Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program
Mission Statement
The Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program explores innovative incorporation of the arts into our worship services and other programming. It presents the ERUUF community with the opportunity to push boundaries, learn, and co-create with talented artists in our area. As a congregation, we value the arts and collaborations with area artists across disciplines. The AIR Program builds relationships with local artists whose art and perspectives enrich and enlighten the ERUUF community and beyond. In order to further ERUUF’s Racial Equity and Inclusion goals, we highlight artists from historically underrepresented communities.
Background
The Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program was designed in 2023 by Rev. Jacqueline Brett and Music Director, Wendy Looker, who established the AIR Team - a committee of ERUUFians with experience in the arts. The first two years of the program were funded by grants from the Eno River Fellowship Foundation. The program continues today with funding from other sources, fundraisers, and your generous support. If you would like to contribute to the AIR Program, please click below!
Fall 2026 Artist-in-Residence Jasmine Powell
Jasmine Powell, a Creative Expressionist from Hillsborough, NC, pushes beyond traditional dance boundaries to evoke deep emotional connections. Powell’s international career is marked by performances that blend storytelling, embodiment, and the hidden stories within each dancer. She holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from Hollins University, completed in partnership with the American Dance Festival and Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts in Germany. She has performed with distinguished companies and choreographers such as Philadanco and D/2, Dance Diaspora, Dianne McIntyre, Milton Myers, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Bill T. Jones, Okwui Okpokwasili, Justin Tornow, Kristin Taylor Duncan, Culture Mill, Princess Johnson, Moving Spirits Inc., The Magic of African Rhythm, Suah African Dance Company, Chania Wilson, and Matthew Rushing.
2026-27 Choir-in-Residence WSSU Singing Rams
November 2026 and April 2027
ERUUF will welcome the Singing Rams and their director, Maestra D'Walla Simmons-Burke to our sanctuary on Sunday, November 15, when they will offer compelling music to enrich worship during the 11:00 AM service. Singers from WSSU will return in the spring to provide music for worship on April 4, 2027, following the congregation’s weeklong pilgrimage to Alabama.
The Choir-in-Residence is a strategic initiative that emerged as part of the ERUUF Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program. In alignment with ERUUF’s Racial Equity and Inclusion Theory of Change initiatives, the Choir-in-Residence works to further inspire us toward innovative use of the arts in co-creative worship.
Coming in Spring 2027… Photographer Cornell Watson
I’m from a small town in northeastern North Carolina called Weldon. My childhood was filled with memories of family. Whether it be summers with my grandparents, fishing with my dad, getting caught when my brother and I cracked our neighbors windshield with a rock, watching my mother and all of her siblings laugh as we gathered in houses that were too small for family holidays, and family expanding with step parents and new siblings – life. It wasn’t perfect but it was all mine. In my adulthood, I am building my own family. Building memories of vacations to faraway lands, laughs with friends over good food, and now long evenings of watching bubble guppies and coco melon while trying to edit photos and answer emails.
I started my photography journey asking my partner once a week if I could buy a nice camera prior to our first child being born. Eventually she said yes and the next day (thank you Amazon) a beautiful new camera was on our doorstep and it’s been unreal ever since. I’ve been able to document not only my own family, but my community. My photography has been published in publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, including my project about the Black experience titled, “Behind the Mask”. After working 8 years in HR/Talent Acquisition, I’m now living my best life as a dope-ass Black photographer.
Spring 2026 Artist-in-Residence, Jaki Shelton Green
Jaki Shelton Green, ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. She is a 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. Jaki Shelton Green teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and was appointed the 2021 Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence at UNC Chapel Hill. Additionally, she received the George School Outstanding Alumni Award in 2021. Her publications include: Dead on Arrival, Masks, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, breath of the song, published by Blair Publishers. Feeding the Light, i want to undie you published by Jacar Press, i want to undie you English /Italian bilingual edition published by Lebeg Publishers. On Juneteenth 2020, she released her first LP, poetry album, The River Speaks of Thirst, produced by Soul City Sounds and Clearly Records. Jaki Shelton Green is the owner of SistaWRITE providing writing retreats for women writers in Sedona Arizona, Martha’s Vineyard, Ocracoke North Carolina, Northern Morocco, and Tullamore Ireland.
Sunday May 3, 2026 Worship Service: Celebrating the Power of our Stories
Fall 2025 Artist-in-Residence, Shana Tucker
Cellist. Singer-Songwriter. Arts Advocate. Teaching Artist. Collaborator. Cultural Conduit. In each role, Shana Tucker's unique genre of ChamberSoul weaves jazz, roots, folk, acoustic pop, and a touch of R&B into melodies that echo in your head for days. A sought-after collaborator, Shana performs and records with legendary jazz saxophonist/composer Bennie Maupin, jazz flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell, Grammy-nominated NuSoul collective The Foreign Exchange (Obama's 2022 Summer Playlist song: "Better"), Will Downing, Rissi Palmer, Nnenna Freelon, and countless others. A front-line advocate for arts education, Shana is an accomplished teaching artist and arts administrator with over 20 years experience with community engagement, workshops, lesson planning and artist residency facilitation.
October 12, 2026 Worship Service: Breaking Open: Leading and Learning
2024-2025 Artist-in-Residence, Justin "Demeanor" Harrington
ERUUF’s Inaugural Artist-in-Residence, Justin “Demeanor” Harrington is a rapper and musician from Greensboro, North Carolina. A OneBeat Fellow Alum, Harrington has been featured on Americana Award Nominated album “Freedom Highway” and reached Billboard Bluegrasses Top 40 with his collaboration with Gangstagrass. He recently made his debut on NPR’s Tiny Desk series with Jake Blount. He coined the term “Rap is Folk” after merging his experience as a clawhammer banjo player and a hip hop artist, making the assertion that Hip Hop is a traditional American folk music form.
February 23, 2024 Worship Service: Blessings of Chaos and Change
