Our Team
VIBRAPHONIST, COMPOSER, PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Chris Dingman
Known for his distinctive approach to a unique and beautiful instrument. Chris has worked with legendary artists Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, and many of today’s jazz, creative, and world music luminaries.
Working in NYC since 2002, Chris’s trajectory was forever changed when, in 2018, he improvised and recorded music as an act of care for his father in his final months of life. This music became the 5-hour extended album Peace. Since then, Chris has brought his special brand of healing music far and wide, from live sessions at Omega Institute and The Rubin Museum of Art, to talks for the Gold Foundation and the American College of Physicians, and since 2022 to the online series Transformations.
Chris has been profiled by NPR, the New York Times, AMNY, and many other publications, and has received fellowships and grants from Chamber Music America, New Music USA, South Arts, and the Thelonious Monk Institute.
CREATIVE WRITING SPECIALIST, PASTOR,
FOUNDER OF CONNECT.FAITH
Debbie Bronkema
Rev. Dr. Debra J.K. Bronkema began her role as Director of New Worshiping Initiatives with Hudson River Presbytery in 2023. She is also the Executive Director and leader of connect.faith Inc., a new worshiping community that began in 2018 as an online ministry, where creativity, spirituality and justice meet.
Debbie earned her D.Min from Columbia Theological Seminary in 2011, with an emphasis in Creative Writing as a Spiritual Practice, and leads programs and retreats on this topic throughout the country.
In 2018 Debbie published her first novel, Finding Manna, the story of a young woman searching for the life that is hers to live. Her book, Midweek Meditations is a collection of devotions, published in December of 2020. In September 2022, Debbie published Writing toward wholeness: exploring creativity and spirituality, with Cyclical Publishing.
HOLISTIC PSYCHOTHERAPIST
Dina Percia
Dina holds a Masters of Arts in Holistic Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Somatic Psychology. As a psychotherapist, she has worked with adults, adolescents, and children in community mental health agencies in Oakland, CA and New York, NY focusing on complex and developmental trauma.
Having trained as a palliative care doula at Mount Sinai Hospital, an end-of-life doula with Peaceful Presence Project, and an abortion doula with Bay Area Doula Project, she is called to support those traversing expanded and liminal states of consciousness; the bardos of life and death.
Marlynne (MJ) Blackwell
PROGRAM ASSISTANT
GLASS ARTIST
POET
Jane Wong
PROGRAM ADVISOR
LICENSED CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER