Amado Espinoza, 2021 Shooting Stars Winds & Percussion Category Judge

Amado Espinoza is a unique performing artist, composer and instrument maker from Cochabamba, Bolivia, that respects his folk traditions of the Andes Mountains while creating compositions that are sincere to his musical-wanderlust personality. 

Since making Kansas City his home in 2014, Amado has been featured on TedxKC, Kansas City Folk Festival, Native American Harvest Moon Festival, and more.  He is a grant recipient of the Lighton International Artist Exchange Program (2019), Folk Alliance International Music Conference scholarship recipient (2015), ArtsKC Inspiration Grant recipient (2016), Charlotte St. Foundation resident (2015-2017) and 2017 Generative Performing Arts Fellow.  He composes for film, theatre, and dance, most notably We are the Landscape (2016), a contemporary indigenous stage performance in Kansas City, Mo, The Storytelling Project (2018) with UMKC MFA Theatre Program, Pachakutec (2019) Bolivian Tour, and KC Public Theatre’s Spanish Radioplay El Amor que Mueve el Sol y las Demás Estrellas (2020).

Amado works as a solo performer and with his groups Ayllu, Colectivo Yanquitl, and the Amado Espinoza Trio.  He is a featured artist with Ensemble Iberica (Kansas City, MO), Oil rock band (Cochabamba, Bolivia) and guides sound immersive meditations.

JoDee Davis, 2021 Shooting Stars Winds & Percussion Category Judge

JoDee Davis is professor of trombone at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory. She is a member of Trilogy Brass Trio and plays extra trombone with the Kansas City Symphony. She has served on the faculties of Kent State University and Eastern Washington University. During her time in Washington, she played both principal and second trombone in the Spokane Symphony and for twenty years she was second trombonist of the Santa Fe Opera. Davis was the UMKC Conservatory’s 2015 recipient of the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Excellence in Teaching Award. She has released two solo recordings on the Albany Records label: In the Moment (2001) and The Voices of Air (2020).

Davis holds the Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University, and the Masters and Bachelor of Music degrees from the University of Northern Iowa.

Aubrey Urban, 2021 Shooting Stars Theatre Performance Category Judge

Aubrey Urban joined the JCCC Theatre Department after working several years as a talent agent in NYC with Innovative Artists Talent and Literary Agency. With an MFA in Producing from California Institute of the Arts, she has worked onstage, backstage, as well as in front and behind the camera in film and commercials. Aubrey has had the opportunity to work both artistically and administratively in many theaters including Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Trinity Repertory Company and LA’s REDCAT. In Kansas City, she has worked with Hallmark Cards, Inc. in the casting and production of photography and commercials. In 2018, she was awarded the Lieberman Teaching Excellence Award for Adjunct Faculty, one of the most significant honors given at JCCC.

Cynthia Hardeman, 2021 Shooting Stars Theatre Performance Category Judge

Cynthia Hardeman is an Air Force veteran, a graduate of UMKC with a BA in Theatre, Spanish and Education. Also a playwright with plays produced in Kansas City, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston and Chicago. She is currently a drama teacher at Allen Village High School and is Co-Founder of Drama Time KC, LLC. Its a children’s performing arts program with a vision to empower youth in finding their voice and gaining confidence in public performance. Located at the Blackbox on Troost, she is also a Charlotte Street Start Up Resident, 4001 Troost, KCMO.

Elizabeth Valle, 2021 Shooting Stars Strings Category Judge

Elizabeth Valle has held the position of Director of the UMKC Conservatory Academy since 2016. In this position, she coordinates the Conservatory’s non-credit lessons and classes, festivals, workshops, summer camps, and Conservatory Bridges. Elizabeth received a BA with an emphasis in Harp Pedagogy from MidAmerica Nazarene University, and an MA from the UMKC Conservatory.

Michael Mermagen, 2021 Shooting Stars Strings Category Judge

Cellist Michael Mermagen (M.M. The Juilliard School, B.M. The Peabody Conservatory of Music) is Professor of Cello at UMKC Conservatory and Head of Strings. He was formerly Associate Professor of Cello and Chamber Music and Head of the Instrumental Division at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at The Catholic University of America.

