PERFORMING ARTISTS
PERFORMING ARTISTS
Jaq Nguyen Victor
Jaq is a unicorn warrior, fighting in areas that most urgently need whimsy, tenderness, and wise critique. Equipped with a knack for navigating paradox, Jaq has created original pieces like Decolonizing is Like Hard (clown), Gender Assimilation: A Rebuttal (theatre), and Drugs for Unicorns (film). In 2015, they received a SFBACC nomination for "Best Featured Actress." Currently, Jaq is directing a performance healing training called Dig & Demand and completing a Master’s degree in Drama Therapy. Their upcoming work includes Bữa Ăn Tiếng Việt (film), Q.D.Play: Queering & Decolonizing Playback (troupe), and Chanh Collective: Viet Gender Justice (community).
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, Abad’s work explores the complexities of being biracial and the challenges around developing a cultural identity with immigrant parents in America. Through dance and story telling Abad investigates the memories and wisdom that is held within the body that the mind has forgotten, or history has erased - allowing for a sense of grounding amidst the omnipresent feeling of landlessness.
Their passion for art activism, social justice, and sustainable urbanism also drives them to develop work that examines the relationships between oneself, one’s physical environment, andthe imposed narratives on individuals by external forces that dictate the possibilities of one’s existence. Ultimately, they wish to create work that holds space for the myriad of nuances that exist in humanity and allow for queer, black, trans, POC to live wholly as themselves.
RANDY ReYES
Randy is a queer Latinx choreographer-dance artist-curanderx with roots connecting the geographies of Guatemala, Massachusetts, NYC, Germany, Chile, Ecuador, & Nicaragua. During their time in NYC, Randy worked closely with choreographer/master teacher, Daria Faïn, studying Chinese Energetics & Systems of Improvisation as an ensemble member of her collective The Commons Choir, co-facilitated with Robert Kocik. In NYC, Randy developed the ritual-accion Never Arriving as a selected emerging choreographer for the Work Up 2.0 series at Gibney Dance Center, was a cohort member in the Hemispheric Institute for Performance & Politics EMERGENYC program, and interned with Movement Research, all between Aug. 2015 - July 2016. Currently, Randy will be excavating a new piece this summer as part of the Performing Diaspora ARC program at CounterPulse and will relocate to Los Angeles to begin an MFA in Dance program at UCLA this fall with the intention to continue weaving together the places-mentors-magick that has inspired them.
SAMMAY DIZON
Sammay is a choreographer/producer and interdisciplinary performing artist of Kapampangan, Ilokano, and Bikol descent who envisions a future in which our indigenous traditions co-exist with(in) our urban landscapes. Founding Artistic Director of URBAN x INDIGENOUS - she has been featured through Dance Mission Theater’s D.I.R.T. – Dance In Revolt(ing) Times Festival, Blessed Unrest: Arts and Social Justice Festival, Red Poppy Art House, and A/P/A Institute at NYU among others. She recently returned from an inter-island tour through Hawai'i with intercultural contemporary artist collective, I Moving Lab, and a solo immersion tour through her ancestral land, the Philippines. SAMMAY is a three-time recipient of the “Presented by APICC” Artist award, APAture 2016: Performing Arts – Featured Artist, and Performing Diaspora 2016 Artist-in-Residence at CounterPulse. To follow her journey, visit www.sammaydizon.com.
TAVI TAOS
Some people say my tea has a little too much sugar and is too sweet. But I do have fire in me and will drag you if I have to. Fear me, white supremacy; I have lots of energy for this work, and your whitecraft is tired. Passionate about police and prison abolition, I volunteer at TGIJP(Transgender and Gender Variant, Intersex Justice Project) where we strive to free our sisters and siblings from cages.
One of the few trans people who isn't a transplant, I was born in Oakland in a car and I've been nonstop ever since. Traveling in a spaceship past the neon into the turquoise, blue n pink sunset. The stars are my mamas. Marsha, Sylvia and Mark Aguhar are on my altar, the goddesses I pray to.
It's vital to remember the tenderloin, where I stay, is Chochenyo Ohlone land and a historically trans neighborhood and is in the process of gentrafuckcation. I fight to decolonize through telling stories. I’m grounded by my trancestors, while fantasies with fam lift me. I have a orgasmic appreciation for nom noms. I enjoy kiking and dishing tea. (Miss)guided by mother earth, I love to slide my tentacles in her dirt.
CORE ARTISTS
CORE ARTISTS
TEssA Wills - Artistic Director
Tessa graduated with distinction from Birmingham University (UK) (1999) in Electronic music with Choreography. She was selected to represent the UK in 2000 at P.A.R.T.S, Brussels for a year long composition and choreography project. After attending DanceWEB (Vienna) in 2001, she moved to London in 2002, founding "Streetsoul"; a project facilitating young women and urban dance forms on video. She completed her Masters in Choreography at Middlesex University (UK), graduating with distinction in 2009, by which time she had moved to San Francisco. Over the past five years, Tessa has made performance projects with Z-Space, CounterPULSE, THEOFFCENTER, SOMArts,The YBCA, Dance Mission, Center for Sex and Culture, The Meridian Gallery, and taken over artistic directorship of THIS IS WHAT I WANT. She has worked with artists including Keith Hennessy, Annie Sprinkle, David Zambrano, Lilia Mestra (Random Scream). She primarily self produces her work.
Krista DeNio- Co-Lead
Krista DeNio is an interdisciplinary choreographer, director, performer, writer and educator and Artistic Director of KD>>Moving Ground. She is committed to creating performance work through interdisciplinary collaboration that bridges performance, education and activism toward a socially just world.
