STAFF & BOARD
Contact Info:
GENERAL INFO: INFO@BAYAREAGIRLSROCKCAMP.ORG
PROGRAMS STAFF:
ELLIE@BAYAREAGIRLSROCKCAMP.ORG
GRACE@BAYAREAGIRLSROCKCAMP.ORG
OPERATIONS MANAGER:
OLIVIA@BAYAREAGIRLSROCKCAMP.ORG
GRANTS MANAGER:
EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS:
Mailing Address:
BAY AREA GIRLS ROCK CAMP
PO Box 72213
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone Numbers:
Office Number: 510-267-1808
Staff
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Grace Iyer: Program & Site Coordinator
Grace has been involved with BAGRC since 2009, when they were 11 years old. They attended camp as a camper for several years, participated in the Peer Mentor program when they were in high school, volunteered after they turned 18, and served on the Board of Directors for 2 years before they joined staff. They grew up in Oakland and have lived here for most of their life. BAGRC has consistently been a source of support, liberation, and transformation for them and they are dedicated to empowering new generations of youth the way BAGRC empowered them.
Laya Wig: Program & Outreach Coordinator
Leads program development and management; community outreach and marketing; recruiting youth; and program evaluation. LAYA WIG is a self-taught music producer, Spanish speaker, and multi-instrumentalist who has studied folk music across the Americas. The California born artist moved to the bay area at the age of 18 to attend UC Berkeley, where they graduated with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and an affinity for language study and travel. After traveling through Mexico, learning Spanish through music, being a street musician in multiple countries, and participating in bands based in Oakland and abroad, Laya began the journey of creating a personal sonic signature that has thus far been expressed through a live performance known as BOMBSNAX; a musical project that promotes black femme liberation, diy skill acquisition, and empowerment through community learning. Through this journey of self-teaching and youth mentorship Laya seeks to establish a production style informed by the Black diaspora as well as facilitate music production workshops for Black, queer, trans, and non-binary creators.
el lee : Grants Manager
el has been involved with BAGRC since 2020, and leads fundraising, financial development, and grant-writing. She holds two BA's from UC Berkeley, and has been working in youth empowerment since 2013. Since starting her career she has been a part of admin work for community-based initiatives serving youth and families facing discrimination due to their race or gender. She is passionate about undoing the obstacles caused by capitalism/white supremacy to abundantly resourcing embedded care within our communities. She grew up in the San Fernando Valley as a gay daughter of migrants from Hong Kong, moved out at 18 and has been living in Oakland ever since!
Olivia Gonzalez: Operations Manager
Olivia has been involved with BAGRC as a volunteer since 2012. Originally from Southern California, she has called Oakland home for the past decade. Olivia has worked with youth in various capacities for the last 15 years and strongly believes in the positive influence and transformative power of music & arts for kids of all ages. Outside of work, Olivia can be found performing on stages under myriad alter-egos and practicing magic of all kinds.
Board of Directors
Join our board! We are now looking to recruit more board members! Interested? Send an email to info@bayareagirlsrockcamp.org to learn more.
Allie Bach - President
Despite growing up around musicians and playing shows as an angsty teen in LA, Allie never quite found her place in music until she was welcomed as a vocals instructor and band coach at BAGRC in 2016. She was so excited to find a youth empowerment project that 1) empowered her, and 2) combined music and justice as its focus. She has been a rock camp regular ever since! Professionally she has worked as a longtime babysitter, preschool teacher, nanny organizer, music teacher, guitar instructor, and audio engineer/educator for gender diverse middle and high schoolers. Allie is particularly interested in utilizing art, music, science and technology as a tool of liberation. She is thrilled to increase her capacity to support, work with, and learn from young people as board president.
Sharmi Bass - Secretary
Sharmi Basu (they/them) is a multimedia performance artist, curator, composer, and arts organizer born and based in the unceded territories of Chochenyo Ohlone peoples (Oakland, CA). They create expansive textural sound and performance pieces that address transformative justice and diasporic futures by creating new narratives of decolonial thinking. Sharmi’s performance project, Beast Nest, shows us that abstract experiences of trauma can be transformed through art and sound. Sharmi received their MFA from Mills College and hosts a number of workshops internationally that center on sound, somatics, decolonization, and conflict & accountability. They have performed for SFMOMA, YBCA, SFEMF, Ableton Loop, and have exhibited at Coaxial, Southern Exposure, SOMArts, Counterpulse, Gray Area, and Ars Electronica. Sharmi is on the board of Safer DIY Spaces, Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, Soundwave SF, and California FM. They co-founded the first-ever Bay Area Black and Brown Punk Festival, and work to create empowering creative spaces for disabled QTBIPOC artists.
