Alejandra Duque Cifuentes (she/her) is a nonprofit leader and advocate working to advance a more just, equitable, and inclusive arts and cultural ecology by developing measures that arts workers, businesses, and organizations can thrive. Her work is of particular significance to individual arts workers who have been historically under supported, including BIPOC, immigrant disabled, and low-income artists as well as small-budget art making organizations. She brings 15+ years of experience and expertise in strategy, general management, fund development, community organizing, arts education, professional development, and artistic production. Her professional and educational background encompasses business, creative, and civic realms, including a BA from Columbia University School of General Studies in theater directing and an early career as a theater artist, stage manager, and arts educator. She moves with ease and intelligence across sectors, issues, and among diverse stakeholders, from managing internal staff and teams to engaging community and philanthropic partners, artist constituencies, donors, and the general public. She is known for her ability to get results and draws on her deep community relationships to drive accountable collaborations based on trust and data. Through her work on cultural policy, Alejandra has earned appointments to Mayor-Elect Eric Adams’ Transition Committee on Parks, Arts & Culture and A Better Contract for New York’s Joint Task Force. As a result of her leadership during COVID-19 pandemic, she was named 2021 Crain New York's Business Notable in Nonprofits & Philanthropy. She sits on the boards of Nonprofit New York and New Yorkers for Culture and Arts, and is a member of the leadership council of Creatives Rebuild New York. 

In December of 2022, Alejandra transitioned out of her role of Executive Director at Dance/NYC setting in its place a significant structural shift for the organization aimed at creating a more democratic leadership structure for the organization’s future. As a summation of her work and commitment to the sector, she established ADC Consulting, a boutique arts consultancy firm, in order to equip mission-driven organizations to create long-term cultural impact through fundraising, grant making, advocacy, research and organizational change. After being a proud Queens resident for 17 years, she has set new roots in the pacific northwest in the greater Seattle area of Washington state. She identifies as a white, immigrant, latina woman, who believes healthy communities need a strong arts and culture sector and is committed to anti-racist practices that ensure artists can thrive in the United States.

Photo by Jennyroso Photography

www.consultingadc.com

Carrie Blake is a management consultant, researcher, project manager and administrator dedicated to the cultural sector. Since 2006, she has been a senior member of the Webb Mgmt team. In that role, she has directed research and analysis on more than 250 studies and plans.  Her recent research with Dance/NYC focused on New York City’s vast fiscally sponsored arts landscape and informed the City’s first ever cultural plan.

Before joining the firm, Carrie was the Associate Producer for the Office of Arts & Cultural Programming at Montclair State University (NJ) where she played a pivotal role in the establishment of Peak Performances, an ambitious new presenting, producing and commissioning program. Collaborating with innovative experimental artists from across the nation and around the world, Carrie coordinated regional, national and world premieres while establishing identity, presence, structure and policy for MSU’s new venture. 

Prior to MSU, Carrie developed and managed fundraising events and campaigns for both The Drama League, a New York City-based nonprofit committed to developing artists and audiences for the American theatre, and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI). She also worked in marketing for the Madison Civic Center as management prepared for expansion to what is now the Overture Center.

Carrie is a proud alumna of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business where she completed several consulting projects, including business planning and market research for arts organizations. Her graduate research focused on the university arts presenters’ multifarious existence within university and community contexts.

https://www.webbmgmt.org/team-carrie

Performers:
- Joan Bradford
- Jessica Lee
- Candance Sumpter
- Rebecca Gual
- Lorena Jaramillo

Sydnie L. Mosley Dances (SLMDances) is a NYC-based dance-theater collective that works in communities to organize for gender and racial justice through experiential dance performance. SLMDances' works engage audiences in the artistic process; the dances provoke a visceral reaction to the physicality on stage and incite conversation toward community action. The collective creates and presents dance uptown and focuses community-based initiatives within Harlem and Black and brown communities on the Upper West Side. SLMDances' collective organizational practice was featured in the New York Times. Notable recent funders include: Mellon, Howard Gilman, MAP Fund, NEFA National Theater Project Finalist, New York Community Trust, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Dance/NYC, Mertz Gilmore.