Krista is a House Artist at CounterPulse, and teaches and makes dance and theater work throughout the Bay Area and country. Current KD>>MG projects include NETWORK a project about survival, and EchoTheaterSuitcase project, working with military veterans and non- veteran artists, co-creating original performance works. DeNio also collaborates with ABD productions and the Skywatchers project, collaborating with residents of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco and Dance Generators, an intergenerational dance company based at USF.
As a lecturer, she has most recently worked with U.C. Berkeley’s Theater, Dance and Performance Studies department, and as a visiting professor and collaborator in Empathy Lab, a course developed in collaboration with Anthropology professor Lochlann Jain, at Stanford University. She received her BA in Dance/Dramatic Art and Interdisciplinary Studies Field Major, Development and Human Rights from U.C. Berkeley and her MFA in Theater: Contemporary Performance from Naropa University.
Jaime Cortez - Co-Lead
Jaime is an visual artist, writer, and sometimes performer active in the San Francisco Bay Area. His stories and essays have been published in over 15 anthologies. Jaime's art has been exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum, Oakland Museum of California, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Galería de la Raza.
Taraneh Hemami - Map Artist
Taraneh works with materials of history, organizing archives of images, data and information, weaving complimentary and contradictory narratives in objects, installations as well as experimental collective and collaborative curatorial projects. She has received awards from the Creative Capital, Creative Work Fund, Center for Cultural Innovation, and the California Council for the Humanities. Her works have been exhibited widely including at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure, Victoria and Albert Museum, Boghossian Foundation, and at the Sharjah International Biennial.
Zachary Watkins - Sound Artist
Zachary James Watkins has received commissions from Cornish College of The Arts, The Microscores Project, The Beam Foundation, Somnubutone Radio Series, the sfSoundGroup and the Seattle Chamber Players. Zachary has participated in numerous festivals including the Second Biennial SJ01, the 2009 Klankunstfest in Berlin, Germany, the 14th Annual 23Five Activating the Medium Festival and the 12th Annual SFEMF. He is a co-organizer of the Annual Music For People and Thingamajigs Festival. His 2006 composition Suite for String Quartet was awarded the Paul Merritt Henry Prize for Composition and has been performed in numerous festivals and is currently published by TouchRadio UK. His multi-media work entitled Country Western premiered in 2007 as part of the Meridian Gallery’s Composers in Performance Series and received grants from the American Music Center and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. An excerpt of this piece is published on the compilation “The Harmonic Series” along side Pauline Oliveros, Ellen Fullman and Charles Curtis among others. Zachary received a Subito Grant to assist in the production of the evening length composition: Movable, written for piano in just intonation and a newly invented piano extension called the “Piano Monster” built in collaboration with NYC artist Ranjit Bhatnagar. Novembre Magazine, ITCH and the New York Miniature Ensemble have published his graphic scores and writing. Zachary currently lectures in the Music Department at the University of California Santa Cruz.
PLAYERS
PLAYERS
THIS IS WHAT I WANT 2017 is a multi organization production
ABD PRODUCTIONS
ABD Productions is a multi-ethnic, multicultural, community-facing arts organization committed to inspiring social change and awakening our collective humanity through the arts. Since its founding in 1984, ABD has collaborated with dozens of communities to develop a repertoire of more than 100 original works that address challenging and urgent social, economic, and environmental issues.
ABD’s Skywatchers program brings residents of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District into partnership with professional artists to create multi-disciplinary, site-specific performance installations that amplify the rich and complex stories, life experiences, and talents of community members.
ABD PRODUCTIONS
ABD Productions is a multi-ethnic, multicultural, community-facing arts organization committed to inspiring social change and awakening our collective humanity through the arts. Since its founding in 1984, ABD has collaborated with dozens of communities to develop a repertoire of more than 100 original works that address challenging and urgent social, economic, and environmental issues.
ABD’s Skywatchers program brings residents of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District into partnership with professional artists to create multi-disciplinary, site-specific performance installations that amplify the rich and complex stories, life experiences, and talents of community members.
LARKIN STREET YOUTH SERVICES
Larkin Street provides youth between the ages of 12 and 24 with the help they need to rebuild their lives. Each year, more than 3,000 youth walk through our doors seeking help. We give them a place where they can feel safe; rebuild their sense of self-respect, trust, and hope; learn school, life and job skills; and find the confidence to build a future.
Larkin Street was founded in 1984 by a group of local business owners, church members, and neighbors who were concerned by the rising number of young people engaging in risky behaviors on the streets of San Francisco. With comprehensive youth service programs located throughout San Francisco, Larkin Street Youth Services is now an internationally recognized model successfully integrating housing, education, employment and health services to get homeless and at-risk kids off the streets.
LARKIN STREET YOUTH SERVICES
Larkin Street provides youth between the ages of 12 and 24 with the help they need to rebuild their lives. Each year, more than 3,000 youth walk through our doors seeking help. We give them a place where they can feel safe; rebuild their sense of self-respect, trust, and hope; learn school, life and job skills; and find the confidence to build a future.
Larkin Street was founded in 1984 by a group of local business owners, church members, and neighbors who were concerned by the rising number of young people engaging in risky behaviors on the streets of San Francisco. With comprehensive youth service programs located throughout San Francisco, Larkin Street Youth Services is now an internationally recognized model successfully integrating housing, education, employment and health services to get homeless and at-risk kids off the streets.