Kendal Blum
Committed facilitator of rhythmania and famous for crying with pride in front of the peer mentors, Kendal started volunteering with BAGRC in 2015 and has been a convert to the Rock Camp path ever since. Currently a nursing student at USF, when not teaching, playing drums, or studying Kendal spends her free time facilitating meetings and taking naps under oak trees.
Hallie Chen
Born and raised in the Bay Area, Hallie attended UC Berkeley where she began examining the relationship between human beings and the environment through the study of sustainable agriculture, urban planning, critical urban theory and the visual arts. This line of inquiry led her to public space design projects in Kibera, Kenya and rebuilding abandoned houses into cultural spaces on Chicago's south side while getting her Masters in Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She spent 2 years teaching Design and Building to east bay middle school students with Project H Design. Now a licensed architect, Hallie spends her free time doing BAGRC related activities, drawing, cooking, pizza eating, surfing when possible, and volunteering with floss editions. She can play classical piano and harp but hopes to do women's rock camp and start a band one day.
D Hirokane Payton
Born & raised in the Bay Area and currently settled on Muwekma Ohlone Land, D Hirokane Payton (they/them) holds great gratitude for their roles as mentor, Reiki practitioner, healer, artist, community worker/organizer, and abolitionist. As a community raised and focused person, D believes in the power of working collaboratively to build systems and solutions which are lacking in many of our communities. With 7 years of direct service experience guiding lower income students in a wide range of after school programming, D aims to center the wisdom and voices of the staff at Rock Camp who offer their dedicated time and care to make BAGRC the inspiring, creative place it is. D is honored to offer their healing services through their business UNIVERSAL BRIDGE and to support grassroots healing programs like Freedom Community Clinic and many other unnamed on-the-ground projects.
Arianna Cruz-Sellu
Arianna is an equity strategist and youth advocate. Born in San Francisco, raised in Alameda, CA and Portland, OR, Arianna has been living in Oakland since 2012. Arianna grew up attending Portland Rock Camp and learned first hand the power of radical music education with a gender equity lens. Arianna worked as the Outreach Coordinator for Bay Area Girls Rock Camp for 3 years. Currently Arianna works as the Cultural Diversity Specialist at Golden Gate Regional Center, addressing the disparities experienced by folks with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities in the Bay Area.
Elena Bouton
Since pandemic started many areas of need- investing in arts education and investing in young people is one of the most important things we can do without access to tools that help young people expand their imaginations and capabilities and new ways of living and being - I don't feel that we can create the world that we need together. Investing in supporting young people which builds self esteem and explore identities helps them become better community members and more aware of the needs of the world and how their own unique gifts can help benefit and create the susatainable future for all of us. Because arts education and arts in general is such a patriarchal space where girls and gender nonconforming youth is a space for that. No other organization creates that space.
Vivienne Alcantar
Vivienne (she/her) is a musician, storyteller, arts educator, and organizer based out of San Francisco, California. Knowing that art can be a catalyst for change and both a healing and empowering practice, she has been actively working to increase access to arts education for underserved communities. As a current educator, she spends her mornings as a Teaching Artist with the San Francisco Opera and her afternoons as the Audio & Music Production Instructor with the Media Education team at YR Media in Oakland, CA. Vivienne has also worked in various different capacities within music, sound, and education with Primary Wave Music, Pollen Music Group, Color of Music Collective, and more. She also has an extensive background in behavioral health and social services, most recently supporting the voices of transitional age youth (TAY) within the San Francisco Department of Public Health as the TAY Advisory Board Coordinator. Vivienne is incredibly excited to now be on the Board for BAGRC, as she has been a long time supporter of the work they do to empower girls, women, and gender expansive youth and adults, and is hopeful to bring her experience and passion for music and justice to support the BAGRC community.
Kū'i'olani Cotchay
Emily Bouton