Derrick Belcham is a Canadian filmmaker based out of Brooklyn, NY whose internationally-recognized work in documentary and music video has led him to work with such artists as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, Paul Simon, Yo Yo Ma, Ryuichi Sakamoto and hundreds of others in music, dance, theater and architecture. He has created works and lectured at such institutions as MoMA PS1, MoCA, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum Of American Art, Musee D'Art Contemporain, The Philip Johnson Glass House, Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati. His work regularly appears in publications such as The New York Times, Vogue, Pitchfork, NPR and Rolling Stone as well as being screened at short, dance and experimental festivals and retrospectives around the world.

Shira Kagan-Shafman is a New York–based dancer, choreographer, and producer. Her work has been presented at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Poster House, Arts On Site, Spring for Spring Dance Festival, Triskelion Arts, Green Space, Ki Smith Gallery, and Barnard College’s Movement Lab. She is a recipient of the 2023 B. Wilson Foundation Grant, was a 2023 artist-in-residence at Mother’s Milk, and is a 2024 LEIMAY Incubator artist.

Kagan-Shafman has performed in works by Joanna Kotze, Mariana Valencia, Ohad Naharin, Noa Zuk, Roni Chadash, Peggy Florin, Caitlin Corbett, Kelley Donovan, Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp, Dean Moss, Rebecca Stenn, jess pretty, and with the Aston Magna Music Festival.

Alongside her creative practice, she collaborates with opera singer and creator Davóne Tines and composer/multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey. She is the founder and producer of Artist Afternoons, a multidisciplinary performance series, and has produced projects throughout the United States and Europe, including at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Bozar, and the Barbican Centre.

Her choreographic work often involves multidisciplinary collaboration, partnering with visual and sound artists. Kagan-Shafman has guest lectured at Columbia University and is currently in residence at the Barnard Movement Lab, developing a new work with composer Ihlara McIndoe.

MT Laaperi grew up dancing in Portland, OR where they trained with the Jefferson Dancers. While creativity and art remained at the forefront of their world, MT felt a distance begin to grow in their relationship to dance as they worked to fi nd ways to navigate the dance community as a trans, autistic, queer artist. They found themselves working in special education where their creative problem solving and passion for equity found them in many district leadership groups seeking to change how students access and interact with the often rigid systems within schools. MT currently resides in Los Angeles where their enthusiasm for aesthetics, history with dance and performance, past work in education, and lens for equity, is ever present in the work that they do.

Marques Hanalei Marzan is a Hawaiian fiber culture bearer and contemporary visual artist raised in Kaneohe, Hawaii. His skills recognized throughout Hawaii and the Pacific where he serves as a mentor and advocate, promoting sustainable gathering practices, perpetuating Hawaiian fiber techniques, and instilling indigenous values in each of his students. Marques broadens his understanding of indigenous Oceanic perspectives through active cultural exchanges where he strengthens his commitment to his culture and champions the ideals of continuity and innovation.

Being a practicing artist for 30 years, Marzan’s work has been exhibited and collected by many prominent local, national, and international venues. When attending cultural and artistic gatherings, he regularly complements his visual art form with his cultural training in Hawaiian ceremonial protocol, dance, and chant. These activations contextualize Marzan’s work within the community and in doing so emphasizes the importance of function and intentionality.

Joan Osato is an award-winning visual and projection designer known for her innovative work in theatre and public art, often integrating technology to create dynamic, immersive experiences. Her notable collaborations include The Travelers, and Aztlán with Luis Alfaro, The River, Nogales and Translating Selena with Richard Montoya, We The People Before with Roberta Uno and First Peoples Fund, Last Days at Pu’unene Mill, and rasgos asiáticos with Tanya Orellana and Virginia Grise. She was the inaugural recipient of San Francisco Artist and Communities Grant, Theater Bay Area Award for Excellence in Video Design for Tribes, at Berkeley Rep, and the Surdna’s Artists Engaged in Social Change Award. Plays and films for Campo Santo include Garuda’s Wing and Richard II by Naomi Iizuka, Josephine’s Feast and Side Effects by Star Finch and Dirty White Teslas Make Me Sad by Ashley Smiley. Producing for The Living Word Project includes premieres and tours of Try/Step/Trip by Dahlak Brathwaite directed by Roberta Uno, and Word Becomes Flesh, Scourge, the break/s, red, black and GREEN: a blues and peh/LO/tah by Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Current work includes EARTH SEED by People’s Kitchen, Life is Living, and Waihona Kino. 

