ALTERNATIVA, directed by dancer Kathleen Hermesdorf with musician Albert Mathias, is an apparatus for deeply integrated contemporary dance and music. Active in San Francisco since 2000, the organization supports the creative work of the directors alongside programming which includes an annual January FRESH Festival, classes and workshops in the Bay Area, and residencies and commissions at universities, festivals and studios worldwide. ALTERNATIVA is fiscally sponsored by Dancers’ Group and has received support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, William + Flora Hewlett Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Dancers’ Group’s Matching Grant and CA$H Grant, CHIME/MJDC, the San Francisco Arts Commission and The Suitcase Fund.

KATHLEEN HERMESDORF is an international dance artist, educator and producer based in San Francisco. She is the director ALTERNATIVA, with musician Albert Mathias, and teaches, creates and performs around the world. She was a member of Bebe Miller Company, Contraband and Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, and co-directed Hermesdorf & Wells Dance Company with Scott Wells. She is the co-director of PORCH Training Program, with Stephanie Maher, at Ponderosa in Stolzenhagen, Germany, and WILD [West Cork Contemporary Dance Festival] in Ballydehob, Ireland, with Tara Brandel. Hermesdorf brings over 20 years of experience from the field, studio and stage to her work and holds a BFA and an MFA in Dance Performance + Pedagogy.

ALBERT MATHIAS is a multi-disciplinary musician based in San Francisco since 1991. He creates and performs composition and sound design for dance, theater, film, video and audio mediums, and is the music director of ALTERNATIVA, with dancer Kathleen Hermesdorf. He was a member of Bebe Miller Company and Contraband. Mathias has produced 15 records of original music and collaborated in numerous bands, most notably LiveHuman, an internationally acclaimed improvisation-based trio with DJ Quest and bassist Andrew Kushin. Mathias attended California Institute of the Arts and Ali Akbar College. His eclectic sounds can be found on I-Tunes, Bandcamp and CD Baby.

Malia Byrne is a movement artist, choreographer, and performer. She centers her artmaking practice around reclaiming her body, researching her ancestral lineage, and deepening connections with friends. She is an artist facilitator for the Tenderloin-based community art company, Skywatchers, and has most recently been in process with Kim Ip/Krimm’s Dance Party, Cookie Harrist, and randy reyes. She recently made a piece about tube tops in collaboration with Melissa Lewis, and is currently exploring integrating elements of standup comedy, acoustic covers of pop songs, and glitter to all of her work.

Melissa Lewis is a Chinese American artist working with mixed identities and mediums. She thinks often of decolonization, mother tongues, tube tops, Bruce Lee, drag and queerness. She comes from a background of traditional Chinese folk arts and Western modern dance, recently cross-training in martial arts. Melissa moved from east to west in 2010 to study at USF. She has been honored to collaborate on recent projects with Fog Beast, detour dance, Five Feet Dance, and James Graham Dance Theatre. She is a founding member of the Asian Babe Gang collective.

Since 2011, Skywatchers has been bringing residents of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District into partnership with professional artists to create multi-disciplinary and site-specific performance installations that are of, by, and for the community, and that amplify the rich and complex stories, life experiences, and talents of community members. ABD initiated the Skywatchers program in collaboration with Community Housing Project (CHP) and the Luggage Store Gallery. Skywatchers is structured on the belief that relationships are the first site of social change. Large-scale transformation begins with intimate, interpersonal exchange; we are all transformed in the process. Art and collective making transforms lives, embodies our interconnectedness, and infuses our lives with agency, possibility, and increased vitality.

Tongo Eisen-Martin is a movement worker, educator, and poet who has organized around issues of human rights and self-determination for oppressed people throughout the United States. His curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, titled We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as a teaching and organizing tool throughout the country. His poems have been published in Harper’s Magazine and the New York Times Magazine. His book someone’s dead already was nominated for a California Book Award. His latest book of poems Heaven Is All Goodbyes was published in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and won the California Book Award and the American Book Award. Selected Works - I Make Promises Before I Dream, 2018; © Tongo Eisen-Martin

MUA (Mujeres Unidas y Activas) is a grassroots organization of Latina immigrant women with a double mission of promoting personal transformation and building community power for social and economic justice. MUA achieves their mission by: creating an environment of understanding and confidentiality; empowering and educating our members to provide mutual support; offering trainings to build economic security and leadership; working in diverse alliances on the local, regional, national, and international levels; and organizing campaigns to win immigrant, workers’ and women’s rights. www.mujeresunidas.net