Led by Sydnie L. Mosley, her evening length dances The Window Sex Project and BodyBusiness, their creative processes and performance experiences are a model for dance-activism. Sydnie was recognized by NYC Mayor de Blasio for using her talents in dance to fuel social change, awarded a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer, and was listed by TheRoot.com as one of twenty-five “Up and Coming: Young Minority Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Her dances have been performed extensively throughout NYC including a 2023 world premiere at Lincoln Center. Sydnie danced with Christal Brown's INSPIRIT, appeared as a guest artist for Brooklyn Ballet for a decade, and sits on the Advisory Committee to Dance/NYC.

https://www.sydnielmosley.com/home

Performers:
- Reyna Nunez
- Alora Martinez
- Cocoro Carr
- Imani Arrington

Ladies of Hip-Hop Dance Collective ( LDC) is an all female intergenerational dance collective that creates dance works illuminating the strength, power and diversity of women in Hip-Hop. Ever present in the work are the freestyle, cipher, and call-and-response origins of street and club dance culture, all while exploring the space of proscenium performance.

Under the direction of founder Michele Byrd-Mcphee, Ladies of Hip-Hop Dance Collective (LDC) interweaves the embodied experiences of women, creating a communal fabric that paints a picture of a more global women experience. Through their work, LOHH is reclaiming and transforming spaces, not only in the realm of dance but also within the broader cultural landscape. LDC asks audiences to celebrate the strength, resilience, and creativity of women from all walks of life, while sparking important conversations about gender equality and representation.

LDC creates works that celebrate and center feminist narratives examining the intersections of gender, race, and resistance.

https://www.ladiesofhiphop.com/

j. bouey is a Black queer dance artist, choreographer, and performer who envisions the abolition of systemic oppression through performance, film, and community care practices. j. bouey founded The Dance Union Podcast and supported the NYC dance community during lockdown through initiatives like the NYC Dancers COVID-19 Relief Fund and The Dance Union Town Hall For Collective Action. They have presented their venues such as Movement Research, Judson Church, The Chocolate Factory, BRIC, CPR - Center for Performance Research and many more. j. bouey is a recipient of numerous fellowships and residencies, including the 2021-2022 Jerome Fellowship and the 2022/2023 Movement Research Artist in Residence. j. bouey is a current collaborator with nia love and has worked with renowned companies and artists like onCUE Chronicles, The Fabulous Waack Dancers, INSpirit Dance, Maria Bauman MB Dance, Viewsic Dance, Dante Brown | Warehouse Dance, AntionioBrownDance, Delirious Dance, Scorpious Dance Theater, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and has apprenticed with Emerge 125 under the artistic direction of Tiffany Rea-Fisher.

https://www.jbouey.com/

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, now local to Brooklyn, NY, operates between the spheres of dance, cultural production and fitness and wellness, with a focus on the Contemporary Caribbean. She has had an established career as a performer, choreographer, fitness professional, cultural producer, teaching artist, community facilitator and Caribbean dance specialist. In addition to her work in these areas, she leads ContempoCaribe, an ongoing choreography and performance project and is the founder of Dance Caribbean COLLECTIVE, an organisational platform for Caribbean dance in the diaspora that spearheads the New Traditions Festival in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from Adelphi University's BFA program for Dance, and has presented, performed and taught at major venues including: Queen's Hall (T&T), John F. Kennedy Center, New York Live Arts, Brooklyn Museum, and The Ohio State University. She was an inaugural member of the Dancing While Black Fellowship Cohort 2015/2016, was an awardee of Adelphi University's 2017 - 10 Under 10 program, and a Dixon Place Artist-in-Residence for fall 2017. As a cultural producer and strategist, Candace has worked with the Dance and Performance Institute of Trinidad and Tobago, WIADCA (NY), Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, Renegade Performance Group, and curator Claire Tancons, for the 2019 Sharjah Biennial. Ms. Thompson-Zachery holds an M.A. in Performance Curation from the ICCP program at Wesleyan University and a certificate from the Executive Program in Arts & Culture Strategy at UPenn. with National Arts Strategies. Of tantamount importance to her is the vital role dance plays in our communities and she is eager to see dance artists of various styles, practices and traditions thrive in New York City.

cthompsonzachery@dance.nyc

candacedancefitness.com

Sara Roer (she/her/hers) hails from Waccamaw land colonially known as Wilmington, North Carolina and transplanted to Lenapehoking aka NYC in 2005 after asking to be left there on visits to grandparents for at least a decade. She currently identifies as an extroverted, non-disabled, cisgender, white queer femme. 

