André M. Zachery is a Chicago bred and now Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, scholar and technologist with a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University and MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts from CUNY/Brooklyn College. As the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group his practice, research and community engagement artistically focuses on merging of choreography, technology and Black cultural practices through multimedia work. André is a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Gregory Millard Fellow in Choreography and 2019 Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Choreography.

His works through RPG have been presented domestically and internationally, receiving support through several residencies, awards, commissions. These have included the CUNY Dance Initiative, Performance Project Residency at University Settlement, ChoreoQuest Residency at Restoration Arts Brooklyn, 3LD Art & Technology Center, HarvestWorks and a Jerome supported Movement Research AIR. Awarded grants have been from the Brooklyn Arts Council, Harlem Stage Fund for New Work and a Slate Property SPACE Award. Commissions have come from the Brooklyn Museum, Five Myles/BRIC Biennial and Danspace Project. 

As a scholar André has been a member of panels, led group talks, facilitated discussions and presented research on a myriad of topics including Afrofuturism, African Diaspora practices and philosophies, Black cultural aesthetics, technology in art and performance and on expanding the boundaries of art making within community. He has been a panelist and presented on his research at institutions such as Duke University, Brooklyn College, University of Virginia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Zachery has taught at Brooklyn College and been a guest faculty member at the dance programs of Florida State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, The Ohio State University and University of California Los Angeles.

http://www.renegadepg.com/

Ashley Ferro-Murray is Curator of Theater and Dance at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer in Troy, NY and is on the inaugural curatorial board for the Body, Image, Movement Biennial in Madrid, Spain. Ferro-Murray has also served as adviser for the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University and as faculty of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Institute for Digital Technologies in Theatre & Performance Studies at the University of Georgia. Ferro-Murray's curatorial practice focuses on expanding limited historical frames for performance and technology artworks and supporting artist-centered approaches to media futures. Commissions and co-productions include works by Mallory Catlett, Trajal Harrell, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Maria Hassabi, Ali Moini, Andrew Schneider, Alice Sheppard, Yara Travieso, and Ni'Ja Whitson. Publications include "Biological determinism - Evolutionary inertia, constraints" co-written with Justin Shoulder (forthcoming), “Transborder Immigrant Tool: Choreographic Resistance in the US-Mexican Borderlands” in HemiPress Gestures, and “Technologies of Performance: Machinic Staging and Corporeal Choreographies” in A Cultural History of Theater: The Modern Age published by Bloomsbury Press. Ferro-Murray holds a PhD in performance studies with emphasis in new media from the University of California, Berkeley.

http://www.empac.rpi.edu

Gabri Christa makes original works for stage and screen, hails from Curaçao, Dutch Caribbean and lives in New York City. Awards include the Guggenheim for Choreography, an ABC television award for creative excellence for her short film “High School” and Pangea Day Festival’s one World’s 100 most promising Filmmakers distinction. Her award winning films, have screened worldwide. Both her documentary “Un Dia Kada Momentu” and film“Kasita” can be seen on : www.Kweli.TV. Her choreography has been presented in NY on stages such as Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and Central Park SummerStage. She danced with companies such as Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, DanzAbierta and the Bill T. Jones /Arnie Zane Dance Company. Gabri Christa’s current work includes The Magdalena project, which includes a multimedia solo performance about dementia and trauma, short films and writings. She continues her ANOTHER BUILDING dance-film series which looks at the history of the Dutch Diaspora through buildings and sites related to it’s colonial past. She’s also the founding director and curator of the Bienalle Moving Body- Moving Image Festival In 2015, she wad appointed by Mayor Bill de to serve on the Cultural Advisory Commission for the City of New York. At Barnard College – Columbia University, Gabri Christa is an Associate Professor of Professional Practice at the Department of Dance, Faculty at the Filmstudies Program and directs the Movement Lab . www.gabrichrista.com

http://www.gabrichrista.com

Sydney Skybetter: Hailed by Dance Magazine as “One of the most influential people in dance today,” Sydney’s work has been performed at such venues as The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jacob’s Pillow and The Joyce Theater. He has consulted on issues of change and technology for The National Ballet of Canada, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Hasbro, New York University and The University of Southern California, among others. A sought-after speaker, he has lectured on the relationship of dance history to emerging surveillance technologies at Harvard , South by Southwest Interactive, Yale, Mozilla, and Stanford. He is a Public Humanities Fellow and Lecturer at Brown University where he researches the problematics of human computer interfaces and mixed reality systems. He has served as a Grant Panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts, is a founding member of the Guild of Future Architects, and is the winner of a RISCA Fellowship in Choreography from the State of Rhode Island. He received his MFA in Choreography from New York University.

https://www.skybetter.org