Chani Bockwinkel is a filmmaker and performer. She makes interdisciplinary-collaborative-queer-feminist imagery for the stage, gallery, and internet. She is currently working as co-director on her first feature film, Those Who Wait. The project is a poetic re-telling of a 19th century doomsday movement. She has taught Sappho and Sweat on the West Coast, East Coast, Texas, Canada and Berlin. Bockwinkel is a founding member of SALTA, a dance collective.

dana e. fitchett (she/her/they/them) has worked in schools and in arts-, education- and social justice-focused organizations, with roles ranging from direct classroom work, dance education, and family organizing to event management, arts administration, and marketing and communications. A multidisciplinary artist currently pursuing a self-directed Masters of Fine Art in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College, dana writes, makes visual art, teaches movement classes, choreographs, and directs Movement for Liberation, a project-based dance collective. dana seeks and finds endless lessons in literature, human engagement, and nature, and splits most of her time between the Bay Area, New York, and Boston. All of her pursuits are unified by her explicit concern for moving our individual and collective realities closer to liberation.

"The insouciant, freewheeling spirit of house dance pervades, yet the movement vocabulary is magnificently disciplined and contained. Transitions are as smooth as butter, with a dusting of capoeira, dashes of ballet, social dance and contact improv, blithely embellished by a cartoon-like animation of aimless doodles that appear on the backdrop."

brontë velez is guided by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). a black-latinx transdisciplinary artist, trickster, and wakeworker their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking, black feminist prophetic tradition, environmental justice, and death doulaship.

brontë velez is guided by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). a black-latinx transdisciplinary artist, trickster, and wakeworker their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking, black feminist prophetic tradition, environmental justice, and death doulaship. They live into these commitments of attending to black health and hospicing white supremacy through their practice serving as creative director for Lead to Life design collective (leadtolife.org), media director for Oakland-rooted farm and nursery Planting Justice (plantingjustice.org), and quotidian black queer life ever-committed to humor & liberation, ever-marked by grief at the distance made between us and all of life.

Sherwood Chen performs and leads workshops internationally. He has worked as a performer with artists including inkBoat, Grisha Coleman, Xavier Le Roy, Amara Tabor-Smith, Anna Halprin, Yuko Kaseki, Jess Curtis, Min Tanaka, Sara Shelton Mann, Arcane Collective and Christine Bonansea. For over twenty years, he has contributed to Body Weather research.

Regina Y. Evans is the owner of Regina's Door, an Oakland based social enterprise vintage clothing store which operates as a creative arts healing and sanctuary space for survivors of sex trafficking. Ms. Evans, along with Amara Tabor Smith recently opened Conjure And Mend, a sewing salon for young survivors seeking to become skilled in the art of costume making. Regina's Door was named 2015 Social Changemaker, Oakland Indie Awards, 2016 Nancy's Hero (Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley), and received a 2017 Oakland City Council Commendation in celebration of Small Business Week. As a Modern Day Abolitionist, Ms. Evans is a member of the AC United Council, and the CSEC Program Council/Claire's House Safehouse (Catholic Charities). She was honored to be a speaker and delegate at the 2017 United Nations 61st Commission on the Status of Women.

Ms. Evans is an award winning social justice poet, playwright, costumer and performer. Her stage play 52 Letters, which brings awareness to the fight against modern day slavery, was honored to win a Best of SF Fringe Festival Award, 2013 and has been nominated for an Outstanding Solo Performance for the 2019 Theatre Bay Area Awards. Ms. Evans is the Creative Director and Costumer for CEREMONY a theatrical ritual troupe bringing healing to survivors of sex trafficking, and a member of House Full Of Black Women (A multi site performance ritual project that addresses the displacement, well being and sex trafficking of Black girls and women). Ms. Evans is a second generation Native of Oakland, Ca.