Michael made his debut at the age of sixteen with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra after receiving the Young Soloist’s Award. Michael began his studies at Peabody Preparatory where he studied with Paula Skolnick-Childress and Mihaly Virizlay. Principal teachers in college were Stephen Kates at Peabody Conservatory, and Zara Nelsova at The Juilliard School. As the Juilliard School’s concerto competition winner, he performed with Juilliard Orchestra under Otto-Werner Mueller in Alice Tully Hall. He was soloist with National Orchestra of New York, where he held the prestigious Emanuel Feuermann principal cello chair and performed in Violoncello Society of New York Master Classes lead by Yo-Yo Ma, Janos Starker, and Bernard Greenhouse

Ruben Castillo, 2021 Shooting Stars 2D Visual Arts Category Judge

Ruben Bryan Castillo is a visual artist and educator born in Dallas, TX and is currently working in Kansas City, MO. His work investigates themes of intimacy, queerness, place, and the body using a range of media including print, drawing, sculpture/installation, and video. His most recent imagery draws from a personal archive of photographs and materials, seeing the ordinary as a site for transformative potential and feeling. Castillo’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is included in collections such as the Crossroads Hotel (Kansas City, MO), Mexic-Arte Museum (Austin, TX), National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago, IL), the Zuckerman Museum of Art (Kennesaw, GA), and the Turner Print Museum (Chico, CA). He co-chaired the panel “Queer Ephemera, Et Cetera: Encounters in the Archive” with artist Amy Cousins at the 2020 Mid-America Print Council’s Remote Symposium, organizing a conversation between five artists on the topic of queer archives. He received an MFA in visual art from the University of Kansas and a BFA in printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute. He currently teaches printmaking and drawing at the Kansas City Art Institute and Johnson County Community College.

Puce Felling, 2021 Shooting Stars 2D Visual Arts Category Judge

Puce Felling is an artist based in Kansas City, Missouri. He graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2016 with a degree in ceramic and fiber arts. His artwork is informed by his identity as a non-binary queer person, which places him in a context with others whose private lives become public subject due to controversy and political discussion. His work questions themes of public vs private, performative roles, and harmful pathologizing that comes with being a queer person. He has a background in facilitating art production, writing, and media presence that supports artists, exhibitions, and arts organizations. He was a 2016 Windgate Fellowship finalist, received the NCECA Undergraduate Award for Excellence, and has been featured in Ceramics Monthly.

Puce is the Artist Services Assistant at Mid-America Arts Alliance.

Patricia Bordallo Dibildox, 2021 Shooting Stars Photography Category Judge

Patricia Bordallo Dibildox is a Mexican-born artist and organizer based in Kansas City, MO; unceded ancestral land belonging to the people of Wazhazhe Maⁿzhaⁿ (Osage), Jíwerve icc’é (Oto), Káⁿza (Kansa), Ñút’achi icc’é (Missouri), Washtáge Moⁿzháⁿ (Kaw/Kansa), and Očeti Šakówiŋ (Sioux). Since receiving a BFA in photography in 2015, she has focused primarily on exploring sculpture and installation-based work utilizing natural dyeing and quilting.

In addition to visual arts, Bordallo Dibildox’s practice extends to social, political, and community engagement as a co-founder and a leading member of the Artist of Color Alliance and co-director of front/space. The roles she takes on allow her to find the meaning and the link between personal and collective actions, and the way she can utilize her power to build up others.

In 2019, Bordallo Dibildox received a grant from the Meow Wolf Foundation and a grant from the Ford Foundation through her role as co-director of front/space. From 2017 to 2019, she had a studio at The Drugstore where she was awarded a free residency through the Gift of Faith Award. In 2016, she was a recipient of a Rocket Grant as Senior Editor of Informality Blog. Bordallo Dibildox currently serves on the Charlotte Street Foundation Programming Committee for Visual Arts and is an educator for Black Arts Freedom School. Her work has been displayed nationally and internationally in Australia.

