(He/Him/His)

Performer: Skin(s), Weave, WEave:HERE, yödoishëndahgwa’geh, she who lives on the road to war, Mind of Peace.

Writer: articles and poems on performance and creative process of Simas and Rosy Simas Danse.

Sam is an enrolled member of the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians whose research focuses on the transformative work of First Nations and Native American dance and theatre artists. Sam has danced in contemporary dance companies for 25 years, touring nationally and internationally.

Photo by Rosy Simas

(She/Her/Hers)

Performer: Skin(s), Weave, Weave:HERE, yödoishëndahgwa’geh, she who lives on the road to war, Mind of Peace.

Lela Pierce is a multiracial black visual artist and dancer. Lela finds inspiration from her childhood home near Hoǧáŋ Waŋká kiŋ (Dakota) aka Jiibayaatigo-ziibi (Anishinaabe) aka the St. Croix River Valley. Lela is currently pursuing a masters of fine arts in the interdisciplinary area of visual arts at the University of Minnesota.

(He/Him/His)

Composer: We Wait In The Darkness, Skin(s), Weave, Threshold, Transfuse, yödoishëndahgwa’geh, she who lives not he road to war, Mind of Peace.

François is a musician, composer, sound engineer and sound designer based in Montpellier, France. His work investigates the relation between sound/music and movement/dance, how vibration affects the body, movements of sounds using multiple speaker installations, and explores how dance and choreography can become a source language defining musical structure in composition.

francoisrichomme.net

(She/Hers)

Haudenosaunee (Seneca, Heron Clan), is a choreographer and film and visual artist based in Minneapolis. Her work investigates how culture, history and identity are stored in the body and expressed in movement. For more than twenty years she has created work that addresses a wide range of political, social and cultural subjects from a Native feminist perspective. She has received support from Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, First Peoples Fund, Guggenheim Foundation and McKnight Foundation, and she is a Dance USA Fellow as well as a Joyce Awardee.

(He/Him/His)

Fabrication Collaborator: she who lives on the road to war, Mind of Peace.

Performer: Weave, WEave:HERE, yödoishëndahgwa’geh, she who lives on the road to war.

is an interdisciplinary performance creator and producer working in Minneapolis for the past 12 years. He is a co-founder of the performance ensemble SuperGroup, which has created over 30 performance projects since its inception in 2008. SuperGroup has performed throughout the Twin Cities and nationally and is the recipient of a 2017 McKnight Choreographer Fellowship. Aside from SuperGroup, Jeffrey has worked with several arts organizations in a producing and administrative capacity including Red Eye Theater, DanceMN, Project Success, and Cornerstone Theater. Jeffrey is an accomplished performer and has worked with many performance makers including Pramila Vasudevan, Eric Larson/Toot Performance, Karen Sherman, Fire Drill, and Judith Howard among others. Jeffrey is also a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. For more information visit jeffrey-wells.com.

is a Venezuelan-American theater director, choreographer, educator, performer, writer and director of the Center for Moving Cultures. As an artist, Brito has performed with local and national companies, creating over 80 original works. The core of Brito’s work is the human body’s potential and activation—the work of clarifying choice-making through the knowledge gained within the direct experience of a moving sensing body. Brito’s recent work explores how to retain one’s cultural body within multiple demands for code-switching. 2021-22 projects include: Choreographer/Director of You Change Me for Northern Spark; The Roles of Queen B and Queenie in the musical QUEEN B and Aurora in Brujeria for Beginners; Co-Curator (with Harry Waters Jr.) of FUTURE NOW series; Srika writing residency in Croatia; Choreographer of A Binding Strangeness, Co-Director of Real Women Have Curves, and ongoing rehearsal and project development with Rosy Simas Danse Ensemble and Teatro del Pueblo.

www.lelisbrito.com

IG handle: @lelis.brito

(she/they)

projects with RSD include Threshold, it’s strange to be here, WEave:HERE, and she who lives on the path to war.

Erin Drummond is a multidisciplinary artist from Minneapolis. She has travelled nationally and internationally as a dancer and choreographer to work on a wide range of performance projects, and currently directs the dance program at Winona State University. Her artwork often explores mystery and the unknown, drawing philosophical and physical inspiration from forces of nature.

RSD Performer: Weave and she who lives on the road to war.

Sam does performance to reorganize again and again being a body. He works most frequently with performance collective SuperGroup but also often collaborates on projects led by other folks.

(She/Her/Hers/Flex)

RSD Performer Weave, WEave:HERE, she who lives on the road to war.

Lighting Designer: Skin(s)

Production Consultant for RSD Three Thirty One Space

Born in Singapore and based in the Twin Cities, Valerie is a performance maker, performer, designer and photographer. She is Co-Artistic Director Red Eye Theater collective and runs MOVO SPACE, a studio incubator for performance work and research.

www.valerieoliveiro.com

(They/Them)

Performer: Weave, WEave:HERE, she who lives on the road to war.

is a Venezuelan-raised, Minneapolis-based queer dancer / performance maker. Founder/director of Viva la Pepa, their works are fueled by the overlapping values of Latinx and Queer cultures: melodrama, passion, decadence, and sensuality. An inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Pedra continues a transnational collaboration with Argentinian choreographer Celia Argüello, spending time in natural landscapes researching the nature of the encounter. Pedra developed their recent work Contained, Alive as a U of MN Cowles visiting artist, in the Berkshires (MA), with Red Eye Theater, and through Candybox festival. Their previous work, Holy Doña, re-imagines the crucifixion as a queer performance ritual; they performed a preliminary iteration of this work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Pedra continues research weaving latinx immigrant identities, queer (gender/sexuality/activism) histories across the Americas: across time/colonizations, and nature; manifesting materially in their most recent 331 residency at Rosy Simas Danse space and continues in Guna Yala, May 2022. Pedra co-directs a children and family theater program Drag Story Hour, and entertains the adults at night as their draglesque persona Doña Pepa. Pedra is currently a teaching artist with Upstream Arts.

www.vivalapepa.org

Photo by Awa Mally courtesy of walker art center

(she/her)

Sharon Picasso is a Minneapolis, Mni Sota Makoce based movement, performance and transdisciplinary creative Artist and Founder/Artistic Director of Picasso Projects and Lupa Studio on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe.

Her work as a freelance performance and dance artist lives parallel to her work as a choreographer since 1995. Sharon’s creative and collaborative practice has expanded into design including sound, light and installation. Paramount in Sharon's collaborative process is cultivating an inclusive, respectful and sustaining creative environment where value is placed on the wholeness of an individual.

Sharon Picasso studied Theatre and Psychology at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and earned a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography from The Boston Conservatory.

Sharon is a recent recipient of a 2022 McKnight Dancer Fellowship. Sharon is grateful to have been consistently performing and collaborating as a freelance dance artist for decades. The relationships cultivated through the moving performing arts have offered her diversity in artistry, growth and renewed energy. She considers her long-time collaborative relationships and community as the greatest rewards of her craft.

www.picassoprojects.org

Photo by Canaan Mattson https://canaanmattson.com/

(She/Hers)

Performer: Skin(s), Weave:HERE, yödoishëndahgwa’geh, she who lives on the road to war.

Is an interdisciplinary choreographer, improviser, and sound artist. She has enjoyed presenting works at venues including Paikka, Fresh Oysters Performance Research (R.I.P.), Public Functionary, Bryant Lake Bowl, Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, Intermedia Arts (R.I.P.), Frey Theatre (Twin Cities, MN), Rochester Art Center and 9 Herkimer Place (Brooklyn, NY). She has recently enjoyed performing for/collaborating with others including Dua Saleh, Rosy Simas, Heather Kravas, Shayna Allen, lazer axelrood, Valerie Oliviero, Leila Awadallah, Judith Howard, Shayna Allen, Pramila Vasudevan, Megan Mayer, Emily Gastineau, and Erin Drummond. She is a 2017 Q-Stage: New Works and 2019 Momentum: New Dance Works recipient, and was part of the 2022 Red Eye Works-In-Progress cohort.

Jessika Enoh Akpaka

(She/Her)

Jessika Enoh Akpaka is a Creatrix born in Memphis and based in the Twin Cities. She is committed to liberation of self, humanity, and Earth through artistic expressions and spirituality. She is most recognized as a dancer and choreographer. Dancing , training , and performing while living in Memphis, her formal training began in musical theater at Lundstrum Center for the Performing Arts in 2009. She then trained at Perpich Center for Arts Education , TU Dance, and the University of Minnesota and received scholarships to study in New York at Garth Fagan Dance and Minnesota’s ARENA Dances. Currently a member of local companies Rosy Simas Danse and Atlantis13, Jessika has also worked and performed with STRONGMovement and SHAPESHIFT. She has choreographed for and taught students at Ballet Co. and Brooklyn Park. Jessika co-produced , choreographed , and performed in the sold out production “Listen.” that debuted at the Lab Theater in 2018.

(She/Her/Hers)

RSD Performer: Skin(s), Weave.

Zoë is an award winning acrobatic dancer, visual artist and light designer . She makes work as an indigenous, international adopted person, who was born in Colombia and raised in Brooklyn, NY.

www.ZoeKleinProductions.com

(She/Her/Hers)

Performer: Weave

Leslie is an award winning dance artist, performer, maker, improviser and educator whose rigorous research and practice in dance fusing forms (including the sacred) are derived of the African Diaspora.

(Taja/They/Them)

Performer: Skin(s), Weave, WEave:HERE, yödoishëndahgwa’geh, she who lives on the road to war.

Taja is a queer, chronically ill, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee, performer, choreographer, somatic therapist and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce, on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will’s work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through ritual, archetypes and everyday magic.

Taja maintains a dynamic Healing Justice practice that includes consulting with individuals, organizations, and communities in the context of workshops, conflict mediation, one-on-one somatic healing sessions, nervous system triage, board development and organizational cultural competency, and individual coaching on unwinding from white body supremacy culture. Taja is committed to working for healing and liberation of Black, Indigenous and people of color.

www.tajawillartist.com

Photo by Nanne Sorvold