Her "slash life" mosaic of activity has been driven by curiosity and a sense of adventure, with dance performance and arts administration as deeply rooted constants. In both the dance and administrative realms, Sara insists on collaboration for building sustainable, impactful, long term work. In this vein, she has stayed the course with Emily Berry/b3w Performance Group for over 20 years and Keith A Thompson/danceTactics Performance Group for over 16 years (earning a New York Times mention, "eloquent," in her inaugural season).  She co-founded This Body collective with longtime friend and co-conspirator Diane Tomasi over 6 years ago. She has been training in and practicing traditional Thai Bodywork for over 16 years, starting with mentor Al Turner II. She was at artistic and administrative home BAX|Brooklyn Arts Exchange in various roles for over 14 years before stepping into this Director role with DanceNYC and looks forward to cultivating roots here for years to come. 
 

sroer@dance.nyc

Vicki Capote is a multidisciplinary artist and fundraiser committed to building a more accessible, equitable, and inclusive arts ecosystem. She was born and raised in New York City and has more than 15 years of experience as a singer, actor, and stage manager in the performing arts field. Vicki is passionate about utilizing art as a vehicle for social change, civic engagement, and self-actualization. Prior to joining Dance/NYC, she worked as the Development Manager at A Blade of Grass, where she advocated and secured resources for socially engaged artists nationwide. Vicki has also worked as the Director of Development & Communications at ARTs East New York, where she co-created initiatives for community-centered placemaking and emerging socially engaged artists.

She holds a B.A. in Arts Management and Applied Performance from Hampshire College and is an alum of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institutes' Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship. Outside of work, Vicki enjoys hiking, crafting, and drawing.

vcapote@dance.nyc

As a former ballet dancer and longtime grantmaker, Anna was thrilled to join the Howard Gilman Foundation in 2015. In her role as Senior Program Officer, she has been Co-Chair of New York Grantmakers in the Arts, has been a panelist and speaker at Dance/NYC, Philanthropy New York, and Grantmakers in the Arts, and has led research studies with Americans for the Arts and DataArts. Previously, Anna was the Arts Program Officer at the Educational Foundation of America (EFA), where she developed and managed a portfolio of innovative creative placemaking projects in both urban and rural communities across the country. Prior to EFA, Anna was Assistant Director at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, where she oversaw programming grants for hundreds of cultural organizations across the city. She also served as Director of Grantmaking Programs at The American Music Center, leading and creating new grant opportunities for music and dance artists to create and perform new work. Anna began her career in philanthropy at the Massachusetts Cultural Council supporting local grantmaking programs throughout that state. Raised just outside of Washington, D.C., Anna studied dance at the Maryland Youth Ballet and pursued training at the Houston Ballet after high school. She attended Indiana University Jacob’s School of Music (Bloomington) to perform with Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride in the Ballet program and graduated with a dual degree in Political Science and Music. After dancing in Boston for several years, Anna officially “retired” and received a Masters degree from Boston University’s Arts Administration program.

Arielle Rosales is a Bessie-nominated Performing Artist who interweaves the worlds of Flamenco, Percussion, Theater, and Improvisation as a means to find connection through duende. She has been dubbed, “Excitingly rhythmic and undoubtedly seductive” by Dance Informa Magazine, and “A very intense and wonderful choreographic talent” by Broadway World. Her work has been featured on “The Today Show” (NBC), “Good Morning America” (ABC), and Mrs. Doubtfire on Broadway. As an Educator, Arielle is an active Teaching Artist with Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana and NY City Center, and is part of the 2023 cohort of The Hidden Voices Project creating an original Flamenco curriculum for the Social Studies Department of the NYCDOE. She is a Co-Founding Dancer with the all-women percussive dance trio @solesofduende and a Band Member & Conductor with the all-women Afro-Brazilian samba reggae band @batalanewyork. Follow @ariellerosales and visit www.ariellerosales.com for more info!

www.ariellerosales.com

David King is an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator and administrator committed to youth development, cultural equity and creative storytelling. He advocates for sustainable access to the arts and education, and he supports the dignity of teachers, learners and arts workers. He is the Director of Education at The Apollo. Prior to that, he served as Program Director of School and Community Partnerships at Community-Word Project. 

He is a board member and Co-Chair of the Advocacy Committee at the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable. He co-authored an advocacy campaign entitled Rebuild, Reconcile, Reimagine: A List of Demands for Centering Black Women’s Leadership in Arts Education, which was designed to impact pay equity, promotion, healing and more. He moderated a conversation with NYC Schools Chancellor David C. Banks on the progress made towards equity in access to sequential arts education alongside the lessons learned and future of arts in our schools.

