Santa Fe-based virtual event producer and XR Artist serving as immersive designer for Ali Summit. His research focuses on developing resources for demystifying XR production workflows, community building in XR, the anthropological study of SocialVR cultures and virtual beings, and tracking the ever-evolving CryptoArt space.

He’s worked with AR and VR startups in the Bay Area to support creators and developers. Prior to working in XR, he specialized in video projection mapping, motion graphics, and interactive exhibitions in and around Baltimore.

Blair Russell is a freelance theatre producer and developer and is a producer for Ali Summit. A lover of theatre whose experience ranges from fringe festivals to Broadway shows, his most recent projects include Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris and the critically acclaimed immersive Off-Broadway production of Sweeney Todd.

At Show Shepherd, he helps writers and producers navigate the development of new work, and he produces live immersive audio dramas as Director of Operations for Resounding. He currently serves on the boards of New York Theatre Barn and The New Harmony Project. He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a B.F.A. in Technical Theatre/Stage Management.