Nicia De'Lovely is an Oakland, CA Poetess, Creative, Survivor and Anti-Sexual Abuse Activist. She's the sole proprietor of "Nicia De'Lovely Presents," an independent, grass-root production that creates survivor-based performances for awareness, prevention and healing of sexual abuse. Since regaining her voice after childhood trauma, she's created several local recitals including, the 2019 Best of SF Fringe Festival Winner “Get Uncomfortable," a provocative performance that addresses taboo offenses to evoke change, and "GOD'S: Guiding Our Daughters," a semi-annual brunch for local women in transition. Nicia is the author of three self-published poetry books, has performed on stages nationwide as a soloist and as a lead poet in Oakland's acclaimed anti-sex trafficking/ anti-CSEC performing troupe, "CEREMONY" by Regina Evans, Award-winning Abolitionist/ Entrepreneur/ Director/ Freedom Writer.

JahniahOmi Bahari is a multi faceted musician, spoken-word artist, sound healer, singer/songwriter, producer, dancer/choreographer, photographer, fashion designer and medicine woman. The Rasta style Flower-child of Oakland. Goddaughter of Black Roots. She heals and shares healing through art expression. Sound and visual movement are her two primary mediums. She dances intergenerational movement from traditional west African, afro Haitian and afro Brazilian, Orisa to modern jazz, breaking and pop locking. She has been a lead member of the Oakland Mind Cyphers and the Women of the Mind Body and Soul: Spiritually Ascending. She also began spirit work as an Abolitionist in the Human Trafficking Movement.

Abby Crain is a Houston Born, new England raised teacher, performer and dancemaker currently based in the California Bay Area. Teaching credits include Movement Research NYC, Mills College, NYU, Ponderosa Tanzland, Beloit College, Liverpool University, and an annual summer retreat with Sara Shelton Mann called Drop Your City Armor. She has performed extensively nationally and internationally primarily with Miguel Gutierrez (NYC) and Sara Shelton Mann (SF). Her own solo and collaborative work has been seen in places such as NYC, LA Portland, Berlin, Liverpool, Cork and Chicago. She was certified to teach OSF by Stephanie Skura in 2013 and has been teaching at the FRESH Festival since 2011. Her current work centers around non human and ecological affinity, eco-somatic research, radical pedagogy, and unpacking her own cultural subjectivity. She has two children ages 10 and 14.

Keith Hennessy dances. His performances engage improvisation, ritual, collaboration, and street protest as tools for responding to political issues. He observes self and society using a queer-feminist approach to critical whiteness. Hennessy directs Circo Zero and was a member of Contraband with Sara Shelton Mann. MFA, PhD from UC/Davis. www.circozero.org

Violeta Luna (Actress / Performance Artist) work engages the relationship between theatre, performance art and community-based practices. Luna uses her body as a territory to question and comment on social and political phenomena. Born in Mexico City, Luna obtained her graduate degree in Acting from the Centro Universitario de Teatro (UNAM,). She has performed and taught workshops extensively throughout Latin America and Europe, as well as in Rwanda, Egypt, New Zealand, Japan, India, Canada and USA. While primarily working as a solo performer, she is also an associate artist of the San Francisco-based performance collective Secos & Mojados. She is a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) Fellow, and a member of The Magdalena Project: International Network of Women in Contemporary Theatre. Significant works include: Frida, NK603: Action for Performer and e-Maiz, Requiems: Altares Efímeros, Apuntes sobre la Frontera and a series of with the collective La Pocha Nostra. www.violetaluna.com

Founded in 2001, NAKA Dance Theater creates experimental performance works using dance, storytelling, multimedia installations and site-specific environments. NAKA builds partnerships with communities, engages people's histories and folklore and expresses experiences through accessible performances that challenge the viewer to think critically about social justice issues.

José Navarrete is a native of México City where he was first exposed to theater and dance, choreographing and performing in parks, hospitals, and children's parties as a clown and dancer. He studied dance at the National Institute of Fine Arts in México, and has a B.A. in Anthropology from UC Berkeley and M.F.A in Dance from Mills College. He has studied dance with Sara Shelton Mann, Taiko with Hiroyuki Nakagawa and Argentine Tango with Nora Dinzelbacher. In 2004, José was the recipient of a Bessie Schönberg residency at The Yard, and a Djerassi residency. José is the recipient of a CHIME Mentorship with Jess Curtis, and a CHIME Across Borders fellowship with Ralph Lemon. Navarrete has taught dance and performance to youth and adults in Mexico, and in the San Francisco Bay Area at Berkeley High School, Marin Academy, Cal State East Bay, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He has recently been named a U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Fellow and will be traveling to Tohoku, Japan in 2018. José currently curates and produces the Live Arts in Resistance (LAIR) initiative at Eastside Arts Alliance, which provides residencies and performing opportunities for artists of color in East Oakland.

