Chia-Lun Chang (she/her) was born and raised in New Taipei City, Taiwan. Her work appears in Literary Hub, PEN America, Hyperallergic, Bettering American Poetry Volume 2, Vinyl, Los Angeles Review of Books, Brooklyn Rail, and Bone Bouquet, among other publications. She’s the author of a chapbook, One Day We Become Whites (No, Dear/Small Anchor Press, 2016) and has been supported by fellowships from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Tofte Lake Center, and Poets House.

Fellowship Statement

I came to the United States to continue my studies, earning a second bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and a master’s degree in poetry. In these programs and through my work in the writing community, I have deepen my understanding of colonization, women’s rights, and patriotism. Even today, it is difficult to find authentic representations of Taiwan, written by ethnic minorities and native people. Seeking representation, I found two books which spoke to me—Notebook of a Return to the Native Land by Aimé Césaire and Dictée by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. I admire Césaire for combining anger, violence, colors and temperatures. In Dictée, Cha uses the text as an extension of her body and demonstrates the possibility of developing one’s own multilingual, hybrid-genre voice. With Cha and Césaire as my guides, I have been working on a poetry memoir in which I grapple with the conflict and confusion of identity issues, the lost history of island residents, postwar survival, the causes of female oppression, and the act of speaking out. As a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, I will expand my first chapbook, One Day We Become Whites, into a book-length project—a Taiwanese poetry memoir.

D. Allen (they/them) is a multidisciplinary poet and artist living in Minneapolis. Their first hybrid poetry collection, A Bony Framework for the Tangible Universe (The Operating System, 2019), weaves together poems, lyric essays, dictionary erasures, and images in response to the poet's diagnosis with a connective tissue disorder, asking: What holds us together when the body falls apart? D.’s writing has appeared in QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology, District Lit, Rogue Agent, Lockjaw Magazine, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. D. has recently received a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, an Emerging Artist Grant from VSA Minnesota, and a Minnesota Emerging Writers’ Grant from The Loft; they have been a resident at the Mallard Island Artist Residency, The Lighthouse Works, Write On Door County, the Andrews Forest, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. D. earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota in 2017.

Fellowship Statement

D.’s poetic practice is oriented around presence. Their work takes many forms: word architectures, light drawings, textured surfaces, slow dinners, layered sounds, sustained listening, temporary assemblages, quiet gardening, exploratory movements. Through their work across media and disciplines, D. navigates pain and illness, queer kinship, sex and intimacy, the natural world, and the realities of queer, genderqueer and disabled embodiment. Collaboration and relationship-building are vital to D.’s artistic life.

Currently, D. is developing their first full-length stage work using text, images, light, sound, movement, and large-scale handknit textiles with the support of a 2019 Q-Stage: New Works Fellowship from 20% Theatre Company. D. is also working on a collection of researched lyric essays, while pursuing new collaborations and smaller-scale experimental projects across disciplines.

Photo by poet Roy G. Guzmán.

André M. Zachery (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist and founding artistic director of Brooklyn-based Renegade Performance Group (RPG). Zachery’s practice, research and community engagement artistically focuses on Black/African Diaspora cultural practices through the mediums of choreography, site-specific projects, film, digital projection, audio installations and responsive technology. He is a former Jerome Foundation supported Movement Research artist-in-residence and a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship/Gregory Millard Fellow in Choreography. He has served as a guest faculty artist in dance departments at Florida State University, Virginia Commonwealth University and Ohio State University. His works have received acclaimed reviews from the New York Times, Culturebot and other notable publications. RPG has presented work at Danspace Project, The Kennedy Center, Wexner Center for the Arts, Harlem Stage and the Brooklyn Museum. Zachery extensively collaborates with artists of various genres and mediums to create innovative projects that expand notions of performance and space.

Fellowship Statement

I am interested in dimensionality as a means to disrupt and dismantle hierarchy. Currently, my work and research in Afrofuturism reconsiders the relationship of the Black body in digital landscapes to recoding (virtual) reality. The presence, experiences and narratives of the African Diaspora are severely lacking in the field of performance and technology. For me dimensionality offers the ability to shape and form our stories, legacies, myths and sense of place with complexity and nuance in consideration to time. Moving forward, I want to find ways to actualize the conversation and theory of Black futurity into physical and material spaces.  I want people to input their information into a constructed environment where the material and physical architectures interact cohesively with supporting sonic and visual elements, exploring how Afrofuturism can be a generative mechanism to address societal issues with parity, equity and resourcefulness

Photo by Rachel Neville.

Darrius Strong (he/him) is a Twin Cities based choreographer, dancer, and educator whose creative work has been performed in Walker Art Center’s Choreographers Evening and Rhythmically Speaking. He was featured in the 2015 New Griots Festival as well as an American Standard Billboard advertisement in New York City Time Square in 2016. He was a 2017 Momentum New Works recipient. Strong has created works for Threads Dance Project, Flying Foot Forum, Alternative Motion Projects, and most recently was commissioned to create a new work for James Sewell Ballet. Strong developed his own dance company STRONGmovement in 2015. He is a faculty member at Saint Paul Conservatory Performing Arts High School, TU Dance Center. At Eleve Performing Arts Center, he teaches young dancers how to connect their identity to movement. Strong is also a company member of Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater.

