Kultur Stories 2024 Team

Gail Prensky — Creator, Executive Producer, and Director
As creator and director of The Jüdische Kulturbund Project, Gail brings to this project a deep and first-hand understanding of the Kulturbund’s spirit and recognizes the issues of living under oppression that continue with artists around the world today. Her interviews with the Kulturbund survivors and current-day artists form the basis of her passion and vision for this project, which is rooted in the Kulturbund’s strong regard for music and the performing arts.  In 2001 Gail started researching and gathering material about the Kulturbund. Several years later she brought together select talent, partners, and like-minded supporters to make this project possible and then interviewed artists living under oppression in various countries. Her hope and dream is that the project will serve as a beacon of inspiration to all people.

Gail has written, produced, and directed a broad range of media projects in film, multimedia, books, and exhibitions. Through her Meteopa Productions, Gail produces independent projects focusing on advocacy, art, human rights, music themes, and cultural exchange.

Gail is a recipient of the Mandela Washington Fellowship American Impact Award; an Awardee of the Reciprocal Exchange component of the Mandela Washington Fellowship (2019 and 2022); and U.S. State Department Arts Envoy Program Awardee (2019).  She is also honored to be an ongoing participant in the Mandela Washington Reciprocal Exchange Alumni Ambassadors Initiative.

Mark Haney — Producer and Associate Project Director
Mark brings organizational, financial, and administrative expertise to our project team, as well as film production, and a multitude of other things.  He is an international trade economist with over 25 years of experience advising companies, foreign governments, and trade associations on issues relating to international trade and economic and business trends. Among other things, Mark served as senior executive for a number of companies, including as President and CEO of the International Business and Economic Research Corporation (IBERC).

Mark is an Awardee of the Reciprocal Exchange component of the Mandela Washington Fellowship (2022).

On occasion, he sails the ocean, strums guitars and ukuleles, and performs stand-up comedy.

Tammy Sanders Henderson — Professor
Tammy Henderson is a Senior Lecturer of Africana Studies with a specialty in Black Women’s Studies and public policy at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Prior to joining the UMBC faculty in 2011, she was an instructor in African American Studies at the University of Maryland at College Park, and the Academic Program Coordinator for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History in Washington D.C. Dr. Henderson earned her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at College Park in American Studies, along with a Certificate in Women’s Studies. She is the Co-author of Interrogating the Awkward Black Girl: Beyond Controlling Images of Black Women in Televised Comedies (2020).

Michelle R. Scott — Professor
Michelle Scott is a Professor of History at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). She earned her Ph.D. in US and African American history at Cornell University. Scott is a scholar of African American history, Black women’s studies, American entertainment culture, and US civil rights activism. She is the author of award-winning publicationsandher Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South (University of Illinois Press, 2008) influenced the screenplay of HBO’s Bessie. Scott’s recent monograph T.O.B.A. Time: Black Vaudeville and the Theater Owners Booking Association in Jazz Age America, (University of Illinois Press, 2023) is an institutional biography of a 1920s national black vaudeville theater circuit that trained legendary African American entertainers like Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, and the Nicholas Brothers. A former Dresher Center Fellow, Scott has won an Institute for Citizens and Scholars’ Career Enhancement Fellowship, an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation MMUF Research Grant, and a Smithsonian Institution Senior Fellowship. She was awarded a USM Regents’ Award for Excellence in Mentoring, was the 2015-2018 UMBC Presidential Teaching Professor, anda recipient ofthe Association of Black Women Historians’ (ABWH) Leticia Woods Brown Article Prize. Dr. Scott is an active affiliate professor at UMBC’s Africana Studies Department, the Gender, Women’s + Sexuality Studies Department, and the Language, Literature, and Culture Doctoral Program.

Jacky Ben — Education Facilitator
Jacky is a South Sudanese feminist who is passionate about politics, gender, and social justice. She is a graduate of the Catholic University of South Sudan, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Peace and Conflict studies. Jacky works with Ma’MaraSakit Village as a Gender Talk211 Radio Co-Host. This program enables her to create a platform and amplify the voices of South Sudanese young women and girls on issues of inequalities that affect them and how to contribute in creating positive change for the common good. Jacky also works at the Catholic University of South Sudan as a Teaching Assistant at the Institute for Peace and Justice. Being a traditional dancer, she leads a cultural dance group.

Johan Fält — Education Facilitator
Johan Fält is a director, actor, playwright and musician living in Karlstad, Sweden.

He has studied drama, film, art and art history in Malmö and Karlstad and has a Bachelor of Art in cultural studies from the University of Karlstad.

Through the years Johan has appeared in plays varying from Shakespeare to Ionesco and Pinter as well as directing in several different genres from childrens plays to drama and musicals. He has also composed original music for theatre and film.

Johan is a part of the Kunskapsteatern, a theatre company that illustrates facts and knowledge through drama and entertainment.

Abindu Geoffery — Education Facilitator
Abindu Geoffery, originally from Uganda, is a teacher, deputy principal, and chairperson of the disciplinary committee at Promised Land Secondary School in Juba, South Sudan. He holds a degree in secondary education majoring in geography and Christian religious education.

Abindu is also the information secretary in the Maracha Association South Sudan (MASS), which aims to bring peace, harmony and development among its members and the host through extension services. As a committed Catholic, Abindu is the project coordinator in the Lugbara Community Church in Gumbo Shirkat where he explores opportunities of out-sourcing projects for the house of God and builds a peaceful community, which contributes to his leadership affairs.