Debby Kajiyama loves repetition, synchronization, chaos and surprise. She was born in California’s central valley, grew up in the walnut and cherry orchards of her grandparents’ farm and also spent several years living in Tokyo. Her interests lie in the intersection of cultural studies, social justice and performance. She is inspired by influential teachers Jenny Bitner (writing), Jimi Nakagawa (taiko), and Anne Bluethenthal (social practice); the movement research of Kira Kirsch, Sara Shelton Mann and Nita Little; and the passion of Susanne Takehara and the cultural workers of Oakland's EastSide Arts Alliance. Debby’s artistic practice includes an attention to story, in particular trauma narratives; objects, in relation to the moving body; and the liminal state between the conscious-unconscious. Since 2001, Debby has created eight full-evening programs and numerous shorter works with NAKA that have been presented nationally and internationally. Debby has has also performed with Dandelion Dancetheater, June Watanabe in Company, ZACCHO Dance Theater, the Dance Brigade, and Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble. She has traveled to Cuba to share Obon Festival folk dances and music, and to conduct oral histories of the Japanese Diaspora in Cuba. Debby has been an artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, an Irvine Fellow at Montalvo’s Lucas Artists Residency Program, and a recipient of an ACTA Apprenticeship to study Tsuzumi with Jimi Nakagawa. She is the recipient of the 2014 The Della Davidson Prize.

Melissa Padilla is a multidisciplinary artist originally from Tijuana, Baja California. Her artistic development includes: graphic design, photography, drawing, theater, ballet, jazz and contemporary dance. Melissa graduated with honorable mention from the Professional Dance School of Mazatlán, directed by the Delfos Dance Company. She is currently a registered teacher of the CONTINUUM training system founded by scenic artist Omar Carrum; with this system Melissa has taught various workshops throughout Mexico and abroad. Melissa also is the Co-founder and co-director of the contemporary theater collective Teatro de León alongside Columbian artist José Luis Sánchez. They have received grants for artistic support such as International Circulation Mincultura 2017 and Apromac 2017 to present their work RITA in various festivals throughout Mexico, Columbia, and France. Currently, Melissa is a choreographer, dancer and teacher of Lux Boreal Dance Company and teaches CONTINUUM at the Center of Dance and Scenic Production of Baja California.

Middle Space Dance is a container for choreographic and improvisational experiments in performance. Amelia Heintzelman (NYC) and Leah Fournier (MA), long time collaborators and friends, create work alive with play and failure. Middle Space has been supported through residencies at Centre Pompadour, (Ercourt, France), Chez Bushwick (Brooklyn, NY), The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought (Northampton, MA), and Chashama (Pine Plains, NY).

Amelia is currently a University Settlement Performance Project Fellow and conducts research at The Woods Cooperative in her home neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens. Leah lives in Easthampton, MA with her cat Chewie and is Assistant Director at The School of Contemporary Dance and Thought, where she also holds the current title of Fall Artist in Residence.

Audrey‌ ‌Johnson‌ ‌is‌ ‌a‌ ‌movement‌ ‌artist‌ ‌with‌ ‌roots‌ ‌from‌ ‌Detroit,‌ ‌MI,‌ ‌currently‌ ‌living‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌Bay‌ ‌Area.‌ ‌Her‌ ‌work‌ ‌centers‌ ‌black‌ ‌and‌ ‌queer‌ ‌futurity‌ ‌and‌ ‌joyous‌ survival,‌ ‌through‌ ‌the‌ ‌belief‌ ‌that‌ ‌movement‌ ‌is‌ ‌transformative‌ ‌justice.‌ ‌Audrey‌ ‌recently began dancing with GERALDCASELDANCE, was‌ ‌a‌ ‌collaborator‌ ‌with‌ ‌Jennifer‌ ‌Harge/Harge‌ ‌Dance‌ ‌Stories‌ ‌for‌ ‌three‌ ‌years,‌ ‌and‌ ‌has‌ also‌ ‌worked‌ ‌with‌ ‌choreographers‌ ‌Biba‌ ‌Bell,‌ ‌Dafi‌ ‌Altabeb,‌ ‌and‌ ‌Stephanie‌ ‌Hewett.‌ ‌Audrey‌ ‌is‌ ‌a‌ ‌co-founder‌ ‌of‌ ‌Collective‌ ‌Sweat‌ ‌Detroit‌ ‌and‌ ‌holds‌ ‌a‌ ‌BFA‌ ‌in‌ ‌Dance‌ ‌with‌ ‌Honors‌ ‌from‌ ‌Wayne‌ ‌State‌ ‌University.‌ ‌