Born in Honolulu and raised in Los Angeles, Roberta Uno is a theater director and dramaturg. In 1979, she founded the New WORLD Theater in Amherst, MA, a theater dedicated to the works of artists of color, and served as its Artistic Director for 23 years, directing, producing or dramaturging over 200 works. In 2014, she was inducted into the College of American Theater Fellows at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Her dramaturgy credits span over four decades, working with a range of artists including James Baldwin, Alice Childress, Chitra Divakaruni, Mark Bamuthi Joseph, thúy le, Pearl Primus, Dawn Saito, Sekou Sundiata,  Keo Woolford, and William Yellow Robe Jr.  Most recently, she directed and co-created Try/Step/Trip by Dahlak Brathwaite, with choreographer Toran X. Moore, nominated in 2026 for NY Drama Desk Best Book, Lyrics, and Choreography awards. In 2022 she directed the milestone We The Peoples Before at the Kennedy Center honoring the First Peoples Fund 25th Anniversary. Uno co-leads Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima o Nuioka, the NYC extention of Kumu Vicky Holt Takamine’s Oʻahu-based hālau, Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima. Her most recent publication is FUTURE/PRESENT: Culture in a Changing America with co-editors Daniela Alvarez and Elizabeth Webb. 

(Tau) Peter Rockford Espiritu is the Executive & Artistic Director of Tau Dance Theater, the only professional dance company based in Honolulu founded by a native Hawaiian, marking its 30th anniversary in 2026. Tau choreographed the stage production of Disney’s ‘The Tale of MOANA’ on the ship, The Disney TREASURE. Tau is a 2023 ‘Dance USA Fellowship to Artist’; Western Arts Alliance Performing Arts Discovery Fellow; WESTAF BIPOC Fellow; Advancing Indigenous Performances Native Launchpad Fellow; and in 2022 was awarded the prestigious Intercultural International Choreographer’s Creation Lab residency at Banff Center for the Creative Arts in Canada. Tau choreographed the luau at the Disney’s ‘Aulani Resort and is a five-time Hawaii State Foundation for Culture and the Arts Choreographic Award winner. He has created three full evening length works: Hānau Ka Moku: An Island is Born; NAUPAKA: A Hawaiian Opera and POLIAHU: Goddess of Mauna Kea. The company presented five sold out performances at the Lincoln Center in New York City for the Festival of Firsts in 2022 and continues to be a driving force throughout of artistic realm of the greater Pacific and throughout our ‘Global Village’.

Little Feather is First Nation from the 3 fires Confederacy which is comprised of Ojibway Odawa and Potawatomi tribes. She is From Mnidoo Mnising which translated means "Home of the Great Spirit ", other wise known as Manitoulin Island located in Ontario.

She comes to us from 2spirited peoples of the First Nations based in Toronto as a former Crisis Response Specialist. & Designer from Project Runway Canada. With management experience from a National level at the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business. As well regional experience as Executive assistant for the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation. Little feather is happy to be here as she is also a two time Indigenous Haute Couture Residency of the Banff Centre.

Valerie Chen is a Taiwanese American artist whose love for dance and movement creation began in Irvine, California. In high school she attended the Orange County School for the Arts in the Commercial Dance Conservatory, developing herself as a multifaceted dancer in both the commercial and classical spheres. Valerie simultaneously trained at Dmitri Kulev Classical Ballet Academy and Jessie Riley’s Westside Dance Project. Continuing her dance education, Valerie received a BFA in Dance at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. While at Kaufman she witnessed new movement styles, a culture of care, and ingenious innovation which nourished her passion for performance and experimentation. She has performed works by Kyle Abraham, Hope Boykin, Jiří Kylián, Micaela Taylor, Justin Peck, Christopher Wheeldon, and Paul Taylor, among others. Upon graduating Valerie joined South Chicago Dance Theatre as a main company member where she performed works by Frank Chavez, Kate Weare, and others. She is currently a guest artist with SCDT and freelance artist based in Los Angeles. Valerie aspires to bring dance to new spaces, break boundaries of expectation, and share movement histories with each community she meets.

Stephanie Dai is a dancer, choreographer, and educator based in Los Angeles. She received her B.F.A. in dance as a 2019 inaugural graduate of the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance under the direction of Jodie Gates and William Forsythe. She has performed in the original choreographic works of the TL Collective, JA Collective, and BEMOVING in addition to dancing for COACH, GAP, Solange, CL, Porter Robinson, UNIQLO, and 88Rising. She is currently on faculty at the Los Angeles County High School of the Arts and has assisted with teaching and setting repertoire at the California Institute of the Arts and the University of Southern California dance programs. With her own work, Stephanie has been selected for residencies such as WIP LA at G-Son Studios, the Ghost Light Residency at the Barnsdall Theater, the USC Alumni Residency performance at the Glorya Kaufman Performance Center, and the Space Lab at LA Dance Project. Her most recent work “URETCHKO” premiered at Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles and was selected for the 2025 International Modern Dance Festival (MODAFE) in Seoul, Korea. She enjoys employing dance by means of feeling and images to convey the impalpable connections and hidden phenomena of life.