David is an Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellow with The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI). He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, Artists Co-creating Real Equity (ACRE) and Creating New Futures. He was born and raised in New York City on ancestral territory of the Munsee Lenape, Canarsie and Matinecock peoples. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and earned a B.A. in Theatre from The City College of New York (CUNY). He appreciates those who contribute to the process.

https://linktr.ee/davidaking

devynn emory is a choreographer/dance artist (devynnemory/beastproductions), dual licensed bodyworker (sage), Spirit channeler and registered nurse- previously practicing in the fields of acute/critical care, hospice, COVID and currently gender affirming surgery and integrative health. emory's performance company devynnemory/beastproductions finds the intersection of these fields, walking the edges of thresholds- drawing from their multiple in-between states of being, holding space for liminal bodies bridging multiple planes of transition, finding reciprocity practice as a constant decolonial practice. they are currently working on a trilogy centering medical mannequins holding the wisdom of end of life experiences. (deadbird + can anybody help me hold this body 2021, Cindy Sessions: Grandmother Cindy + Cindy Sessions LOVE, LOSS, LAND 2022, boiling-rain tbd). emory is a research group fellow at danspace 2020-2023, a recipient of the Onassis Eureka award, and 2022 Art Matters Artist2Artist awardee, a 2023 FCA award recipient and a 2023 USA Fellowship awardee. born on Lenape Land, emory is a reconnecting descendent of mixed Lenape/Blackfoot/settler ancestry.

devynnemory.com + deadbird.land

www.devynnemory.com

Since its inception, I have been honored to be Chair of the Board of Directors of Dance/NYC. A long-standing New York Super Lawyer, I have a wide range of experience in corporate, copyright, and trademark law, with clients that/who encompass a large spectrum of the business and entertainment world, including established and new ventures, individuals, creators, and both for-profit and not-for-profit entities. I have extensive experience with contracts, licensing, digital issues, Trademark Law, Copyright Law, Intellectual Property, and all aspects of running a business. I optimize legal and business affairs for individuals, startups, and businesses of all sizes.

My goal as an attorney is to help resolve your legal and business affairs issues, enabling you to do what it is that you do best; running and growing your business/brand, acquiring deals and investors, creating and acquiring commissions, and moving forward.

My approach is to listen carefully to you to determine how we can best work together in order to accomplish your needs. I advocate and negotiate on your behalf and make sure that all of your questions and issues are properly addressed.

I take a “bird’s eye” view of your situation and work to address your legal needs. In addition, I often act as a sounding board for non-legal issues, especially those that are crucial to big-picture decisions. My focus is on you as a whole, rather than as a single legal issue.

Elissa D. Hecker Esq. is a New Yorker for Dance

eheckeresq.com

Gonzalo Casals is the Senior Research and Policy Fellow for the Mellon Foundation.

Casals was Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (2017-2020), the US leading cultural organization focusing on Queer arts and culture. During his tenure at the Museum, he expanded the museum's mission to be inclusive of all communities under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, professionalized the museum operations, and situated the organization as a dynamic cultural hub attracting younger generations and BIPOC individuals.

For over 7 years, Casals held various roles at El Museo del Barrio (2006-2013). As Director of Education and Public Programs, he focused on cultural production as a vehicle to foster empowerment, social capital, and civic participation. Casals consulted for CreateNYC (2016), New York City’s first comprehensive cultural plan, and was a member of the NYC Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers (2017). A commission that developed guidelines on how to address monuments seen as oppressive and inconsistent with the City's values. He was a member of NOCD-NY, a citywide alliance to revitalize arts and culture from the neighborhood up (2010-2019).

His work and opinions have been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Bomb Magazine, WNYC NY, and The Huffington Post. A regular guest speaker on arts, culture, equity, and inclusion, Casals teaches at the University of the City Of New York (CUNY), New York University, and Yale University.

