Speaker and Artist Information
Conference Day – Tuesday, April 22
11:20 – Pam Breaux
Pam Breaux joined the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) in 2015. As president and CEO, she works with the association’s board of directors and staff to advance NASAA’s policy and programmatic mission to strengthen America’s state and jurisdictional arts agencies. A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Pam has held leadership positions at the local, state, and national levels. While in Louisiana state government, she was secretary of the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism (CRT), assistant secretary of CRT (overseeing its cultural development portfolio), and executive director of its state arts agency (the Louisiana Division of the Arts). During her time at CRT, Pam developed and led Louisiana’s cultural economy initiative and spearheaded the successful UNESCO inscription of Poverty Point State Historic Site (an ancient Indian site) as a World Heritage site.
Before working in state government, Pam was executive director of the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana and managed southwest Louisiana’s Decentralized Arts Funding Program. She has served on the boards of the U.S. Travel Association, NASAA, South Arts and the Louisiana Board of International Commerce. Pam is currently a member of the U.S. National Commission on UNESCO. She graduated from McNeese State University with a B.A. in English and earned an M.A. in English and folklore from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
11:40 – ShaLeigh Comerford
ShaLeigh Comerford (she/her) is a neuro eclectic Irish & Native American choreographer, performer, educator, advocate, and the Executive Artistic Director of ShaLeigh Dance Works, a nonprofit dance-theater company dedicated to inspiring people of all abilities, social backgrounds, cultures, and generations with the transformative power of dance. Her work is driven by a desire to uplift powerful stories and voices that address the human condition in relation to inequalities and forces of erasure. Her work stresses our instinctive human need to connect and focuses on the intersectionality of disability, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and physicality.
Her choreography and commissions have been presented throughout the United States and abroad. She has received honors for significant contributions in creating inclusive, accessible arts experiences that empower diverse communities and recognition for groundbreaking arts programming that foster inclusion and accessibility She is a recipient of the Mayor’s Proclamation award, Jan Van Dyke Legacy Award, Ella Pratt Fountain Artist Award and the Institute of Contemporary Art and International Cultural Exchange Award. She currently serves as Adjunct Professor of dance at Washington & Lee University. She is a member of the statewide NC Arts Statewide Accessibility Cohort as well as the UpROOTing Ableism workgroup for Alternate ROOTS where she also serves on the Executive Committee. She is also Founder and practitioner of ShaGa Movement, a living movement practice based on the unity of energy-consciousness and its relationship to health and disease.
12:45 – Ken Melton
Ken Melton, principal/owner of Ken Melton & Associates, has lobbied in the NC General Assembly for over two decades. During that time he has earned statewide recognition for successes achieved on behalf of his clients, regularly being named one of North Carolina’s top 50 lobbyists by the NC Center for Public Policy Research. Prior to lobbying, Ken worked in the General Assembly as a legislative staff member, serving then State Senator Virginia Foxx (now Congresswoman Foxx) the House Finance Committee and the Research Division.
Ken’s tenure as a lobbyist includes four years as Director of Legislative Affairs for the NC Department of Revenue where he worked as a top deputy for Secretary Norris Tolson. Before that he spent four years as a contract lobbyist with Alley Associates, one of North Carolina’s top-ranked firms for nearly two decades.
As head of his own governmental affairs and lobbying firm, Ken has represented a diverse list of clients, including numerous associations; medical companies; utilities; manufacturers and distributors; and local, state and federal retirees. He specializes in a number of policy areas, including child care and early education; health care (pharmaceuticals and MH/DD/SAS); taxes/finance; transportation; alcohol and beverage control, and gaming.
Ken has a Master of Public Affairs Degree and Bachelor of Science Degree from Western Carolina University. He is a North Carolina native, who grew up in New Bern and currently resides in Garner.
1:15 – David Holland
David Holland brings over 20 years of expertise as a strategy consultant and leader in arts, culture, and the creative economy, working with nonprofits, higher education, philanthropy, and businesses globally. As Deputy Director of Creative West, he leads advocacy and public policy initiatives, external relations, fundraising, and consulting services across 16 states/jurisdictions and nationally. At Creative West, David has co-developed the Pacific Initiative, co-designed the Arts and the Rural West seminar, directed Washington State’s Creative Economy Strategic Plan, launched the Creative Vitality Summit, and authored the Creative Economies and Economic Recovery report with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. He also established the Western Arts Advocacy Network, directed significant grantmaking programs, and secured multi-million dollar investments for Creative West.
David serves as Co-Chair of the Creative States Coalition and faculty for Goucher College’s MA in Arts Administration program. He has held leadership and senior management roles at the Arts and Business Council of Greater Boston, VCU da Vinci Center, VCUarts, ART 180, Arts & Business, Nesta (an innovation foundation), BOP Consulting, and the National Campaign for the Arts. A Salzburg Global Fellow and Royal Society of Arts Fellow, he has advised organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts, United States Artists, the Inter-American Development Bank, and B3 Media. He holds degrees in economics and Asian studies from Amherst College and master’s degrees in international studies and art history from the University of London, SOAS.
3:25 – Donna Ray Norton
Donna Ray Norton, an eighth-generation ballad singer from the Sodom Laurel community of Madison County, NC, upholds her family’s deep Appalachian music heritage as the granddaughter of fiddler Byard Ray and banjoist Morris Norton. Inspired by a school project, she began performing and learning from luminaries like her mother Lena Jean Ray, cousin Sheila Kay Adams, and Bobby McMillon. Donna Ray has performed at renowned events like the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Berkeley Old Time Music Festival, earned the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Youth Award, and received the Key to the City of Hickory for her contributions to Appalachian heritage. She was featured in the Grammy-winning album Big Bend Killing, the documentary Madison County Project, and highlighted in the award-winning exhibit at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, I’ve Endured: Women in Old-Time Music. She co-hosts the monthly Ballad Swap at the Old Marshall Jail Hotel and was the main subject of an article in the Oxford American’s 2023 Ballads issue, titled “Orphan Girl,” showcasing her role as a modern torchbearer of Appalachian traditions.
4:10 – Keith Knight
Keith Knight is a critically acclaimed comics creator and cartoonist. He has received the Comic-Con Inkpot, a CXC Master Cartoonist Award, several Glyph Awards for best comic strip, a Harvey Award and has been nominated for an Eisner,, and an NAACP Image Award.
Knight is the creator of the long-running autobio comic strip, the K Chronicles. One of the most widely distributed alt-weekly comic strips since its launch in the early nineties. His socio-political single panel cartoon, (th)ink, has graced the pages of both Black newspapers/websites, and alt-weeklies. And he drew the daily syndicated strip, the Knight Life for over a decade until 2019.
In 2020, Knight’s life and comix were the inspiration for the comedy series, Woke, on Hulu. Knight served as co-creator, writer, and executive producer on the show. It ran for two seasons.
Knight is a graduate of Malden High School and Salem State University, where he received an honorary doctorate from the school in 2022.
4:30 – Larry & Joe
Larry & Joe were destined to make music together.
Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela and is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and oldtime musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds in the pandemic. Larry worked construction to make ends meet. Joe’s acclaimed “latingrass” band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum seeking migrants. Then Larry met Joe.
Currently based in the Triangle of North Carolina, both men are versatile multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters on a mission to show that music has no borders. As a duo they perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, maracas, guitar, upright bass, and whatever else they decide to throw in the van. The program they offer features a distinct blend of their musical inheritances and traditions as well as storytelling about the ways that music and social movements coalesce.