pronouns: she, her, hers

Trey Hock, 2021 Shooting Stars Photography Category Judge

Trey Hock explores the markers of narrative through short film, writing, installation, photography, performance and web-based social media platforms. His work interrogates the assumed physical and social constructions that surround us. These include narrative storytelling, the photographic frame, public and private spaces, and personal identity. His short films have shown at Sundance and other international film festivals. He has worked across platform through Instagram, printed photographic works, and installation to explore the power of the Selfie. Trey’s most recent work is a collection of short writings and photographs that explore the ideas of narrative and accumulation. Trey is currently an Assistant Professor of Filmmaking and Creative Writing at Kansas City Art Institute. He received his B.A. in English, Creative Writing from Kansas State University in 1997, and his M.F.A. in Writing and Directing for Film and Television from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007.

Millie Nottingham, 2021 Shooting Stars Voice Classical Category Judge

Vocalist Millie Edwards is known around Kansas City as the little woman with the big voice. Her unique style and wide range, as well as her friendly professional manner have endeared her to Kansas City audiences over the years. She’s performed nationally and internationally.  Millie has been a regular on the Kansas City Jazz and Blues circuit, frequently performing at some of the best clubs in town as well as radio/ television spots. Currently she can be heard at the Plaza Intercontinental, the Phoenix Downtown and B&B Theatres.  Edward’s is a true vocal stylist with a distinctive and mature sound. 

Millie has performed with Kansas City’s Jazz Orchestra and for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.  She is a member of Kansas City’s Wild Women and has appeared on numerous CDs.  Pete Falico, of KUSP, Santa Cruz says of her performance on Everette DeVan’s East of the Sun, “Millie’s breathy voice sensually reaches into lyrics and pulls out new things from old, familiar words”.

Millie spent 25 years in Management with AT&T.  She is past President and sits on the board of UMKC Jazz Friends.  She graduated from Ottawa University and received her Master’s in Education from Rockhurst University. Millie is currently the Reading Coordinator at Metropolitan Community College Penn Valley.  She received Kansas City Magazine’s 2007 Best Musician’s award, Ottawa University’s Outstanding Achievement Award for Community Activism, and is one of Ingram’s Magazine-50 People to Know in Missouri.  In 2017, she received the Missouri’s Governor’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

Maria Kanyova, 2021 Shooting Stars Voice Classical Category Judge

Critics have hailed Maria Kanyova as an extraordinary singing actress. Robert Trussell of the Kansas City star wrote of her portrayal of Pat Nixon, “Her voice could stop time.” Throughout Dr. Kanyova’s extensive and busy performing career, she has performed leading roles with Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Dallas Opera, New York City Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Boston Lyric Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, San Diego Opera, Opera Pacific, Portland Opera, New Orleans Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Saint Louis Opera Theatre, Central City Opera, Opera Colorado, Madison Opera, Tulsa Opera, Wexford Opera Festival and Canadian Opera Company along with many other prestigious opera companies. One of her signature role’s “Pat Nixon” in Nixon in China has been recorded on the Naxos Label and one of her many career highlights include a PBS telecast as “Mimi” in La Boheme at New York City Opera’s Live from Lincoln Center National Broadcast. One of her favorite roles to perform remains Madama Butterfly for the many times she has performed it with her own children as Butterfly’s child, Sorrow.

Melanie Sherman, 2021 Shooting Stars 3D Visual Arts Category Judge

Melanie Sherman was born in Germany and currently resides and works in Kansas City, Missouri. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute. Her background is in graphic design, where she developed an eye for pattern and decoration. In her ceramics she combines her love for ornamentation and her fascination with the history of ceramics, referencing 18^th century European porcelain. Melanie has travelled to Asia and Europe to explore ancient and contemporary porcelain production of the East and the instilled taste for prestigious white and translucent table wares of the West. She has been a resident at the International Ceramics Studio in Kecskemét, Hungary where she studied with the renowned Latvian artist Ilona Romule and deepened her love for designing with plaster and detailed china-painting. As a resident at The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China, she developed her own designs with skilled local craftsman into a new body of work, exploring the relationship between the cultures, and how they continue to connect and influence each other through the ceramic arts. Melanie has also worked as a resident artist at The Archie Bray Foundation and Anderson Ranch, creating new forms and working on glaze formulations that compliment her studies of historic porcelain wares.

