Noelle Awadallah نوال )she/her) is a Palestinian-American choreographer, dancer, improviser, and farmer residing in Mni Sota Makoce (Minneapolis). She is the Co-Artistic Director of Body Watani Dance alongside Leila Awadallah. For six years (and counting), Awadallah has also been dancing with Ananya Dance Theatre. She holds a BFA from Columbia College Chicago (2018).  Awadallah’s daily pursuit of a “land-based life” emerges from sumud—a Palestinian ideology guiding steadfast perseverance and rootedness in land. Sumud drives her commitment and artistic approach to multi-directional attention, storytelling, resistance and liberation practices, grief and rage, futuristic imagination as a strategy, and tending to her reciprocal relationships with land and non-human beings. She has presented work at multiple venues such as Red Eye, University of Minnesota, MOVO, Mixed Blood Theatre, and The Southern Theater. She is the recipient of the 2020 Hinge Arts Residency, a 2023 MOVO Residency, New Works Isolated Acts through Red Eye Theater, and the 2024 Creative Individuals Grant through the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Fellowship Statement

Over the next three years, I will be in embodied research concerning the connections between Palestine and South Dakota. I am planning to research Palestinian stories of land, exile, erasure, and displacement to the stolen land I grew up on in South Dakota to where I currently reside in Mni Sota Makoce. I am questioning how these three versions of home converse in birthplace, living place, and roots of origin, while examining principles of Land Back and the Right of Return. My multidisciplinary approach includes site-specific improvisation, writing, dance, and farming explorations. This fellowship will begin my research into farming and dancing side by side, as both laborious and ancestral practices held in the container of Body Watani, with my sister and creative collaborator Leila Awadallah.

Photo by Sabrina Jasmin.

Katayoun Amjadi is an Iranian-born, Minneapolis-based artist, educator, and curator. Her work considers the sociopolitical systems that shape our perceptions of self and other, such as language, religion, gender, politics, and nationalist ideologies. Her art probes relationships: between past and present, tradition and modernity, and individual versus collective identity. Her work simultaneously seeks to spur discussion about our place in the temporal arc and the interwoven roots of our histories. Amjadi holds an MFA in ceramics and sculpture from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Her work has been exhibited at Minnesota Museum of American Art, Weisman Art Museum, South Dakota Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Beijing Film Academy, and Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts among others. Selected awards include MCAD-Jerome Emerging Artist (2020/2021), Artist Initiative Grants (2015/2019), and Creative Individual Grant (2024) from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Fellowship Statement

My work is essentially a form of social practice based in ceramic objects and installations, with an emphasis on aesthetic clarity and public engagement. Colloquially I am the village potter, the storyteller. I want the stories I tell to resonate, illuminate, inspire or provoke: to cause one to think deeply, see differently, to feel passionately.

I have always been intrigued with the fluidity of ceramics moving between art and craft, the sacred and profane. My work is in constant dialogue within this realm, exploring curios and collectibles, the lost artifact, or forgotten story, consumable goods and souvenirs. I seek to carry the many references of their original voice, and to develop a grammar of objects; to discover the narrative threads that bind local to global, personal to universal. The question always remains: how do I develop a language, and thus tell a story through gathered artifacts? 

Photo by Sarah Sampedro.

Tarek Abdelqader is a Minneapolis-based composer and musician. He has produced and performed his own work under various monikers and with myriad collaborators, and regularly supports regional and international artists and bands as a drummer. He was a 2018-19 Cedar Commissions awardee and a 2019 Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Fund recipient, which enabled him to travel throughout Palestine for research related to his debut EP, Ramallah, 8/22. Abdelqader also works as an accompanist, composer, and sound designer for dance collectives based in the Twin Cities and New York, including Ananya Dance Theater, Paula Mann, and Limón Dance Company. Most recently, he composed the score for Palestinian-American dance collective Body Watani’s After the Last Red Sky, a dance performance and ritual gathering to hold the weight of—and imagine healing for—the Palestinian sky.

Fellowship Statement

During this fellowship period, I intend to honor my existing commitment to deep instrumental practice while expanding the edges of my artistry. I will write and create with familiar Minneapolis faces and with new collaborations forged in Beirut, Lebanon. I will begin writing with the goal of a 2026 release of my debut album, which will feature many dear collaborators and friends. More concretely, I will continue my work with Body Watani dance collective on After the Last Red Sky, which will tour within the U.S.—and hopefully beyond—in 2025/26. I look forward to continuing my support of artists within and outside of my Midwest ecosystem while giving my own work the time and attention it needs to flourish.

Photo by Sharolyn B. Hagen.

Sam Aros-Mitchell (he, him, his) is an enrolled member of the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians. As an Indigenous art-maker and scholar, Aros-Mitchell’s work spans the disciplines of choreography, performance, sound/light/scenic design, and embodied writing.  Aros- Mitchell holds a Ph.D. in Drama and Theater from the joint doctoral program at UC San Diego/UC Irvine, an MFA in Dance Theatre from UC San Diego, and a BFA from UC Santa Barbara. Since 2017,he has worked with Rosy Simas Danse (RSD) as a performer, teacher, and community engagement organizer. He has performed with RSD in Skins (2018), Weave (2019), Simas short film, yödoishëndahgwa’geh (2021), and she lives on the road to war (2022-2024). Aros-Mitchell is currently collaborating with Dante Puleio, Director of Limón Dance in New York City by restaging/reconstructing two original Limón pieces, the Indio solo from Danzas Mexicanas (1939) and “the Deer solo” from The Unsung (1970). This marks a new passage for Aros-Mitchell and for Limón Dance, in sharing the proud lineage of Yaqui ancestry. Aros-Mitchell is a 2023 McKnight Dance Fellow.

Fellowship Statement

As a Jerome Fellow, I aim to expand my interdisciplinary practice, rooted in Indigenous cosmologies, to create immersive, contemporary performances that resonate with both ancestral traditions and present-day experiences. With the Fellowship, I plan to develop new works that bridge movement, storytelling, and soundscapes, fostering collaboration with Native and BIPOC artists. Central to my vision is exploring the performance space as a sacred, transformative realm where cultural memory and innovation intersect. The Fellowship will support the creation of a new performance series inspired by Yaqui creation stories, incorporating experimental music and movement workshops with community participants. It will also enable me to refine my technical skills in sound and lighting design, further deepening the impact of my work. By engaging with local and national audiences, I hope to amplify Indigenous excellence in the arts, cultivating a shared space for healing, resistance, and celebration through performance.