Fellowship Statement

I tell stories through movement. I feel that our bodies tell stories and it’s up to us as individuals to define those stories. As a child it was hard for me to communicate my feelings through words, so I began to rely on movement as an outlet in times of sadness, frustration, anger, and other emotions.

I created my own dance company, STRONGmovement, because I truly believe that movement empowers conversation between dancers and audiences. Conversation invokes community building, an aspect of my background in hip hop I center in my work. Through the movement I create, I desire to empower others, create communities, inspire people to invest in themselves and their stories.

Photo by Bill Cameron.

Deneane Richburg (she/her) grew up a competitive figure skater, spending time in spaces where she felt she had to check her racial/cultural identity at the door, as the predominantly white skating world excluded her ancestry’s truths. To quote Zora Neale Hurston, Deneane always felt “most colored when [she was] thrown against a sharp white background.” As an adult, she realized the need to carve out a space for her ancestral history, so she established Brownbody, a creative home for her artistic work that fuses theater, dance, social justice practice, and skating. Through Brownbody, she honors the complex narratives of Black diasporic communities. As a modern dance choreographer and skater, Deneane is interested in expanding creative expression on the ice by engaging ancestral narratives as a framework for movement exploration. Deneane is a grateful recipient of a 2017 McKnight Choreography Fellowship administered by the Cowles Center and funded by The McKnight Foundation.

Fellowship Statement

I fuse different movement worlds; a modern dance choreographer that presents works on and off of the ice. The themes of my work range from visual objectification through the story of Saartjie Baartman to issues of re-memory through a piece based on Toni Morrison’s Beloved. My latest on ice evening length work is Quiet As It’s Kept, which focuses on the Reconstruction era and rise of Jim Crow laws. I’m interested in ensemble work on the ice. As a dancer I’ve performed with companies in ensemble pieces and have learned to appreciate the intricacies and manipulation of group nuances—engaging many bodies to create a fully realized and unified statement. I am interested in exploring the power of these elements on the ice in telling stories relevant to my ancestral history. Currently I am working on an ice ensemble piece that explores American Black social dances of the 17th through 19th centuries.

Photo by Alice Gebura.

As an independent choreographer and Choreographic Associate with Ragamala Dance Company, Ashwini Ramaswamy’s (she/her) work references ancient myths and ritualistic practices, global literature and poetry, and the mixed media contemporary culture she has absorbed for over 30 years. Her work draws from myriad influences to express a personal identity with universal resonance. Celebrated for her ability to “[weave] together, both fearfully and joyfully, the human and the divine” (New York Times), Ashwini has studied Bharatanatyam since the age of five. She has toured extensively with Ragamala, performing throughout the U.S. and in Russia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, the U.K, and India. Ashwini's choreographic work has been presented by the Cowles Center, the Yard, and the Joyce Theater, among others. Her work is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s US Artist International, and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, among others.

Fellowship Statement

I have spent decades steeped in the south Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam. I am committed to maintaining the beauty, technique, rigor, and values embedded in the form as it has been taught to me, while creating my own personal vision of women’s representation in performance. Like a phantom limb, my Indian ancestry lingers within me, informing my artistic work and daily interactions; my upbringing in both India and the U.S. has encouraged an aesthetic perspective with a hybrid internal compass. As an artist of diaspora, I am a cultural carrier with an instinct to move within ancestral patterns. There is a continuum between what we perceive as real/tangible and what we accept as unknown/unknowable; this gravitation between the human, the natural, and the metaphysical—which are forever engaged in sacred movement—is a focal point in my work.

Photo by Ed Bock.

Leslie Parker is a dance artist, performer, director, maker, improviser and educator holding a BFA from Temple University in Choreography and Modern dance technique and a MFA from Hollins University in partnership with the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, The Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and The Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company in Frankfurt, Germany. Leslie is a 2017 Bessie award winner and a Jerome Hill Foundation Artist Fellow 2019 -2021. She has a rigorous research and practice in dance forms derived of the African Diaspora. She designed “Moving Dialogue for Non-Violence” using dance art as a platform for Broadway Women’s House Shelter in Brooklyn, New York and at The Family Place in Saint Paul, MN. She is currently a member of the collective, Skeleton Architecture based in New York. Her director credits include co-director and choreographer for IHOTB MayDay Tree of Life Ceremony; choreographer for Jimmy & Lorraine: A Musing by Talvin Wilks; and Ping Chong and Talvin Wilks for Collidescope 4.0.

Additional credits include, crystal, smoke n’spirit(s) presented by Momentum: New Dance Works at Frey Theater St. Catherine’s University; Crossroads/Gateways pt 2. at the Walker Art Center’s Choreographer’s evening; Bone Womyn Traces in Black at Hollins University (Roanoke, VA) and at Southern Theatre; Ripen: Forbidden Truth In da Flesh Pt.2 at Pillsbury House Theatre “Mama Laurie’s Late Nite Series”; Center for Performance Research's Fall Movement Series (NY, NY); and New York Live Arts. Parker choreographed an original work, In Search of Colors, as faculty for University Dance Theater (UDT) at U of MN Theatre and Dance dept. Currently, Leslie Parker Dance Project, is in residence for Spring 2021 at Pillsbury House Theater and Pangea World Theater.