Instigated in 2017 by collective member randy reyes, Lxs Dxs (jose e. abad, Gabriel Christian, Stephanie Hewett, Jubilee July, Felix Sol Linck-Frenz, randy reyes), choreographs, moves, investigates and performs as our methodology for survival. We resource ourselves in these acts of survival by engaging and interlacing our distinct lineages as sources of healing, resistance, intelligence, and change-making. Collectively, the six of us incorporate and transform our histories to engender the conditions for new realities to emerge. We shape-shift and demand that the world shape-shift too, to create alternative cultural structures and relational cosmologies that enact collective liberation. With every performance, workshop, rehearsal, meeting, and decision, we cast a series of spells that weave into existence that which is necessary for our survival, and that of our communities. We experience the creative process as inherently healing, whether healing is the impetus or not, because we know that healing is necessary.

Gabriel Christian is an American artist bred in New York City (Wappinger Lenape land) and baking in Oakland (Chochenyo Ohlone land). Their work metabolizes the vernaculars within BlaQ diaspora—futurity, afrovivalism, faggotry—through body-based live performance and poetics; moreover, they feel the bio to be an unfortunate by-product of capitalistic models like chattel slavery.

Stephanie Hewett is a choreographer, movement researcher, performer, and teacher from the Bronx, New York (Lenape territory). She holds an MFA in Dance from Mills College, and was a 2019 Counterpulse EDGE resident artist. Hewett is currently a resident artist at the Paul Dresher Music Ensemble in West Oakland, CA, and her current research entails navigating performance through injury, pleasure frequencies, Detroit techno, dance floor exorcisms, and excavating ancestral vestiges in the body. She is a collaborator/member of LXS DXS, a queer performance collective making messes in the Bay, LA, and abroad

Felix Sol Linck-Frenz is a queer performance artist and housing rights organizer invested in exploring performance and protest as fertile grounds for sowing the seeds of futures that de-commodify, de-colonize, and de-stratify our existing social structures, and our existing relationship to material and embodied existence. Felix’s movement/performance work investigates the ways in which our fasciae carries intergenerational, cultural, and personal history that shape the ways in which we can move and change. They have created solo and collaborative performance work for the Berkeley Art Museum-PFA, The Joe Goode Annex, 3AM Berlin, & SALTA dance. Alongside these formal works, they have choreographed eviction defense protests, court rallies, and community food-sharing events with the Defend Aunti Frances Coalition, Causa Justa:: Just Cause, and Tenants Together. They are curious about what is possible when many people with different embodied experiences collectively take action, and create speculative imaginings of what we will be when we are liberated from racism, heteronormativity, patriarchy, capitalism, gender-violence, and able-ism.

jose e abad is a queer social practice performance artist exploring queer futurity through an intersectional lens. Using dance, storytelling, and ritual, abad’s work unearths lost histories, memories, and wisdom that are held within the body that the mind has forgotten or dominant culture has erased. jose has performed solo and collaborative works nationally and internationally with companies and artists including Joanna Haigood, Keith Hennessy, Scott Wells, Anne Bluethenthal & Dancers, NAKA Dance Theatre, Seth Eisen, Brontez Purnell Dance Company, Alleluia Panis, and Detour Dance. jose is also a founding company member of ChE’s #DignityInProcess project which is an artistic response to the Black Lives Matter movement that utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to art activism, performance, and community engagement through an afro-indigenous lens.

