MS. BARAKA SELE is currently the Assistant Vice President of Programming at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) and Curator/Producer of NJPAC’s Alternate Routes series. The series features year-round performances by artists of New Jersey, the United States and from around the world, complemented by educational, humanities and residency programs. Baraka Sele is also the Founder of NJPAC’s Alternate Routes Hip Hop Festival (formerly Planet Hip Hop), which celebrated its ten-year anniversary in April 2011. During its ten-year history, the festival has hosted a wide range of artists, curators, entrepreneurs, film makers, panel speakers, producers, and scholars—Afrika Bambaataa, April Silver, Ariel Fernandez (Cuba), Black 45, Byron Hurt, Chuck D, Danny Hoch, Danny Simmons, Dead Prez, Doug E. Fresh, Ernie Paniccoli, Godessa (South Africa), Jerry Gant, jessica care moore, Jonzi D (England), Kevin Powell, DJ Kuttin Kandi, Mutabaruka (Jamaica), Positive Black Soul (Senegal), Purple Haze, Ras Baraka, Rennie Harris Pure Movement; Rha Goddess, DJ Rich Medina, DJ Rob Swift, Sekou Sundiata, Taalam Acey, Toni Blackman, Will Power, and so many others. The Alternate Routes Hip Hop Festival is not only a platform for exciting and gifted artists who transform art, culture, communities, and the world—the biennial festival also serves as a forum for activism, education, and cultural exchange. While Hip Hop artists are still rappin’ and beatboxin’ and breakin’, they are also authors, educators, cultural critics, institution builders, politicians and social entrepreneurs. Besides working as a performing arts curator, consultant, programmer, and producer, Ms. Sele has served on numerous local, national and international advisory committees, boards and panels, including the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, International Society of the Performing Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, Walker Art Center’s Global Advisory Committee, the Kennedy Center’s African Odyssey Festival, et al. Ms. Sele has traveled throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, as well as North and South America. She has been a guest speaker at numerous conferences, seminars and universities. Throughout a more than twenty-five year career of working in the arts, Ms. Sele has focused on collaborations and presentations with artists of diverse cultures in order to build enduring partnerships and to facilitate cultural exchange. www.njpachiphop.org