He is an active participant in Jackson Heights, Queens’ civic life where he has lived since 2002. Casals has recently decided to share his home with Brulik, a middle-age Siamese cat from Brighton Beach.

https://gonzalocasals.com/

Karesia Batan is a Queens-based producer, dancer, and choreographer who founded the annual Queensboro Dance Festival (QDF) in 2014. Throughout her freelance dance career in NYC, she became increasingly compelled to the importance of community strength building among artists and audiences through dance, and recognized this uniquely complex need in Queens. Every summer, QDF presents about 25 all Queens-based dance companies of diverse cultures and styles, touring various indoor and outdoor public venues across Queens to make high-quality, local dance accessible to thousands of residents. In addition to QDF, Karesia has also established Queens-based programs DANCE SHORTS film screenings, and the Site Moves series in the LIC Arts Open. QDF has been acknowledged for its community impact in the first ever Create NYC Cultural Plan released in 2017 as part of a space and accessibility case study, and was a 2018 honoree of the Queens Pride organization with a Proclamation from the New York State Comptroller's Office Thomas P. DiNapoli and certificate from NYC Public Advocate Letitia James. In 2019, QDF was named the Best in Arts & Humanities with the Long Island City Game Changer award with certificate recognition from Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan.

http://www.queensborodancefestival.com

Kendra J. Bostock is a proud Detroit native working as a dancer, choreographer, teaching artist, facilitator and community organizer in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. As a dancer in New York City, Kendra has worked with Urban Bush Women (UBW), Andrea E. Woods/Souloworks, Ase Dance Theater Collective, Monstah Black/ Motion Sickness, MBDance, Moving Spirits Dance Company, RAKIA!, Melanie Green, Movement of the People Dance Company and as a guest artist with Oyu Oro. Kendra completed a European tour dancing with Adira Amram and DJ Kid Koala in Vinyl Vaudeville 2.0 and performed with Gyptian at the MTV Iggy awards. Kendra’s choreographic work has been presented at the Florida A&M University, the off Broadway show 7 Sins, Museu de Arte in Salvador, Brazil, Dixon Place, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Actors Fund Theater, and Mark Morris. She has been an Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Studios for Dance, Bates College, Marymount Manhattan, and The Neighborhood Project Through 651Arts, a BAX Space Grantee, and a Visiting Artist at Atlantic Center for the Arts. She was recently the 2022 Inaugural BedStuy Artist in Residence at The Laundromat Project. She is currently a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Along with sharing her art world-wide, Kendra serves as the Founder/Director of STooPS that uses art as a catalyst to strengthen ties between different entities in Bed-Stuy and as a Facilitator with UBW’s BOLD (Builders, Organizers, and Leaders Through Dance) network.

www.thekendrajbostock.com

Marlène Ramírez-Cancio is a Puerto Rican cultural producer, artist, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. As Artistic Director of BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange—a multigenerational arts organization nurturing creative expression and artistic process—she creates spaces of inquiry and praxis for artist-led initiatives. Since 2008, she has directed EmergeNYC, an incubator and affinity network for socially engaged artists to develop their creative voice and connect to a thriving community of BIPOC, migrant, and LGBTQIA+ practitioners. Through Mujer Que Pregunta, Marlène works as a Process Doula and Tarot practitioner, helping artists, scholars, and cultural workers shape their ideas and clarify their vision. She serves on the Steering Committee of LxNY | Latinx Arts Consortium of New York, the Board of Directors of the National Performance Network, and the Board of Advisors of The Action Lab and the Center for Artistic Activism.

As a choreographer, Maxine has presented work at various institutions, including The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, and Harlem School for the Arts with Haiti Cultural Exchange for their annual Selebrasyon Festival. Maxine is also a member of Dance Caribbean COLLECTIVE, through which she has presented choreography in their annual New Traditions Showcase from 2015-2017. In 2014, she choreographed BallyBeg Production's third play and Equity-approved showcase, "The Taste of It", and was a 2015 nominee for Outstanding Choreography/Movement in The New York Innovative Theater Awards for her work in the production. In 2017, Maxine served as an Afro-Cuban/Haitian Folklore consultant for Camille Brown in her work for the Broadway musical “Once On This Island”. Maxine was also the choreographer for Opera Orlando’s presentations of George Bizet’s “Carmen” (April 2021) and “The Secret River” (December 2021). Both productions made their premieres at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

In 2019, Maxine founded MV Dance Project, a dance company that aims to be of service to others through public performances and dance education programming. In June 2019, the company performed its first evening-length production “Strength in Spirit” at Brooklyn Studios for Dance.

Photo credit: Shocphoto Imagery LLC

https://www.maxinemontilus.com/

I've always found myself in the arts and as a native New Yorker, I thrive in spaces with creative and driven people. After graduating from Frank Sinatra School of the Arts with a degree in film, I put my technical skills to use in computer science where I was one of the only women admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study computer science in my year.

