EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Michele Kumi (久美) Baer (she/they) is an arts leader and social justice practitioner with expertise in process design, facilitation, curation, education, organizational change, coaching, and dance. Her career has been focused on igniting, kindling, and sustaining people’s knowledge and capacity to practice equity and liberation in their lives.

A lifelong dancer, Michele’s sensibilities as a mover and choreographer shape how she leads, strategizes, and collaborates. She has been committed to deep study of dance traditions from West Africa (Mandé & Malinke), Brazil, and Haiti for over 16 years and has traveled to study with master culture bearers in Brazil and Mali.

Over the course of her career, Michele has designed and directed programming that has seeded new funding and cultural initiatives; fostered greater authenticity and trust among colleagues and collaborators; and advanced bold agendas to further social justice in the cultural and philanthropic fields. As a program director, grantmaker, and consultant, she has led convenings, research, strategic plans, funding, retreats, and capacity building programs. As a coach, she has supported artists and culture bearers in cultivating greater senses of agency and empowerment as they navigate their careers. Previous posts include bodies of work at Race Forward, The New York Community Trust, Columbia University, Dance/NYC, and the Global Fund for Women. Her client list includes a wide variety of cultural and philanthropic organizations, including California Arts Council, Center for Cultural Power, Creative West, Creatives Rebuild New York, Dance/USA, Leadership Fellows New York, Mellon Foundation, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Sundance Institute.

Active in the nonprofit and philanthropic fields, Michele regularly contributes to field-wide events, coalitions, and grants and fellowships panels. Her past panel service includes the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Dance Project, the California Creative Corps Artist Fellowship, and the Constellations Culture Change Fund. 



Born and raised on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Ohlone people—what people also currently refer to as the San Francisco Bay Area—Michele is a mixed race, East Asian, cisgender, and non-disabled woman. She is a proud Yonsei (fourth generation Japanese American) who has both Japanese and mixed European ancestry. It was learning about her family’s incarceration at Tule Lake, Topaz, and Poston during World War II that propelled Michele into critical inquiry at a young age.

Michele has a Bachelors from Brown University and a Masters from Columbia University.

People reading this may also enjoy knowing that Michele is a Capricorn Sun, Pisces Moon, and Aries Ascendant.