El La Katrina is a Bgirl, Master of Ceremony, poet and visual artist/filmmaker. She combines experience/skills as an artist, activist and academic to create work that builds capacities and is healing for her communities. At UW-Madison, El La Katrina served as the Arts-In-Education Director for the first Hip Hop Scholarship program in the country called First Wave through the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI) and Co-Directed Breakin’ the Law: International Festival of Urban Movement (BTL).
El La Katrina co-founded GIRL ILLA Tactics in 2013 as a way to amp up leadership within the Bgirl Community and to bring awareness of the scene to outside support in a good way. Through her work, she’s performed and taught in many places and partnered with communities/organizations using Hip Hop Culture to transform their lives in the Philippines, China, Cambodia, Bulgaria, South Africa and throughout Central American and the US. She is part of Goddistas Crew and is currently the COO for The Firehouse Community Arts Center in Chicago working to interrupt violence through the arts.