After working in the tech industry for nearly a decade, I decided to pursue my original passion for arts and public policy. I have since become the policy director of the national Freelancers Union, which advocates on behalf of the 63 million freelance workers across the U.S. My work takes me to around the country where I run policy campaigns to get dancers, graphic designers, writers, musicians, filmmakers and so many more access to equal pay and labor rights.

Peter Alfred Elizalde is a Filipino/a/x/? nonbinary dance artist, choreographer, and nightlife professional residing in Lenape-Canarsie land currently known as Brooklyn, NY. They currently dance on stages and not stages throughout the 5 boroughs and abroad and are delighted to bring their brand of queer magic and unfiltered emotion into their work in and out of performance settings.

Their current work-in-progress dance piece is titled "the discotech is where i go to experience unmatched joy and profound sadness" and offers a glimpse into personal queer and trans narratives in nightlife and the underground and explores the possibilities of nightlife as a portal to community care and queer liberation.

Paloma McGregor (Founder, Angela’s Pulse) is a Caribbean-born, New York-based choreographer who makes Black work with Black folks for Black space. A former newspaper reporter, she combines a choreographer’s craft, journalist’s urgency and anti-racist organizer’s framework to activate creative communities and shepherd collaborative visioning.
McGregor is currently developing A’we deh ya, a multi-year, interdisciplinary performance project that activates a choreographic call-and-response between the US mainland and her homeland, St. Croix, a current US colony at the frontlines of climate emergency. A'we is the latest iteration of her project Building a Better Fishtrap, rooted in her father’s vanishing fishing tradition and three animating questions: What do you take with you? Leave behind? Return to reclaim?
Working at the growing edge of her field, McGregor received a 2020 Soros Arts Fellowship and was an inaugural recipient of several major awards: Mosaic Network & Fund (2020); Dance/USA’s Fellowship to Artists (2019); UBW’s CCI Fellowship (2018); Surdna Foundation’s Artists Engaging in Social Change (2015). In 2017, she won a “Bessie” Award for performance with skeleton architecture.
In addition to her art-making, McGregor has spent more than a decade investing in the leadership of other Black dance artists through Dancing While Black (DWB), which she founded in 2012 as a platform for community-building, intergenerational exchange and visibility among Black dance artists.

Photo credit: Melisa Cardona

http://angelaspulse.org/

River Whittle (They/Them/Theirs) is a Caddo, Lenape, and Irish-American interdisciplinary artist and youth mentor. River currently lives in occupied Tiwa territory in Albuquerque, New Mexico and is versed in photography, printmaking, and experimental video, and is learning jewelry (silver, copper and beadwork) and pottery. River’s work focuses on the fluid and giving relationship between ancestors and future, beyond binary colonial structures.

https://miarw96.wixsite.com/sipuindigenousmentor

Salem Tsegaye manages grantmaking in arts, culture, and historic preservation at The New York Community Trust. She also manages the Mosaic Network and Fund, a learning network and collaborative fund that aims to direct more resources to people of color-led arts and cultural organizations in New York City. She formerly managed the New York City Cultural Agenda Fund and Fund for New Citizens. Salem has previously worked as an arts research administrator, fundraiser, and technical assistance provider to government agencies and small and mid-sized nonprofits. She has a B.A. from Duke University and M.A. from The New School.

www.nycommunitytrust.org

Yanira Castro is a Puerto Rican born interdisciplinary artist living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). Since 2009, she has made participatory performances and interactive installations with a team of collaborators under the moniker, a canary torsi. Her work is rooted in communal construction as a practice of radical democracy and invites the public into co-creation. Castro is the recipient of the 2022 Herb Alpert Award for Dance and has received two New York Dance & Performance (a.k.a BESSIE) Awards for Outstanding Production, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship as well as various commissions, residencies and national project grant awards. She has been commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, New York Live Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Abrons Arts Center, Danspace Project, The New Museum, ISSUE Project Room, The Invisible Dog Art Center, The Chocolate Factory Theater, and EMPAC, among others, and has toured nationally and internationally. She has received residency support for her work including MacDowell, Yaddo, IN_Residence @ Dancehouse (Australia), LMCC’s Extended Life program, Gibney Dance Center’s DiP program, Choreographic Fellow at Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Artist Ne(s)t (Romania), and Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio, Italy). She is one of the co-authors of “Creating New Futures,” collectively-written documents drafted as calls-to-action to address deep-rooted inequities in the performance field.

Photo credit: Josefina Santos

www.acanarytorsi.org