B.F.A. in Dance Performance, George Mason University's Honors College; M.A. in Performance Studies, New York University
Leila's research sits at the intersection of Middle Eastern studies, movement, sound, memory, performance studies, and decolonization. Particularly drawn toward the deepening of conversations surrounding music and dance, Leila considers the value of ephemeral forms, particularly those connected to Palestinian resistance movements. She carries her experience as a dancer, choreographer, community organizer, and writer into her work as she investigates temporal forms...
Dahlia's research and multimedia work investigates the performance of the quiet and seeks unlikely sources of virtuosity. She is a recipient of the Jacob Javits Fellowship, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Choreography, and the National Dance Project Touring Award. Between 2017-2019, she was invited to tour the state of Alabama to connect with communities around themes of migration, immigration, and dislocation as part of the state's bicentennial.
B.A. in Ethnic Studies, minors in African American and Chicano Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Pablo is the son of Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian migrants, a US Navy veteran/war resister, student-parent, spoken word artist and Bombero from the South Bronx, New York. With permission from local Bomba Maestraxs and elders, his research archives and digitally chronicles the identity formation, healing, resistance and solidarity work that Afro-Taino Bomba ceremony performs in the Puerto Rican Diasporic communities of California.
B.A. in Anthropology, Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies, University of Chicago
Vincente Perez (he/they) is a Black Mexican-American performance poet, scholar, and writer working at the intersection of Poetry, Hip-Hop, and Black digital praxis. They examine the ways that poetry and Hip-Hop narrate life otherwise and approach poetry as a research methodology and an object of study. He holds a B.A. in Anthropology and Comparative Race & Ethnic Studies from The University of Chicago (2016). They are a 2021-22 Poetry and the Senses Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Arts...
Evan Sakuma (he/they) 'comes out' from the East Asian ethnic enclave of Monterey Park, CA. Their work, hardened further by the 'Queerantine', centers the performance of care within queer communities of color. While a theory head at times, Evan incorporates praxis of 'Gaysian' community building and artistry to actively seek safe spaces for his Asian queer community so head, heart, and home can be found—always.
B.A. in History, Ethnicity & Race Studies, Columbia University
Crystal’s dissertation brings a sustained ethnographic focus to communities of Asian American ballroom dancers, with an interest in how model minority imperatives, feelings, and affiliations are negotiated through embodied practice. Her work is forthcoming in TDR and Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies.
B.A. in Theatre Arts, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, University of Minnesota; M.A. in Applied Theatre Arts, University of Southern California
Rebecca is a theatre artist, educator, and organizer with a commitment to community engagement through participatory practice. Her research focuses on the entanglements of settler colonialism, processes of racialization, and global capitalism within contemporary practices of socially engaged theatre and performance. Rebecca’s current project brings new southern studies and performance studies into productive dialogue in order to...
B.A. in Human Development and Fundamentals: Issues & Texts, University of Chicago; M.F.A. in Creative Writing-Poetry, Louisiana State University
Born in Bogotá, Jennif(f)er is Nancy’s daughter. She is a queer, latinx writer and performer whose research attends to (the performativity of) contemporary poetry readings, asking the questions: what knowledges does the voice hold that are distinct from language; if a body is a site of ancestral knowledges, how do the violent legacies of slavery and settler colonialism haunt contemporary poetry readings? A former CantoMundo Fellow and...
B.A. in Theater and Performance Studies, M.A. in Art History, Stanford University
Silk Worm’s research focuses on artistic communities in the San Francisco Bay Area from the Summer of Love to the present. At Berkeley, she intends to study Bay Area countercultures through the lens of broader themes including migration and intercultural performance, gentrification and displacement, and the history of psychoactive drugs. Having worked in Bay Area queer nightlife as a drag performer, DJ, and producer since 2014, Silk continues to produce two monthly drag shows and...
B.S. in Journalism, Asian Languages and Cultures, Northwestern University
Jaclyn's current research focuses on race, tourism and digital technology. Other interests include Asian and Asian American popular cultures, animality studies, science fiction, queer studies, and high strangeness.