Samara Gaev, Founder & Artistic Director of Truthworker Theatre Company, is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, facilitator, theater director, & performer. Her work has taken her to Zimbabwe, Senegal, Hawaii, Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Germany, Scotland, & throughout the United States. With 18 years experience using performance as a tool for cross-cultural healing & social change, her work examines & challenges constructions of power, privilege, the prison industrial complex, & systems of oppression that not only excuse, but enable cycles of violence. Gaev is committed to reframing story through creative engagement that translates the most pressing issues of our time into stunning artistry, catalyzing her audiences to activate the transformation they wish to cultivate within themselves & their communities. Under her direction, Truthworker Theatre Co. has written, devised, & self-produced three original hip-hop theatre productions through the lens of a dozen youth directly impacted by mass-incarceration.