Jubilee July, (they/them) moves from the belief, analysis, and lived experience that reality is a collective choreography. They meld critical inquiry with play and ritual to tend individual and collective wounds/potential that lie at the intersections of social and ecological differences. Jubilee builds, supports, and evolves with various nourishing constellations in the San Francisco Bay Area including LXS DXS, NAKA Dance Theater, Vivid Grove, and the Cave/Coast Collective. Most recently, their solo work has embarked on a quest to decolonize/liberate pleasure, grief, and rage on the road to healing from sexual assault and white supremacy as a queer white/mixed/latnix.

randy reyes is a queer-AfroGuatemalan choreographer, performance artist, and healer born in NJ. They currently make love and art in Oakland / San Francisco Bay Area after oscillating between here, LA, Berlin, and NYC. randy is interested in choreography as a process of excavation, task as meditation, psychosomatic state work, Chinese Energetics, grief/joy/praise, and getting messy by conjuring contemporary rituals within quotidian/natural landscapes.

Currently, randy is a 2019 Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange (CHIME) mentee with lead mentor, Margaret Jenkins, Shawl Anderson Emerging Artist in Residence, and a danceWEB | Impulstanz scholarship programme recipient. randy is co-leading two performance collectives called the Bay Area BIQTPOC Performing Artist Hive and LXS DXS

Since its inception, Lux Boreal has become a vital part of Northern Mexico’s dance movement. Lux Boreal Dance Company was founded in 2002 and is based in the city of Tijuana, Baja California. The company allows artists to converge helping to foster and develop a refreshing movement language based on the reality that surrounds its members. Lux Boreal has had the privilege of showing their work in some of the most prestigious festivals throughout Mexico and abroad. The company has presented tours in many different countries such as Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, United States, Brazil, France, Ireland, Germany, Spain and Latvia.

An active participant in Mexican culture, Lux Boreal has been fortunate to receive support for the company’s continued creativity, performances, community work, and educational endeavors from the National Fund for Culture and Arts – Mexico en Escena since 2007. Lux Boreal seeks to use dance as a means generating new ideas and transforming an ordinary environment into something extraordinary. Lux Boreal often performs in the streets, parks, shopping centers, and other public areas throughout Mexico in addition to various theatrical venues that pervade the country. Their movement explores a vast range of concepts always pushing to provide audience members a chance to reflect and take away something new. Their movement enhances and impacts both Mexican and American culture, especially playing such an active role in a bi-national artistic relationship with dance communities on both sides of the border enabling a constant cultural exchange between dancers in California and those in Mexico. In other words, Lux Boreal Dance Company shines as they transform environments with their performances and convey messages that expose more than simple universal truths. Their shows are captivating, thought provoking and insightful.

Henry Torres Blanco originally from Culiacán, Sinaloa, is the co-founder, artistic director and lighting designer of Lux Boreal Dance Company. He received his Bachelor degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Technological Institute of Monterrey (1995), where he also specialized in the field of artistic and cultural diffusion, later he graduated from the Professional Dance School of Mazatlán under the direction of the Delfos Dance Company in 2003. Henry’s line of research has led him to deepen the techniques of movement and creation related to the contemporary scene. As a choreographer he has directed several scenic productions such as: Flower of 7 Leaves, Rio Tijuana, Frog’s Eye, among others. He has collaborated with interdisciplinary productions where dance plays an important role in theater, television and urban interventions. He has collaborated with various academic institutions on the creation and professional teaching of contemporary dance, among which the Autonomous University Benemérita de Puebla, the Superior School of Music and Dance of Monterrey, the Professional Dance School of Mazatlán, UNAM, University of California San Diego, University of California Riverside, San Diego State University and New York University, among others.

Ángel Arámbula (Director, Choreographer, Dance Facilitator) is originally from Tijuana, Baja California. He began his classical dance studies within the Baja California Dance Company A.C.. From 1997 to 2000 he was part of the "Subterranean Art Project" directed by Gregorio Coral. He was distinguished as the best dancer in the XIX International Festival of Contemporary Dance of San Luis Potosí in 1999. In 2000 he entered the Professional School of Dance of Mazatlán (EPDM), directed by the company Delfos Danza Contemporánea where he studied his professional studies as a dancer and choreographer. He has been granted a FONCA scholarship in the 2004 edition in the category of interpreter, by the FOECA of Baja California in his 1999 broadcast in the category of Individual Artistic Development in Contemporary Dance and in the 2002 broadcast for continuing studies, as well as for the Professional School of Dance of Mazatlán from 2001 to 2003. Ángel obtained honorable mention as the Best Male Performer within the First Choreography Competition in Urban Spaces Monterrey, NL (2002) and prize as the best male performer in the regional contest of contemporary choreography in Hermosillo, Sonora (2016).