Jean Schmitt, 2021 Shooting Stars 3D Visual Arts Category Judge

Jean Schmitt started as a musician and crossed over to visual art in the late 80’s. She has been producing work that combines sound and moving image with sculpture and drawing ever since.  She maintains a studio in Kansas City, Missouri where she focuses on large-scale drawing, sculpture, and sound composition.  In her work she searches for connections between nature and the human experience.  She seeks to build educational communities that foster connections, value diversity, encourage expansive thinking, and embrace transformational potentials.   Her teaching focus has been art foundations and she has been involved in programs at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Northeastern University in Boston and currently teaches in the Foundation Program at the Kansas City Art Institute.  She sees foundation as an opportunity to shake up established ways of thinking about art to open new pathways to creative practice.

Jim Lane, 2021 Shooting Stars Production & Design Category Judge

Jim Lane is the Dean of Arts & Design, Humanities & Social Sciences at Johnson County Community College. Originally from Topeka, he has a MFA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a BA in Theatre from Washburn University and has been at JCCC for 31 years, the first twenty-two with the Theatre Department as Designer and Technical Director. In addition, he spent 15 years doing the same for the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. In those years, more than 100 JCCC students were involved with the productions of the Festival. Jim is proud to be a recipient of the Kennedy Center Medallion of Excellence for his work with the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Married for 31 years, he and his wife Julie have four children, one grandchild and more than 125 foster children.

Elizabeth Bowman, 2021 Shooting Stars Production & Design Category Judge

Elizabeth Bettendorf Bowman is a director, educator, and the Executive Artistic Director of Kansas City Public Theatre.  Since graduating from Northwest Missouri State University in 2012, she has made Kansas City her home and has worked at several area theatre companies. She received her Master of Arts in Theatre from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and is a faculty member at Benedictine College where she teaches theatre courses. She also teaches in the Fort Leavenworth prison system through Kansas City Kansas Community College. As a performer and director, Elizabeth has trained in the Suzuki-Viewpoints method of acting with the New York based SITI Company. As an active teaching artist, Elizabeth has taught classes for the Coterie Theatre and Heart of America Shakespeare Festival.  As a director and administrator, Elizabeth has worked at such companies as Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Coterie Theatre, and Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre. Through her work in theatre education and outreach, Elizabeth was inspired to create a theatre which reaches all corners of the diverse Kansas City community.  By producing free professional theatre at Kansas City Public Theatre, Elizabeth hopes to foster the creativity of our citizens and explore the truly global nature of the Kansas City region.

Royce (Sauce) Handy, 2021 Shooting Stars Literature Category Judge

Providing soulful & empowering tunes, Kansas City native, Sauce, guarantees a live performance that will inspire any & everyone. On top of being a go-to voice for the region, and having music that has peaked on iTunes, Amazon, and Billboard charts, he works with youth through Hip-Hop based initiatives. He is available for performing, speaking, teaching (Hip-Hop education), and more.

Jessica Ayala, 2021 Shooting Stars Literature Category Judge

Jessica Ayala is an Indigenous Colombian American Two Spirited multi discipline artist. Ayala is a public speaker, published author, spoken work artist, cultural worker, activist and writer-in-residence at Charlotte Street Foundation. Miss Ayala’s work is a fusion of her heritage merging oral tradition, storytelling, poetry, and native percussion to create spaces for dialogue and education. Her book of poetry, Huelga, takes a critical look at the social, political, environmental, and cultural injustices of Latin America. She is currently on tour with Huelga inviting students across campuses to explore the concepts of internalized oppression and decolonization. Ayala immigrated to the United States at the age of three, publishing her first series of poems for the Young Authors Conference at the age of eight. Her current poetry has been published in two anthologies winning an Honorable Medal in the 2017 International Latino Book Awards. Additionally, Miss Ayala is the recipient of the 2018 Best Kansas City Spoken Word Artist Award and was recently awarded the 2020 Civil and Human Rights Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Jessica is a vocalist and songwriter for Arquesta del SolSoul and a founding member of the Queer poetic collective La Resistencia.