Teaching Artist Residency Programs:
During folk arts residencies, teaching artists interact with students over the course of multiple sessions, and focus on a particular area to help familiarize students with the subject matter. The folk artist residency program at FACTS exposes our students to diverse artforms and methods of creative expression. Folk Arts Education helps students better understand multiple points of view in their communities and schools, and placing artists in the classroom allows students to engage in lessons and conversations about cultures and traditions different from their own, while simultaneously encouraging students to reflect on their own lives.
Folk Arts Education residencies are both learner-centered and community-centered. The residencies complement what is being taught in the classrooms during subject-based curriculum, as folk arts can connect easily to many subject areas. Folk artist residencies allow students to explore multiple elements of folk arts such as: the artist, the artform, community, and the piece of art created.
Examples of residencies at FACTS: Tibetan Sand Mandala, African American Storytelling, Qigong, West African Dance, Lion Dance, Hip Hop, African Diaspora Drumming, Kung Fu, Dan Tranh, Chinese Shadow Puppet Theater, Day of the Dead Visual Arts, Liberian Storytelling, Mexican Puppetry, and Spoken Word
Ensemble Program Overview:
FACTS’s Ensemble Program provides students with the opportunity to work with the same master artist, one day a week for a full school year. This optional program encourages fifth through eighth grade students to select one ensemble artform offered that year. As space is limited, students are then entered into a lottery system for the program of their choosing. Students who already have experience in a particular ensemble are given priority for another year of enrollment.
Ensembles embody the concept of professional learning communities, meaning everybody in the community is both there voluntarily for the purpose of learning about something of common interest, and has–or potentially has– skills and knowledge that he/she can teach others in the community. In some traditional ensemble forms, it is typical to have inexperienced players working alongside advanced players. Our Ensemble Program model provides students at diverse proficiency levels the opportunity to perform together. It encourages our students to participate in something larger than themselves and to contribute to the success of a collective effort.
We want to encourage our students to try something new, to be life-long learners and social/civic actors. Through the Ensemble Program, we hope to establish in our students a foundation and appetite for arts and culture activities they can pursue into and throughout their adult years.
Meet Our Artists:
Teacher John Testino
Teacher Senfu’ab Stoney
Affectionately known as Senfu or “the prince of percussion, this Grammy nominated 2021 Bessie award winner was recognized for his participation in most outstanding music composition/sound design for the internet favorite production “Chasing Magic”. He has performed on countless TV/films productions, including Regis and Kelly, The Steve Harvey show, The view, & The Grammy Awards, The VH1 Hip Hop Honor Awards, Model City, and on MTV’s Making the Band 4, just to name a few. His work colleagues include names like Leslie Odom jr (Hamilton Tony award winner, One Night in Miami), who he currently tours with, Tony award winning composer Jason Michael Webb (Choir Boy, The Color Purple, Michael Jackson on Broadway and more). Senfuab also tours frequently with Cynthia Erivo (Wicked,The Color Purple Tony award winner, Harriet), Renee Ellis Goldsberry, Diddy, Wycleff, Lauryn Hill, Shakira, Alicia Keys, Mos Def, KRS 1, Erykah Badu, The Roots, among many others. Senfu`ab has played on broadway in A Free Man of Color (directed by George C. Wolfe, starring Jeffery Wright and Mos Def), and Off Broadway in Witness Uganda and RIO as the featured percussionist in all 3 productions. He created drumming arrangements for groups such as Indoda Ensha, Forces of Nature, Ile Aiye, Silvana Magda at S.O.B.’s, Heritage, Asasseya, Carlinhos Brown, and Timbalada. Senfu has also taught and performed with Alvin Ailey dance theater and a variety of public, charter and private school programs. Having toured and entertained audiences in Amsterdam, Brazil, Italy, London, Mexico and West Africa, he is one of the most sought after percussionists in his field. Last but not least Senfu also holds a summer drum intensive for young boys that has been taking place for ten years.
Teacher Nhan Ngo
Ngô Thanh Nhàn, Ph.D. Linguistics, retired, is a research scholar of the Linguistic String Project at the New York University and a fellow of Nôm Studies and Folk Music Studies at the Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society at Temple University. He is currently a board member of The Institute for Vietnamese Culture and Education, and Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign. He has been teaching Vietnamese Đàn Tranh Ensemble at Folk Arts – Cultural Treasure Charter School in Philadelphia since 2012, and Đàn Tranh Folk Music at Mekong NYC since 2011. He is a core member of VietLeft Power since 2021. He is a vice president of Manhattan Academy of Music and Language, Inc. since January 2024.
Teacher Kenny Martin
Kenneth Martin is a Philadelphia native who began his artistic journey at The Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. He later began to train in dance at Eleone Dance Unlimited under the direction of Shawn Lamere Williams. Kenneth danced with, choreographed for and directed various companies within the Eleone franchise from 2012-2026. He’s danced for many artists from Yolanda Adams to Bobby Shmurda just to name a few. He choreographed for The Kimmel Center’s, “Soulful Christmas”, The Dunkin Thanksgiving Day Parade, Philadelphia’s WaWa Fest, and the Michelle Obama’s, “Move Your Body” campaign amongst other things. He is currently the rehearsal and Co-director of the Alex J Dream Center and continues to set works on various companies throughout the Tri-State area.
