Photo by George Emilio Sanchez
Randy Reyes is queer Latinx choreographer-dance artist-curanderx with roots connecting the geographies of Guatemala, Massachusetts, NYC, Germany, Chile, Ecuador, & Nicaragua. This past summer he was a Creative Dissent Fellow at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) learning under the direction of Tania Bruguera & the Arte Util team as well as completed a 72-hour permaculture design course at Soul Flower Farm. Randy has now relocate to Los Angeles to begin an MFA in Dance program at UCLA where he will continue weaving together his interests in spiritual-environmental ecologies, queer choreography/systems of improvisation, and international-domestic exchange between artists, activists, ecologists, & healers.
Support Randy by donating to their Kickstarter all-or-nothing campaign, which ends on Aug. 11! All funds/donations will go directly towards supporting their cast who are amazing folks identifying along the spectrum of {queer- first generation – POC} and to expanding their production budget to include a sound artist from NYC and set designer.
Stephanie Hewett: Stephanie Hewett is a Bronx, New York native currently based in Oakland. She completed a one-year program at the Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, UK, and received a BA in Dance from Trinity College. She is a recent graduate of the MFA in Dance program at Mills College and enjoys caffeine, collaborations, and clarity.
Jose Abad:
Jose Abad is a queer social practice performance artist based in San Francisco, California. Born in Olongapo City, Philippines to a Filipinx Mother and a West Indian Father, Jose uses dance and storytelling to explore the complexities of cultural identity, feelings of landlessness and the memories and wisdom held within the body that the mind has forgotten, or history has erased. Abad has had the opportunity to perform in New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco in collaboration with a variety of companies and artists including Keith Hennessy, Scott Wells, Anne Bluethenthal, Brontez Purnell Dance Company, #DignityInProcess and Detour Dance.
Emelia Martinez-Brumbaugh:
Emelia is a gender, sexual and geographical border crosser.
They white/latinx Chesapeake bay beast
source the power and creativity that
lives in between
personal and interpersonal divides,
the rainbow of perspectives,
to honor/hone
the potential/unknown/divine
for choreography
of a new reality.
years on years of serious play & social inquiry
facilitating embodied creative curiosity with adults and youth
from Mexico City to Washington, D.C.
Based in the Oakland bay area
Felix (Sol) Linck Frenz:
Felix Linck Frenz is a white queer artist, activist and femme-ish person who lives in Berkeley, CA. Born in Baja California to a German-Chilean mother and a formerly Texan father, Felix moved to Los Angeles at the age of ten already with many questions about origins, place, and personhood. She continues to think through these ideas in relationship to power, privilege and healing both as an experimental dancer and as a housing justice organizer. Felix is honored to be a part of Lxs Desaparecidxs and has been deeply moved by and through this collaborative process.
Gabriel Christian:
Gabriel Christian (t(he)y/(t)him) is a multidisciplinary artist/teacher. After receiving a BA in Theatre Studies from Yale in 2013, their work pivoted towards reifying queer desire, genderfluidity (or “juicyness”) and black resilience through conceptual art and performance. They’ve held residencies at Destiny Arts Center and Finnish Brotherhood Hall, and mounted/supported works at Counterpulse, SOMArts, CTRL+SHIFT Gallery, Brava Theater, Eureka Theater, and Stanford University. Upcoming projects include a residency with This Will Take Time in Point Arena, revisiting twenty-nine collaborations about Black Presence and using them as talismans for negotiating Black
Prescience. (www.blackpresence.xyz)
[Artist photo of Randy Reyes at This is What I Want (Tessa Wills) by Robbie Sweeny]
Amara Tabor-Smith (she/her/we) is a choreographer/performance maker and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater. On Tuesday September 14th as part of the CounterPulse Festival 2021, we will be hosting Embodied Divination, a movement-based workshop where participants are invited to “contemplate their body as oracle, as compass, and a site for social repair”. Limited […]
At the CounterPulse Festival this September, The Performance Primers will be hosting a virtual panel discussion and mixer titled “Queeratorial Collectives Do It Themselves“. This conversation will explore how working on a grassroots level outside conventional venues and capitalist values opens up new possibilities and invites deeper engagement among audiences and artists. Ahead of this […]
With the CounterPulse Festival 2021 just one week away, we are so excited to be opening our doors to the public once again! CounterPulse exists, above all, to make space for people to gather and to be united in collective experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged us to change and shift the ways we bring people […]
While at CounterPulse I first felt out the space and listened to mentor Joanna Haigood and used the first moments to get into my body and meditate on how I wanted to utilize it as a tool to begin telling these stories which I am still learning but that also live within me. I did […]