Reenah Golden, Founder/Artistic Director of the Avenue Blackbox Theatre, is an award-winning artivist in Rochester, NY. For over 15 years, Reenah has been using the power of performance and the Spoken Word publicly to affect social and political change and create new ways of thinking. As an educator, Reenah has received local and international grants for her work encouraging youth voice and potential K-12 and she is currently adjunct faculty in University of Rochester’s International Theatre Program. Reenah teaches and guest lectures regularly at local schools, colleges, universities and cultural institutions and has been invited to perform and present nationally and internationally. Her work in higher education also includes: founding member of International Critical Pedagogy & Transformative Leadership Congress; the editorial board of the book series Revolutionizing Urban Education: Hip-hop, Pedagogy, and Communities (BRILL | SENSE [2018]); and several collegiate residencies, including Indiana University NW, McGill University, and Calgary University. As an accomplished producer, playwright and director, Reenah’s performing arts work includes multi-disciplinary collaborations; the most recent of which, BirthWrite, a collaborative literary work with her women’s writing collective We All Write received rave reviews at Rochester Fringe Festival. Her evolutionary production, Black Coffee; the Poets’ Café, which incorporates a live studio audience workshop, is a local favorite for its innovative marriage of art, history, improvisation and audience interaction. Both Reenah and her youth theatre troupe, the noDrama Club have been artists-in-residence at MuCCC Theatre and invited to collaborate with Geva Theatre Center regularly.