Teacher Hua Hua Zhang
Hua Hua Zhang graduated from The Beijing Academy of Performing Arts and received many awards for performing arts in China. She received a MFA degree in Puppet Art from the School of Fine Arts Department of Dramatic Arts at the University of Connecticut in 2000. She is the Founder, the President and Artistic Director of Visual Expressions.
Hua Hua’s vision of puppetry is without boundary or limits. Drawing from her Asian cultural heritage and training in both Eastern and Western, she has written, directed, and performed over a dozen original contemporary puppet shows, collaborating with internationally renowned musicians and dancers to achieve unique creations ranging from fully staged theatrical productions to gallery style art installations.
Hua Hua wants to share Chinese culture and Puppet theater with the student in the schools. Her mission is to broaden the student perspectives, and open their heart, by sharing, appreciating understanding and embracing the many differences, and mostly the similarities, among Eastern and Western cultures so that we can all find each other in peace.
Teacher Losang Samten
The Venerable Lama Losang Samten, is a renowned Tibetan scholar and teacher. With his family and at the age of 6, he fled from Tibet to India in 1959 due to the Chinese occupation of his country. At the age of 12, he chose to become a monk and later joined the Namgyal Monastery in India, the personal monastery of the 14th Dalai Lama, where he earned a Master’s Degree in Buddhist Philosophy, Sutra, Tantra, and art which is equivalent to a PhD. Samten served as the personal attendant to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. In 1988, Samten came to the US as instructed by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and the Namgyal Monastery to demonstrate the meditative art of sand painting. This was the first time a Tibetan mandala was shown in the west for the general public. Since then, he has created sand mandalas in numerous museums, universities, colleges, and schools. Samten was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002. In 2004, he was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. For over 16 years, Samten has been a resident artist at the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School in Philadelphia. Samten is the founder of the Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia
Teacher Gbahtuo Comgbaye
Born and raised in Liberia, one of the smallest countries in west Africa, Gbahtuo as a child saw himself drawn to the art of storytelling. As the only means of education and entertainment in his village, his parents, like everyone in the village, were attracted to it. At first, going to the village square to listen to storytelling every night, to me, replaces “babysitting” since parents must take their children along for fear of being left alone in the home. Later, he begin to not only enjoy the art, but to practice it also. He and his entourage would cross over from Ivory Coast every dry season for this occasion in my clan. As time went by, he began to learn why fables was the main choice of entertainment and education in his village. Chieftaincy was an inheritance. No one questions a chief whether he does wrong or right. Since it is safe to say that dictatorship begins in the village, it’s also safe to say that fable is then the corrective measure. Ever since he got on the professional stage, he has loved this.
Teachers Irma Gardner-Hammond and Carla Wiley
Mama Carla Wiley learned storytelling, quilting and arts as a four-year-old sitting under her great-grandmother and grandmother’s quilt frame. A product of a Geechee family who worked in the North Carolinian fabric mills and raised their own produce, Mama Carla learned to respect and preserve the traditions she learned. Among her many titles, Mama Carla is a fiber artist/quilt instructor/historian, literacy advocate, educator, writer, storyteller/oral historian, and female rites of passage facilitator. Mama Carla is co-founder of the cultural arts group – Progeny’s Legacy Jamaa. Her group designs and facilitates workshops about the history of culinary arts, such as the role of tea, bread and herbs; fiber arts, including needle work, clothes designed; and oral traditions, stories and music in African and African American history. Working with institutions as diverse as Aetna, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Civil War Museum, The African American Museum and The Free Library of Philadelphia, Carla has created programs that use stories to bridge the gap between cultures and peoples.
Teacher Audrey Davis-Dunning
Audrey Davis-Dunning is an accomplished African dance artist, educator, and speaker with over 25 years of experience bringing the history, energy, and cultural richness of West African dance to students and communities. As a Teaching Artist with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), Middlesex County, and Passaic County Community College Cultural Affairs, she designs and leads dynamic school residencies that blend movement, live rhythm, storytelling, and cultural context to foster creativity, confidence, and global awareness in young learners. Audrey has performed at respected venues including the George Street Playhouse and the PNC Arts Center, and she previously served as Artistic Director of the Iwa Lewa Heritage Dance Ensemble. She holds a Master’s degree in African American Studies from Cornell University and is the author of KUCHEZA! The Basics, Beauty & Power of African Dance. Through her teaching and performances, Audrey is committed to helping students experience the joy of movement while building meaningful connections to culture and community.
Teacher Victor Marshall
As the founder and director of Marshall Hand & Drum Ensemble, a multi-percussion instrumental group, MHD brings the musical African Diaspora drumming aspects to life. Victor Marshall’s introduction to West African percussion began at the age of sixteen. He studied West African drumming and culture under Steven Lloyd in Long Island, New York. Marshall also played drums and percussion in local groups throughout high school. As a performer, teacher and lecturer Marshall enjoys participating in many unique creative cultural experiences such as the Murray Grove Retreat Center’s Drum and Dance Retreat, sponsored by the Unitarian/Universalist Church. In addition to his solo career as a percussionist, Victor is the musical director of Iwa L’ewa Heritage Dance Ensemble. Iwa L’ewa is a New Jersey based group that explores dance, music and the story of Africa and the Caribbean.