Raul Navarro is a dance Artist, Choreographer, and Teacher of Lux Boreal Dance Company; Coordinator of the Choreography Competition 4x4 TJ Night; Co-founder and director of the non-profit organization Borboleta Inclusive Art; Artistic Director of the Center of Dance and Scenic Arts Coppelia. Originally from Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Raul graduated from the Professional Dance School of Mazatlán, directed by Delfos Contemporary Dance Company. He received various grants for artistic development from the National Fund of Culture and the Arts as well at the States of Sinaloa and Baja California. Raul currently teaches classes in Jazz and Contemporary Jazz and has participated in various festivals in France, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Romania, Switzerland, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, USA, and Mexico.

Pamela Macías originally from Tijuana, Baja California, received her Bachelor of the Arts in Dance from the Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexicali. She performed and has presented work throughout many festivals such as the International Festival of Contemporary Dance Cuerpos en Tránsito, Festival of the Arts ITSON, San Diego Fringe Festival, Without Walls Festival, among others. Pamela has collaborated with San Diego Dance Theater Company by forming part of San Diego Trolley Dances; she danced for choreographers Stephan Koplowitz and Monica Bill Barnes. Pamela also performed in the binational collaboration project “Paisajes del Cuerpo” under the direction of Robert Moses. Currently Pamela is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher of Lux Boreal Dance Company. She currently teaches Contemporary technique at the Center of Dance and Scenic Production of Baja California.

Matthew Armstrong is a choreographer, dancer and teacher of Lux Boreal Dance Company of Tijuana, Mexico since 2011. His choreographic works have been performed throughout Mexico, USA, and Brazil. He currently teaches classes in Contemporary, Contemporary Partnering, Contact Improvisation, and Jazz at the Center of Dance and Scenic Production of Baja California; also a current dance professor in the School of Music and Dance at San Diego State University. Matthew is also co-founder and director of the non-profit organization Borboleta Inclusive Art. Matthew was born in Redding, California where his dance studies commenced at the age of 13. He received his Bachelor of the Arts in Dance from the University of California, San Diego. In 2010 Matthew was invited to collaborate with choreographer Jaciel Neri and Pendulo Cero Dance Company in the work bodiesarenotborders where Matthew was distinguished as Best Male Dancer by the juries of the INBA/UAM Prize in its 2010-2011 edition, one of the most prestigious awards given in Contemporary Dance of Mexico.

Ilse Meza is a choreographer, dancer and teacher of Lux Boreal Dance Company. Throughout 2016 she has developed as a creative interpreter in various productions of the group. In parallel, she has been an active part of the teaching staff of the educational program of the Center for Dance and Scenic Production of Baja California. Throughout her research, she has traveled to various sites in Mexico, the United States and the Caribbean in search of encounters, restructuring new routes of movement in impulse, creation and relationship of the scenic being. Ilse received a bachelor of Dance from the Professional Dance School of Mazatlán under the direction of the Delfos Dance Company. Originally from Tijuana, Baja California, Ilse began her formal studies at the Dance Research Center of Baja California and continued training at the Diplomat of Dance and Scenic Production accredited by the National Pedagogical University (UPN). Ilse has developed her choreographic work by venturing into painting, mixed media in contemporary dance and martial arts.

Sara Shelton Mann has been a choreographer, performer, and teacher since 1967. Her Movement Alchemy training is an ongoing teaching project and is influenced by certifications and studies in the metaphysical and healing traditions. Sara’s performance work is a platform for collaboration and research in consciousness.

Ainsley Tharp is an internationally recognized artist who explores mediums of performance, film, projection design, and visual art. She’s a badass living in the BAY. One day she’ll be experimental enough to perform in FRESH… In the meantime check out the weird shiiiit she’s up to at www.aineliztharp.com

kassidy friend enjoys moving their body and making visual/art-stuff. they are currently researching how movement/art can be a tactic to move towards healing and disrupting white supremacy. kass is, as always, hella juiced to get to collaborate with buddies. <3

zoe huey is a visual artist and mover, born and raised in Oakland, California. they love dogs, foggy ocean days, and hiking in the forest. zoe lives and makes in the inbetween spaces of queerness and mixed-race identity. they love collaborating with Kassidy friend and Nicole Maimon.

