Yara Allen joins Center as Artist-In-Residence

Yara Allen, pictured at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, where she was the recipient of the “Lives of Commitment” award. Image courtesy of Repairers of the Breach.

The Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School is excited to welcome Yara Allen as an Artist-in-Residence.

A theomusicologist, singer, songwriter, poet, and musician, Allen is a native of Rocky Mount, NC, who serves as National Director of Theomusicology and Cultural Arts with Repairers of the Breach and Poor People’s Campaign.

As an artist-in-residence, Allen will teach students about movement music, creating and implementing music in moral fusion movements. Following in the footsteps of song leaders who came before her, she improvises within a broad tradition of movement music. Allen has led and taught music in churches, cathedrals, rallies, college classrooms, and at the Vatican. Ms. Allen engages audiences of singers and non-singers alike to create “Justice Jump-in Choirs” that infuse gatherings with the sounds of freedom. She has trained organizing committees in more than 35 states.

Together with Center Director, Bishop William J. Barber, II, Ms. Allen has launched a new podcast, “A Breach Repairers Song,” (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-breach-repairers-song/id1776657992) available Dec. 11, 2024.”