Our Team | Crossing Point Arts

Leadership & Team

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Anne H. Pollack

Founder & Executive Director

Anne H. Pollack is a musician, visual artist, writer, student of dance and an activist. Her sensibilities - and her awareness of the world around her - birthed Crossing Point Arts, by engaging the profound healing and humanity of the arts and offering them to a population that is hidden in plain view: survivors of human trafficking.In the midst of NYC’s brilliance in every arena of the arts, Pollack saw an untapped connection between those who hunger for the nourishment of the creative experience and those who hunger to share it.

Having researched for decades USAs history of enslaving Africans (& their descendants) Pollack recognized that culture and creative outpouring are strikingly strong medicine for the wounds of slavery. Despite this fact, NYC area artists had formed no direct connection to survivors of trafficking. Determined to call upon this innately human instinct, that is perhaps as old as slavery itself, Anne found the means to mend a broken link by 'Bringing the Arts to Survivors of Human Trafficking.'

As a musician, Pollack has received numerous grants from National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, in the areas of composition, recording, study and performance. Trained as a flutist and cellist, Pollack has released two CD's - Worlds Collide (1999) and Diaspora Pulse (2005) - as multi-instrumentalist, arranger, producer and composer. She has been at the head of her own ensembles, performing internationally since 1980. Her musical arenas reach all the way from Roots Music of the African Diaspora, to Jazz, to Near Eastern Music, to Afro-Brazilian Shamanic Music, to Classical Music. www.AnnePollackProductions.com

Her lengthy experience as a small business owner has given Anne the skills to manage her resources creatively and with great success. As a Restorer, Dealer and Technician of Fine and Vintage Flutes, she has spent more than 40 years refining her talents. www.YourFluteWorks.com A tireless advocate for those whose voices are silenced, or remain unheard, Anne is ever working to devise strategies to use available resources to bring about positive change. Her vast background in volunteer and humanitarian work have called upon her strong back, her skills as a writer, her powers of communication and her work as a Teaching Artist, in both music and visual arts.

Renk Kocturk

Movement/Yoga Therapist

Communications Lead

Renk Kocturk is a Movement/Yoga therapist, Herbalist and Trauma-Informed Educator. Joining the Crossing Point Arts Team in 2020 Renk supports as a Teaching Artist, as well as our Communications Lead. Renk has spent most of her life between NYC & Istanbul. After graduating with her degree in Psychology and Dance, she continued her studies with Dance Therapy pioneer Elissa White, focusing on bringing movement & yoga to vulnerable communities. She currently trains Teaching Artists, Nonprofit staff members, and teachers in the New York Public School system to bring trauma informed awareness into every classroom/workshop space. While simultaneously working at multiple Rehabilitation Centers, Women’s Shelters, Human Trafficking Agencies, and LGBTQ shelters. She has worked for the past 6 years with different nonprofits around the world, bringing movement medicine to refugees, domestic & sexual violence survivors, and human trafficking survivors. In 2017 she facilitated multiple training’s around trauma informed mindfulness, yoga, and movement to Syrian educators at the Syrian Border. Renk approaches each healing modality through a trauma-informed lens.

As Communications Lead with Crossing Point Arts she serves as the backbone of all things related to outreach. Producing high-quality content that engages our Crossing Point Arts audience and builds awareness on Human Trafficking. Wearing many hats, Renk's work includes Mailchimp campaigns, Grant Research, Fundraiser support, New Partner Outreach emails, and Training Teaching Artists in Trauma Informed Facilitation.

María “Mara” Rivera

Licensed Creative Arts Therapist

LCAT Supervisor

María “Mara” Rivera, BC-DMT, LCAT, was born and raised in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. She is a dance/movement psychotherapist, somatic healer, educator, Ra-Sekhi practitioner (Kemetic Reiki-Level II), Spiritual Life Coach, and mover currently residing in the Bronx, New York. Mara has acquired vast experience servicing adults of diverse backgrounds in the New York area and the Caribbean. Mara has traveled to Cuba, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Haiti to research African based traditional dances and spiritual practices, which have highly contributed to the integration of an Afro-Centric values, Afro-Caribbean dance aesthetics, and foundational spiritual/healing principles into her psychotherapeutic, coaching, and somatic wellness practices. She was awarded “Excellence in Education Award 2021” from the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) and she currently is a core member of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Taskforce of the ADTA.

Maria ‘Mara’ Rivera, MA, MS, LCAT, BC-DMT; Somatic Wellness Practitioner;Dance/Movement Psychotherapist; Ra Sekhi/Kemetic Energy Medicine Practitioner; Spiritual Life Coach
Founder & Director: Maraka Healing www.marakahealing.com

Katie Ng Ross

Website Designer

Katie Ng Ross (she/her) is a website designer who initially joined Crossing Point Arts as an intern in the summer of 2019. While Katie is a native New Yorker, she currently resides in Washington DC. She is a recent graduate of American University with a BA in Political Science and History. Katie has a life-long interest in advocacy and hopes to dedicate her career to serving underrepresented communities.

As a website designer, Katie manages all things related to crossingpointarts.org. Katie loves to take ideas and turn them into beautiful pages that can inform and serve others. She is proud to have been able to grow alongside the website over these past few years and looks forward to collaborating in the evolution of the site in the future!