The Team
Kairos Alive! is an artist and teacher-led research-based performing arts and learning non-profit founded in 1999.
Elinor Genné
Executive Director
She/Her/Hers
Elinor Genné is an accomplished leader with a dynamic career spanning the arts, education, and strategic production. She brings extensive experience in corporate, government, and non-profit sectors to her current role, where she drives innovation, collaboration, and operational excellence.
Elinor’s commitment to the arts began in her youth as a performer in Young Dance, her mother’s young people’s dance company. Her early passion for creative expression was complemented by her engagement with Shakespearean theater, where she took on lead roles such as Juliet and Titania/Hippolyta. Her academic journey further enriched her artistic and cultural perspectives, including a semester at the University of Ghana studying dance.
In college, Elinor demonstrated early leadership as Chair of the Art Students Committee, managing grants, curating exhibitions, and producing a visiting artist lecture series. Her professional curatorial roles at The Textile Center and The Tychman Shapiro Gallery deepened her expertise in gallery management and community engagement.
Elinor’s commitment to social impact is exemplified by her tenure with the NYC Mayor’s Office, where she played a pivotal role in the Pre-K for All initiative under Mayor Bill de Blasio. Collaborating with families, community leaders, and policymakers, she helped advance equitable access to early childhood education. This dedication to equity is deeply rooted in her family’s history of civil rights advocacy.
In the private sector, Elinor has excelled as an integrated producer, creating compelling video and photographic content for major clients such as Target Corporation and spearheading immersive pop-up events.
Since 2003, Elinor has been a vital member of Kairos Dance. She initially performed with the intergenerational dance company at esteemed venues such as the Walker Art Center and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Her leadership within the organization has grown significantly, culminating in her appointment to oversee operations in 2021, following her success in producing the Clubhouse show.
Elinor’s multifaceted background and strategic vision position her as a transformative leader, dedicated to fostering creativity, equity, and organizational growth.
Parker Genné
Artistic Director
She/Her/Hers
Parker is a Mom, disabled artist, inclusive teacher, care partner and naturalist, whose first language is music and dance. Parker creates original music-theater-dance folk operas. She is an inclusive arts educator and performing artist who has worked with and presented internationally with Kairos Alive (KA) for the last 13 years. Her cabaret comedy work, Ms. Luisa Eats, inspired by her Italian ancestors, the Gennarelli’s who immigrated from Casalciprano, Italy, and the famous Italian opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini, is based in the vaudeville tradition. It garnered praise for her “mix of character comedy, well-executed opera, and spaghetti” (Broadway Baby-Edinburgh Fringe).
Genné’s work is inspired by personal and historical narratives on disability, motherhood/parenthood, and folktales. For Genné, folktales are a framework for our lives. Through this work and as founder of Folktopia, an intergenerational and all ability multidisciplinary band, Genné brings programming to settings in health, education, arts, social services, organic and biodynamic farming, community centers, parks and recreation, museums that includes people with disabilities, older adults, and caregivers.
A graduate of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Vocal Performance, and a lifelong dancer, she believes in using the natural world, healing systems, and narratives as starting points for creation. She has developed 22+ works, and has been presented by MacPhail Spotlight Series, Struther’s Parkinson Ctr and Edinburgh Fringe and created works in collaboration with American Swedish Institute’s programming for many years. She has received multiple Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Support for Individuals grants, and multiple grants from Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (Minnesota) in support of new folk operas Silver Hands and Pool Party with Folktopia band and Ms. Luisa Eats cabaret.
With KA she has engaged people at the VA Medical Center, including both people receiving care and professional caregivers and staff, Centro Tyrone Guzman, Minnesota Independence College and Community, Easterseals Florida, MN Orchestra, Winona Health, and 21 Roots Farm, Community Health workers, among others. Genné engages students of all ages and abilities in teaching and learning communities with KA and Folktopia, and lectures on her own research and pedagogy: Explorations in trauma-informed voice and movement learning for all ability classrooms. Her work is centered in service to community through art-making while engaging in radical welcome of all. Parker is grateful to her ancestors, especially her Mom, Maria Genné, Founder of Kairos Alive.
Vladimir Garrido-Biagetti
Music & Folk Dance Director
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Vladimir Garrido-Biagetti was born in South America in the city of Arica-Chile. He is a musician, folk dancer, community activist, director, producer, and sound engineer living in the Twin Cities since 2005. Folk music from the Andes Mountains and “La Nueva Canción Latino-Americana” influenced Vladimir’s first musical creations back in his homeland and still shapes the music he creates nowadays. Vladimir currently directs two latin senior choirs from Giving Voice in Minneapolis and St Paul, the local band Alma Andina, the mother and son duet Ina-Yukka, the Blue Condor Production Studio in St Paul, and the Music and Folk Dance Director at Kairos Alive!
Tom Johnson
Music Director & Inclusive Music Education Specialist
He/Him/His
Tom Johnson is an eclectic performer, composer/arranger/ and inclusive educator based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. His career as a recording artist includes co-founding the Johnson Family Band and D-Mills & the Thrills. Johnson has appeared as a guest musician on more than 25 albums.
As a composer/arranger, he has been commissioned by universities, secondary schools, and community bands/orchestras. As an inclusive educator he has taught at universities, all-ability community colleges, music schools, camps and music stores, as well as being a Teaching Artist and Co-Music Director for the non-profit organization Kairos Alive the last 11 years.
Tom has degrees in: Bachelor of Arts in Guitar Performance from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and Master of Arts in Music Pedagogy from the University of St. Thomas. For his thesis at St. Thomas he developed his own Classroom Guitar Method Book called, “Let’s Play.” Johnson teaches music to all ages and abilities, tailoring a new curriculum for every individual.
Cris Anderson
Teaching Artist/Communications
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Cris is a folk fiddler, poet and theater artist. He plays at local Scandinavian dances, and is
included on the American Swedish Institute Spelmanslag CD, Love is Hard to Hide. His poems and essays have been published regionally. He founded and directs the 30-year audience-as-artist participation theater for emotional and social healing, Minnesota Folktale Gardening Club. He has a background in television journalism and is a national award-winning documentary filmmaker: Visible Target, NYTimes: “Wondrously well done.” 2023 Dwight in Denmark now in festivals. He serves as a premarital counselor and wedding officiant.
The Kairos Company: Teaching & Performing Artists
Morgen Chang
She/Her/Hers
Morgen Chang has been a member of Twin Cities theatre since 2009. She enjoys storytelling and exploring new work, and has been an actor and collaborator with Jungle Theater, the Playwrights' Center, Interact Center for the Arts, and Folktopia. Morgen currently serves as Programs Manager for Theater Mu, where she delights in encouraging young artists and developing community-based creative experiences.
Kevin Washington
He/Him/His
Kevin’s talents as a drummer and composer have made him a favorite among musicians in New York and Minneapolis. He currently leads his own group Kevin Washington & RA Spirit, performs in a band with bassist Anthony Cox called Happy Spirits, as well as Mississippi Quartet, and the Nachito Herrera Trio, Viva Brazil and Hip-Hop group called Toki Wright and This Debris. Kevin has performed with Reggie Workman, Roscoe Mitchell, Rodney Whitaker, Bob Hurst, Antonio Hart, Chico Freeman, James Carter, Fred Wesly, Roy Brooks, Marcus Belgrave, David Murray Big Band, Fred Hopkins, Craig Taborn, James Newton to name a few.
After first moving to Minneapolis at the age of thirteen, Kevin went on to New York City in 1996 to study jazz at the New School for Social Research. During his stay in New York he taught rhythm section fundamentals at the Harlem School of the Arts. Kevin is a lead teacher and artist with WalkerIWest Music Academy in Saint Paul, MN.
Keith Yánes
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Having grown up in a musical family, bassist Keith Yanes has played music in one form or another his whole life. He earned a jazz performance degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth and has participated in various musical collaborations that include jazz, rock, theater, bluegrass, and more. He currently resides in the Twin Cities area and keeps busy as an educator and freelance musician in both live and studio settings.
Jamie Andress, Animkii
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Poet, magician, photographer, bicycle mechanic and 7th generation descendant of Chief Mackinac, Jamie Andress carries on the family tradition of storytelling and artistry. Born and raised on Mackinac Island, his Anishinaabe name is Animkii, “The Thunderer”. Andress is inspired by the beauty of nature, the positive energy that comes with being surrounded by island artists, and the power of Spoken Word to turn pain into healing.
Jamie has performed his Spoken Word poems before audiences at numerous island venues, including winning “Mackinac’s Got Talent” multiple times since 2021, in Mt. Pleasant's Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College and in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the American Swedish Institute as part of the annual fundraiser “Poets, Writers and Musicians Against the War on the Earth.” He was recently named the first Poet Laureate of Mackinac County.
His close-up magic has amazed audiences on and off the Island for a decade at venues such as Grand Hotel, Mission Point Resort, Pink Pony, Island House Hotel, Grand Traverse Resort, Ferris State University and for many family events.
By embracing the beauty and everyday challenges of life, Jamie uses his creativity to spark curiosity, appreciation and astonishment within others to inspire them to embrace their unique potential.
Kathryn Gonzalez
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Transformational Coach & Facilitator | Serving empathic, self-actualizing women claim their voice, power, and purpose—by turning their sensitivity into strength, their care into confidence, and their truth into action.
Grace Ouyang
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A dual board certified and a Fellow of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons and a Diplomate of the American Board of Podiatric Surgery. My approach is to listen to each patient then determine a plan of action for healing and elimination of foot pain while keeping their overall health and well-being in mind.
Gary Oftedahl
He/Him/His
A retired physician continues to pursue unique approaches to healing through work with the Care Collaboratory. Serves as Board chair for Kairos Alive, committed to supporting their intergenerational work in using music/movement/dance to bring communities together.