Born in Norfolk, Virginia (1963), Donna Nicole Booker spent most of her childhood between Waukegan Illinois and the San Francisco Bay Area. Coming of age in the Bay in the late 70s and 80s, her mentorship and leadership in community included support and advocacy for herself and other sex workers, leadership and eldership as a Black trans woman, support and stewardship of housing programs for abused women, collaborative contributions to Transcendence Gospel Choir, prison ministries and other efforts at City of Refuge, loving auntieship to all of the young people in her care, chosen and blood, advocacy in the medical system for HIV+ and trans women, and a multi-decade legacy of live performance across the Bay Area and beyond.

Arielle Julia Brown is a multidisciplinary cultural worker who commands and directs cultural spaces as sites for radical imagination, vision building and social transformation in her communities. Raised between Hayward California and Conley Georgia by her beloved migratory people, Arielle now also calls Philadelphia, PA home. Arielle’s practices traverse cultural strategy, performance curation, dramaturgy, facilitation and performance making.

As a facilitator she has been most transformed by her work on The Love Balm Project, a workshop series and performance that centers the testimonies of mothers who have lost children to systemic violence (2010 -2015) Arielle is the founder and director of Black Spatial Relics, a performance residency, regrantor and convener supporting Black radical performance. Arielle is also a co-producer of Remember2019, an effort to center the congregation of Black Phillips County residents in the wake of the Elaine Massacre. Recent dramaturgy credits include What We Ask of Flesh by Christal Brown/INSPIRIT (Jacobs Pillow Residency, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 2022) Grounds That Shout curated by Reggie Wilson (Philadelphia Contemporary 2019), Salt Pepper Ketchup by Josh Wilder (Interact Theatre/ Passages Theatre 2018)

Arielle was recognized by Intersection for the Arts as 2014 Changemaker. She was a Mellon Artistic Leadership Fellow for the 2014 Encuentro at LATC. She was a 2017-2018 Inaugural Diversity and Leadership Fellow at Alliance of Artists Communities. Arielle was a 2019 Monument Lab National Fellow. Arielle is a 2021 Leeway Transformation Awardee. Arielle is in the inaugural cohort (2021 -2024) of Called By Water conceived and led by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones and Sharon Bridgforth. Arielle received her B.A. in Theatre from Pomona College and holds an M.A. in Public Humanities from Brown University where she was the 2015-2017 Public History of Slavery Graduate Fellow with the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice.

Joyce Lu (she/they) | Movement Consultant

Bala Purkayastha (they/them)| Process Consultant

Tony Santiago (he/him) | Production manager

Fyzah Taj (they/them)| Production/Community Support

Ashley Teague (she/her) | Co-producer and Consultant

Ashley Davis (they/them) | Audio Performer/Witness

muthi reed (they/them) | Audio Performer/Witness

Raedorah Stewart (she/her) | Audio Performer/Witness

Elizabeth Nungaray (she/her) | Community Engagement Consultant

Angela Davis Johnson is a multi-disciplinary visual artist who explores dreaming, Black traditions/geographies, and body movement alongside her vibrant narrative paintings. Her works are formed with paint, scrap paper, hollering, light, and fabric. Davis Johnson has performed in a variety of locations-- from front porches to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and has exhibited throughout the United States. Davis Johnson has deep roots in the Arkansas Delta. As the mother of two continues to create and migrate, she maintains a studio in Atlanta.

GodXXX Noirphiles (Adrian Marie Blount)- Parent to Chance Aijuka/ Non Binary Femme Boi/Founder/Organizer/ Curator/DJ- Is based in Berlin by way of San Diego, CA. After attending San Francisco State to obtain their/her BA in theatre, she/they performed in New York, traveled across the country with a touring theatre troupe, then moved to Rhode Island to perform with various Brown University programs including the Center for Slavery and Justice, Brown/ Trinity and Trinity Repertory theatre. Since being in Berlin, Adrian has taught anti-racist and collective healing workshops with various organizations such as Dice Festival and Conference and AfriVenir, dj’d internationally, performed at Münchener Kammerspiele, Volksbühne, Gorki, Sophiensaele, Ballhaus Naunynstrasse and English Theatre Berlin (and others) and is the founder and lead organizer of the drag collective House of Living Colors for exclusively queer and trans BIPOC.

angel edwards is a tender flame, a blackqueerandtrans first-generation Jamaican and Philly-rooted artist. They invoke plush landscapes and emotional depths through movement channeling, photography, poetics, and filmmaking. angel is committed to healing their wounds by listening to the earth, their ancestors, themselves, and community.

They have learned their artistic gifts through non-institutional learning spaces because they don’t believe institutions validate our brilliance; relationships do, we do. angel cultivates black queer and trans magic and community every day. They hold this quote by genius Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

angel has worked with Yolanda Wisher as a movement artist In Pirate Jenny’s Conspiracy, and choreographed musicals at the University of the Arts Polyphone festival and Princeton University. angel has been an Artist in Residence at Urban Movement Arts, and their film THIS IS FOR US has been featured in film festivals globally. They are a Headlong Performance Institute Alumni. Vox Populi, the Center for Performance Research, The William Way Center, and Black Arts Matter Alberta have featured their choreographic and visual works. Their photographic work appears in mural and wheat pasting projects across the city of Philadelphia. The Leeway Foundation, Small But Mighty Arts, Mural Arts Philly, and Queer Art’s Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant have supported angel’s creative work. And most recently, they became a 2021 Pew Fellow.

