Siobhan Juanita Brown (Keesuty8ee Elm)

Siobhan Juanita Brown (Keesuty8ee Elm) is from Roxbury, MA and is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. She lives on her ancestral homelands on the southern coast of Cape Cod. She holds a BFA in Performing Arts and African American studies from Emerson College and is a graduate of the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.  Siobhan received certification in the Montessori pedagogy for Primary (ages 3- 6) from the Institute for Guided Studies with Teresa Noble.  She is an Artist Educator committed to nurturing children in a good way; one that inspires life experiences for the next seven generations.

Siobhan is the Co – Indigenous Solidarity & Sovereignty Officer for the board of Montessori for Social Justice. She is also Co – Chair of the Representation, Equity and Diversity team for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Region 1 representing the northeast.

As a theatre artist she has worked with American Repertory Theater, the Cleveland Play House, the Acting Company, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, and the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company.     She has worked extensively in arts education as the former Associate Director of Education at Citi Performing Arts Center and Director of School & Teacher Programs at Actors’ Shakespeare Project in Boston, MA.  As a playwright she devised an original piece, A Piece of Silver, based on recorded conversations with her maternal and paternal grandmothers who are Mashpee Wampanoag and African American, respectively. She has worked with the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project as a student of the language since 2005.  From 2013 to 2021 Siobhan was a language apprentice and member of the founding teaching team of Weetumuw Katnuhtôhtâkamuq, the first Wôpanâak language and culture immersion school providing academic and Indigenous education using a Montessori pedagogy for decolonization and language reclamation.