nico maimon was born in Mexico City, but was raised in California. she’s been interested in navigating a queer, multi-racial existence in relation to her lineage and the future. and is currently using movement to foster community, heal, and solidify her relationship with pleasure//self. she is grateful to be creating with these two brilliant humans, and to be close to the ocean. xx

Jesse Zaritt is a Brooklyn-based dance artist. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, having previously been the inaugural 2014–2016 Research Fellow in the University’s School of Dance. He has also taught at Bard College, Hollins University, Pomona College and for ten summers at the American Dance Festival. Zaritt has performed his solo work in Taiwan, Uruguay, Russia, Korea, Germany, New York, Japan, Mexico, Israel and throughout the United States. Jesse worked collaboratively with Jumatatu Poe from 2012-2015; their duet work was presented by Gibney Dance Center (NYC), AUX Performance Space at Vox Populi (PA), Fringe Arts (PA), Triple Canopy (NYC), Dixon Place (NYC) and New York Live Arts (through the Studio Series Program). A duet created with Katie Swords premiered at the Museum of Art and Design (NYC) in October 2015. Jesse was commissioned by the American Dance Festival to create a duet alongside Mark Haim which premiered as part of the 2015 ADF performance season. He has performed with the Shen Wei Dance Arts Company (NYC, 2001–2006), the Inbal Pinto Dance Company (Tel Aviv, 2008), and in the work of Netta Yerushalmy (NYC, 2009–2016) and Faye Driscoll (NYC, 2010–2015); he works as an artistic adviser for her current projects. His solo Binding was the recipient of three 2010 New York Innovative Theater Awards—Outstanding Choreography, Outstanding Solo Performance, and Outstanding Performance Art Production. Zaritt currently works in creative dialogue with Sara Shelton Mann.

Tara Brandel is a Contemporary dancer and choreographer originally from West Cork, Ireland She trained as a Contemporary dancer at the Laban Center in London, and has been choreographing extensively since 1990. She performed Gawky and Awkward at San Francisco International Arts Festival 2015; created Square Onefor D-CAF 2017 in Cairo, Egypt; her dance film CAR was Director's Choice at the CDIFF in Toronto 2017; and she performed in Jess Curtis/Gravity's Intercontinental Collaborations #7 in San Francisco 2018. Most recently Tara has toured Cappaghglass, a one woman show about migration,to Cork Midsummer Festival, D-CAF Cairo Egypt, Echo Echo Derry, San Francisco FRESH Festival, and Ponderosa, Germany. She is co-Artistic Director of Croí Glan Integrated Dance Company based in Cork.

Tara holds a Masters in Interdisciplinary Performance from UCDavis, where she was awarded the Della Davidson Award for her new show Circus in 2019, the Mondavi Fellowship, and the Women's Research Center Fellowship. Circus has toured to San Francisco International Arts Festival, Seattle International Dance Festival, Cork Midsummer Festival and Dublin Fringe Festival and will be CSUEBF in February 2020.

Nicholas Nwosu a Street Dancer from Nigeria. His dance styles mix Hip Hop, Twerking and Hip-let in a unique blend, focusing on improvised and innovative movement. Since 2009 he has created dances for the Calabar Carnaval, worked as a dancer at Casablanca Club in Largos, and has been involved in numerous street dance competitions throughout Nigeria, including the International Calabar street dance competition. Since moving to Ireland Nicholas has been involved in various competitions and performances. He has taught and performed at WILD West Cork Contemporary Dance Festival, was winner of the Kristal Basement dance battle 2018, has performed at the Write Venue and Rage, and taught at Garter Lane, Waterford. In 2018 he had a Residential Residency at Dance Ireland with Tara Brandel, which led to the making of Circus. Nicholas was nominated for Best Performer at the Dublin Fringe 2019 for his role in Circus.

Kickbal - emma lanier and Ky Frances. They grew up in the Bay Area and have lived and danced in Spain, Chile, Mexico, and in the USA. Kickbal’s work centers on duality, realness, and connection, using movement, objects, and language as means of investigation. They love physical abandon, nonchalant execution, impossible tasks, and improvised monologues. They have presented work nationally at Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, David Zwirner Gallery in New York, and locally at BAMPFA, Dance Lovers 8, ODC Pilot, LevySalon, Works in the Works, Studio 210, SAFEhouse, and SPF12.