Reggie Hughes is the brother of legendary blues performer Jimmy Hughes (blues ballad "Steal Away") and the cousin of Percy Sledge (known for the song "When a Man Loves a Woman," a No. 1 hit on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B singles). He spent a great many years of his life performing from when he was 17 years old with such greats as the Disco Legend, Sylvester ("You Make Me Feel Mighty Real," "Dance (Disco Heat)," and Alexander O'Neal (R&B singer, songwriter).

He has a long family history in music and continues that tradition in music with Master C & J (Jessie Jones, DJ Lugo Rosado). Reginald Hughes has also been the opening act for Renee and Angela, Natalie Cole and has performed with the legendary Drifters and The Chi Lites. In addition to his singing career, Regee has worked in stage plays with John Ruffin productions alongside Christian Keys and Darin Henson. He is the vocalist of the Master C & J team. This newly discovered talent is featured on Master C & J's music hits rooted from the urban sounds in Chicago.

Janelle Luster (she,they) is an award-winning community organizer, transgender activist, and native of the San Francisco-Bay Area. Janelle has been organizing and advocating for the rights of transgender people, PLWHIV, and sex workers locally and nationally for 6 years.. Janelle currently sits on the Board of Directors for SF Pride as well as Oakland Pridefest, she is passionate about community building and bringing community together.

Janelle identifies as a formerly incarcerated black transwoman, who has been impacted by the system due to the intersections of her identities. As such, she is dedicated to empowering those communities through access to services, resources, and social empowerment. Janelle has coordinated Black Trans Lives Matter protests and rallies, as well as virtual social spaces of empowerment during this pandemic.

Janelle is Director at TRANScend Retreat- a retreat for trans* community to come together to heal, organize, build solidarity, and relax, taking place Oct. 7th-9th,2022 at Saratoga Springs Retreat Center. Janelle also is co-founder of Oakland Trans March which takes place annually the first week of September in Oakland. Whenever free time is present Janelle enjoys spending time in the kitchen cooking up traditional southern cuisines, taking trips out of the bay and spending time with her fur babies Susie & Sharbo.

Marcelline Mandeng Nken is a current Masters of Fine Art Candidate at Yale School of Art. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Her most recent performances took place at The Kitchen in Manhattan as a part of Moor Mother’s record release and at the immersive art installation Ancestors returning again / this time only to themselves by Black Quantum Futurism in Philadelphia. She starred in the film 200 Nam Nam which was screened at Macao Milano in Milan, Italy and The Borscht Corporation in Miami. Past works have been shown at Trinity Square Video in Toronto, Canada, at the Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, MoMA Ps1 in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Navel in LA.

Najee-Zaid Searcy - All Pronouns with Respect (Composer)

Najee-Zaid Searcy is an interdisciplinary artist navigating the complexities and meanings of the concept of 'home' through his upcoming work titled "Immersion". Najee-Zaid is a 2021 3Arts award nominee and humbled to contribute sound design to fallawayinto. Learn more about Najee-Zaid at www.najeezaidsearcy.com.

Carlos Sirah is a writer, performer, dramaturg, and cultural worker who creates formal structures rooted in Black expressions of possibility that take the shape of concert, lyric prose, procession, film, and stageplays. Sirah's transdisciplinary work draws from the legacy of multiple aesthetic traditions: Black Arts Movement, Black Radical Tradition, Theatrical Jazz, and Blues.

Sirah has shown or developed work with The Flea Theater, The Playwright's Center, The Bushwick Starr, The Delta Cultural Center, Dodge Poetry Festival, The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK, The Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the National Veterans Art Museum.

His work has been supported with residencies or grants from the Vermont Studio Center, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Warrior Writers in collaboration with the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences, Ragdale, The Hambidge Center, The Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Millay Colony, The Blue Mountain Center, Network of Ensemble Theatres, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Writers Guild Foundation. Sirah is a member of the Remember2019 collective, and the emerging Veterans Art Movement. Sirah has been a Macdowell fellow and holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from Brown University.

A native of Charlotte, NC, sj swilley (they|them|theirs) is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Johnson C. Smith University where they received a BA in Dance and a BA in Communication Arts. swilley holds an MFA from Temple University where they initially began adjunct teaching. swilley is an alum of the American Dance Festival where they served as assistant rehearsal director to Michelle Gibson. Additionally, they are an alum of the Urban Bush Women's Summer Leadership Institute.

Through a multilingual approach to movement, swilley interrogates choreographic protest and sensual liberation. Artistically, swilley is fascinated with creative intersections that center on ways to liberate and empower black folx. They have been honored to work and study under great artists including Candace Jennings, PJ Pennewell, Shani Collins, and LaTanya Johnson. sj swilley is a Level 1 Embodiology® practitioner, a movement methodology created by Dr. S. Ama Wray. They have performed with Lela Aisha Jones|FlyGround, Martha Connerton/Kinetic Works, and Kariamu and Company.

They have presented work at the Cherry Street Pier Show, American College Dance Association, Loose Leaves Showcase, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia College Chicago, swilley has been an educator at Temple University, Barber-Scotia College, and Denison University. swilley is a 2020-2021 performance fellow with Queer Art, and a 2020 recipient of the Rose Vernick Artistic Transformation Award.