Fellowship Statement

I am a dance artist, performer, dance maker, educator and improviser, trained in and experimenting with an aesthetic rooted in the Black experience. I make dances that explore spirituality, identity and social justice to spark questions and conversations with and between people.  As an improviser, I invite observers to a real-time exchange through movement, sound, space and the body. Described by choreographer Bill T. Jones as “haunting,” former Director of Quixote Foundation, June Wilson describes the experience of “watching Parker’s work is like being a voyeur; the intimacy and emotional energy of her movement makes you want to look away and yet it’s impossible to stop watching.”

Photo courtesy of Leslie Parker.

Dustin Maxwell (he/him) is a dancer, choreographer and visual artist originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, now based in Brooklyn, New York. In New Mexico he trained in Graham and Limon with his dance “mother,” Joanne Emmons. He has a BA in Dance from the University of Minnesota and extensive training in Yoga and Butoh. As a freelance dancer he has worked with Aniccha Arts, Chris Schlichting, Morgan Thorson, and many others. His choreography and performance installations have been shown in galleries, theaters, basements and alleyways in Minnesota, New York and Germany. He was a nominee for the 11th Annual Sage Awards, Outstanding Performer.

Fellowship Statement

I work primarily within the modalities of somatic improvisation and butoh. Being born queer into a Mormon family of eight has shaped my perspective in many ways. Sexuality, spirituality and the experience of otherness are major themes in my work. My choreography is highly visual and minimal in movement relying on the innate history, ancestry, cultural identity and politics inherent in the body. My body is a field for knowing that which is seen and unseen; that which lies beyond the boundaries of the mundane. My artistic endeavors use performance as a method for connecting with others at this essential level and perhaps provoking “awakeness.” I believe this expands the limits of consciousness which is a radical and subversive action.

Photo by Justin Hickman.

Pedra Pepa (they/them) is a Venezuelan, queer Latinx performance artist, as well as a teaching artist with Pillsbury House Theatre and Upstream Arts. They have performed and produced over ten Drag Story Hours at multiple Twin Cities locations, supported by a Minnesota Center for Humanities grant. Doña Pepa, Pedra’s drag/burlesque persona and choreographic lens, has graced stages locally (First Avenue Mainroom, Minneapolis Burlesque Festival, Lush, Gay 90’s, University of Minnesota) and in Puerto Rico. Noche Bomba, which incorporates Doña Pepa, was presented by 20% Theatre’s Q-STAGE and will tour to Winona State University in April 2019. Solo-versions were performed at Walker Art Center’s Choreographers’ Evening and at Galería Oro in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Pedra’s newest work, Holy Doña, will premiere at Red Eye Theatre’s 2019 New Works 4 Weeks Festival. Initial research for this project has been shared at 1er Coloquio sobre Hombres+ y Masculinidades in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Fellowship Statement

I am Pedra Pepa. I am a queer, gender-fuck, Venezuelan immigrant, Latinx, brown performance maker in Minneapolis.

My choreographic work is deeply personal, it is about my everyday experience, the coexistence of my oppressions and my identities. I create work that denounces current injustices. The work begins within me, then I transfer it to and cultivate it with other performers. I play with movement expression, singing, sound-making, draglesque, and visual media to create specific imagery, supported by costumes and props. I am interested in facilitating emotional journeys for audiences to ride with me and the performers.

“Draglesque” is my current solo research, a larger-than-life expression/explosion of gender, where my body transcends all social parameters. A space of radical freedom and self-love. This process is how I finesse and craft my skills as I mold my character(s). It is both a celebration and a transgression

Photo by Nic LaFrance.

Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly (he/him) is the artistic director of New Brooklyn Theatre. In 2009 he founded the dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory. The two companies merged in 2018. Raja has been awarded a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (2018), Dance Magazine's inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), and, twice, the Princess Grace Award (2017, 2018). He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a BA in Dance and English from Connecticut College. Raja has been awarded a New York Dance Performance Bessie Award, a Bessie Schonberg Fellowship at The Yard, a DanceWEB Scholarship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship, a HERE Arts Fellowship, a 2018 Creator-in-Residence at Kickstarter and a Choreography Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University.

Fellowship Statement

I am obsessed with the development of popular culture over the last thirty years. My work unabashedly appropriates the structures, themes, and aesthetics found in reality television, celebrity culture, and social media (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook), then deconstructs it into new works which combine dance, theatre, and visual media. My aim is to challenge audiences to recognize their own implication in popular media: how media has trained and molded their desires, relationships, and identities. My movement-based performances combine fashion shows, gallery exhibitions, drag, stand-up comedy, minstrel shows, and stage-plays into a single, overwhelming, over-saturated Gesamtkunstwerk in which artists and audiences experience their shared humanity. I rehumanize our over-mediated experience of reality.

Photo by Thomas Dunn.