Founded in 2014, Bernard Brown/bbmoves creates dance theater work that cohere the visceral and the cerebral through an evocative movement language and socially relevant themes, prioritizing the grit, passion and perseverant spirit of people across the African Diaspora. Inspired by Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” the solo, “Anew,” merges Afrofuturism with social justice theory and asks “Can queerness make this world anew?”

Chibueze Crouch is a Nigerian-American performance artist & curator working across ritual theater, movement, song and video. Her interdisciplinary practice explores the nuances of Igbo cosmology, Afro-Diasporic longing, and queer identities in collaboration with her chi and communities. They are an organizer in the QTBIPOC Performing Artist HIVE, an audio describer with Gravity Access Services, and a co-curator of emerging artists with the Performance Primers. She is also one half of the directorial & performance duo, OYSTERKNIFE, with Gabriele Christian. A recipient of the 2019 RHE Foundation Artistic Fellowship for her multifaceted artistry, Chibueze has performed across the Bay Area and beyond, including with: Bandaloop, CounterPulse, Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women, the Playwrights Festival, Trinidad Theatre Workshop, Yale University, Mupa Budapest, and the Black Choreographer's Festival. They are currently based on Huichin, Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone territory (Oakland, CA).

JanpiStar was born and raised in Puerto Rico. With training in dance, theater, and education, JanpiStar moved to Oakland in January 2018 to join AXIS Dance Company and has had the opportunity to work with choreographers like Robert Dekkers, Arthur Pita and Jennifer Archibald. Their most recent work was for the 2019 Queering Dance Festival.

We connect over a shared interest in queer intimacy the relationship between camera and body. Through our intersecting identities we explore how our bodies are perceived live versus on-screen. Emphasizing care, equity and consensus we transform our experiences with sexualization and feminization into empowerment.

"How does my physical impairment define the contours of an aesthetic word?" Bay Area born-and-raised dance artist Octavia Rose Hingle will develop a solo using repetition and live video looping to explore the adaptive splendor of every day motion.

randy reyes (they/them) is a queer, AfroGuatemalan choreographer, performance artist, and healer born in New Jersey (Lenape territory) and is currently nomadic with roots in the San Francisco Bay Area (Ramaytush Ohlone territory). reyes is interested in choreography as excavation, channeling, emptying out, in task as meditation, Qi Energetics, edging; in getting messy by conjuring contemporary rituals within quotidian and natural landscapes. reyes explores the club space as a site of generative dissonance [alone, and together] and asks, “Are we celebrating or mourning or both? How do we prepare for the not yet seen?”

Río Saúl is an emerging, rural trans artist from Salinas, CA. In their hometown, they have

researched the artistic practices of local migrant trans Latina performers and has taught dance

with the Arts Council for Monterey County in public schools. They are interested in new

imaginings of justice, community autonomy, and are currently exploring the relationship

between geography, migration/movement, and embodiments of gender.

Heather Stockton (she/they) is a choreographer, educator, and collaborator with a passion for collective, creative growth and systemic change. Heather is the Co-Artistic Director and founder of the local dance collective, Wax Poet(s). As a queer fat femme, Heather is creating dances that are centered in fat liberation, joy, and pleasure.

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Aiano Nakagawa (they/she) is a Queer, big-bodied dance artist and educator. Their work aims to support people of all backgrounds in finding power, pleasure, and joy in their moving bodies. In their own practice, they are currently researching the ways in which Queerness deconstructs the boundaries of romance, friendship, partnership, sensuality, and family.