Cindy Oxberry — Education Coordinator and Facilitator; Intern Manager
Cindy went to Washington National Opera at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and began her post as a resident assistant director for Marta Domingo and her production of LA RONDINE and for David Edwards’ production of FEDORA starring Mirella Freni and Placido Domingo. For 20 years she has returned to work on such productions as DON CARLO, MAGIC FLUTE, RIGOLETTO, IL TROVATORE, IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, TURANDOT, THE TALES OF HOFFMANN, UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, HANSEL & GRETEL, PIQUE DAME (starring Placido Domingo), LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, VANESSA, MANON LESCAUT, AIDA, NORMA, SAMSON & DELILAH, L’ITALIANA D’ALGERI, LA CENERENTOLA, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, MADAMA BUTTERFLY, JENUFA, LA BOHEME, A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, PEARL FISHERS, PETER GRIMES, DON PASQUALE and LE NOZZE DI FIGARO. She has also worked for Los Angeles Opera as an assistant director on LA RONDINE, LA TRAVIATA, THE TALES OF HOFFMANN, LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR and LUISA FERNANDA, starring Placido Domingo.

In the summer of 2000, Cindy was invited to serve as the stage director for OPERA INSTITUTE where she still is only now as the Program Director in addition to her classroom teaching. She has also served as the stage director for CAMP FOR KIDS – both programs offered by the Education Department of Washington National Opera.

Cindy’s directorial career has also flourished. She has directed several productions of THE MERRY WIDOW, around the country. Her MIKADO has been remounted in several American cities as well as several wonderful musicals, THE MUSIC MAN, CAROUSEL, CAMELOT and CANDIDE. She is honored to also be a director as major universities and colleges in the US as well. She has recently begun working in the genre of cabaret and loves it!

She was most proud to be invited by Mr. Domingo to Mexico City to celebrate his 40^th anniversary as an international artist. She had the honor of working with Mr. Domingo on the production of FEDORA for the International Opera Company of Mexico at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Wyatt Oroke — Education Facilitator
Wyatt Oroke is a nationally recognized educator for his work around social justice and literacy. Mr. Oroke graduated from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Johns Hopkins University School of Education in 2015 with a Master of Science in Education. Mr. Oroke currently teaches 7^th and 8^th grade English and Honors English at City Springs Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore City. For his school Mr. Oroke serves as the middle school team leader, coaches girls’ volleyball and boys’ basketball, and has a host of other leadership positions including a professional development facilitator in race and equity, scholar academic growth, and culturally responsive curriculum. For the district, Mr. Oroke serves on the CEO’s Teacher Advisory Council, works as a writing instruction expert for the Literacy Improvement Fellowship, serves as a curriculum writer for the Wholeness Writers Fellowship, and is a professional development facilitator in Courageous Conversations around race and identity. Mr. Oroke has received recognition for his teaching including awards from Johns Hopkins University, the University of Baltimore School of Law, the Maryland State Senate, and the Baltimore Orioles, and was awarded the “Superhero Award” by Ellen DeGeneres, where he appeared twice on her show. Mr. Oroke was named the 2020 Baltimore City Teacher of the Year and the 2021 Maryland Teacher of the Year.

Leif Persson — Program Co-Director and Education Facilitator
Leif Persson is a director, actor and regional coordinator of theatre at the national touring theatre Riksteatern in Sweden.  Leif has a long experience in theatre and has been active in a large variety of Sweden’s independent theatres and institutions. Until the late 1990s he was the chairperson of the Center for Independent Theatres in Sweden.

Jok Abraham Thon — Education Facilitator
Jok is the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s first Global Peaceworker Fellow,where he is earning his Master’s in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Leadership while working with The Shriver Center and Center for Global Engagement. He is the Founding Director of Promised Land School, which educates over 1500 internally displaced students in Juba-South Sudan and integrates conflict resolution and peacebuilding principles for these future leaders of South Sudan. Promised Land students regularly achieve top scores in National Examinations, and its graduates are studying at universities in Africa and worldwide. Jok holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Juba and a Bachelor of Biblical Studies and Community Development Outreach from Nation to Nation Christian University. In 2018, he was a Mandela Washington Fellow studying Civic Leadership at the University of Delaware. In 2019 he received the Ron Kovic MY HERO Peace Prize for the Bullets to Books documentary about his work. He received the 2021 Billion Acts of Peace Award from Peace Jam, participating in an online dialogue with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Jok is currently the African Union Youth Charter Advocate for South Sudan and seeking the adoption of the Youth Empowerment Policy Act. In 2023, Jok was nominated by the President of UMBC, Dr. Valerie Sheares Ashby as University representative to Transform Mid-Altlantic Fellowship 2023-2024. The Transform Mid-Atlantic  2023-2024 fellowship cohort includes 16 students from TMA member institutions across Maryland, Washington, DC, and Delaware.

Ava Mason is a class of 2024 student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she is pursuing a degree in Political Science and a minor in Africana Studies with a certificate in the Honors program. She is a member of the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honors Society. Ava is also treasurer of the Curl PWR club and treasurer of Sisterhood: A Women of Color Coalition. She is currently an intern with UMBC Interdisciplinary Studies, AARCH Society of Frederick, Maryland, and The Jüdische Kulturbund Project’s Kultur Stories digital storytelling program: Hair Stories. Upon completion of her undergraduate studies, she intends to pursue graduate school with a focus on civil rights and historical research.

Amarachi Okeke is a senior at UMBC. She is pursuing a degree in media and communications. Amarachi is on the path to law school. She aspires to combine her legal education and love for media to become a future news anchor/journalist.

Amarachi is passionate about the Kultur Stories project because it allows her to combine her love for teaching and working with the youth. She enjoys engaging students in meaningful discussions about various cultures and encouraging them to explore the world on a deeper level.