Conspirators...
Founding Conspirator
J. Miakoda Taylor is a woman of diverse racial heritages whose has spent her life serving as a bridge builder across dis-membered sectors of society. She is the founding Director of Fierce Allies, a consulting and training program that uses relationship-based strategies for change to foster meaningful partnerships across divides of power and privilege. This work is informed by restorative justice, emotional/social intelligence, conflict transformation, somatic trauma healing, improvisational arts and other disciplines. It also draws on Miakoda’s extensive experience as an executive and consultant facilitating leadership development, sustainable organizational change, and conflict resolution with organizations locally, nationally and internationally.
Additionally, Miakoda is an avid meditator, yogi, dancer and photographer. She has been awarded several fellowships to conduct photo-ethnographic studies of diverse cultures, and exhibited her work throughout the world, most notably at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and as part of the United Nations World Conference Against Racism. She practice and teaches many forms of movement expression and is privileged to be the dance accompaniment to Sistahs of The Drum. Find out what's up with Miakoda at miakoda@fierceallies.com!
Additionally, Miakoda is an avid meditator, yogi, dancer and photographer. She has been awarded several fellowships to conduct photo-ethnographic studies of diverse cultures, and exhibited her work throughout the world, most notably at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and as part of the United Nations World Conference Against Racism. She practice and teaches many forms of movement expression and is privileged to be the dance accompaniment to Sistahs of The Drum. Find out what's up with Miakoda at miakoda@fierceallies.com!
Fellow Conspirators
Always thrilled to move and be moved by the world, Emelia Martínez Brumbaugh is an artist, performer, educator, and aspiring community healer. She has been engaging with serious social inquiry and serious play for 10 plus years and continues to find new ways to integrate the two practices in her teaching, training, and performance work. Originally from the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay Tributary in southern Maryland, Emelia has since cultivated homes in Western Massachusetts and Central México. Her formal studies are based in social and political geography and the performative arts. The combination of these disciplines informs her creative multiplicity; Emelia is constantly re-experiencing what it is to be a creator, a white person, a part Méxican gringa, an ally and a queer amidst complex social relations of the past and present and multiple geographical contexts. Say hello at eabm24@gmail.com.
Choreographer and dancer Hanna Satterlee grew up in East Montpelier, Vermont. She attended Goucher College in Maryland to achieve a double BA in Dance and Psychology/Dance Therapy, and has spent many years traveling throughout the US and in Ghana and Brazil, to intensively study dance and movement. She has produced her own choreographic and dance instillation work, and has performed with professional companies in Baltimore, NYC, San Francisco and throughout the state of Vermont- including projects with Double Vision (Sean Clute/Pauline Jennings) and BIG APE (Tiffany Rhynard), as well as contributing to the choreography and performing in Hannah Dennison’s latest work, “Dear Pina.” She returned to VT in 2010 to become the Director of Professional Programming, as well as the Artistic Director of the Teen Jazz company, at CDFS, and joined Montpelier Movement Collective as a dancer and choreographer in May 2012 for the commission of a new dance work. She is currently in the MFA-IA graduate program at Goddard College. She is currently directing a new evening-length dance-based interdisciplinary performance, titled ANIMAL. Send her a note at hannasatt@gmail.com.
Levana Irena is a choreographer, dancer, and performer based in Montreal, Canada. They are continuously fascinated by the human body and have focused on movement and voice practices such as Axis Syllabus, Qi Gong and Gong fu, and Open Source Forms. Since graduating from Concordia University in 2013 with a BFA double major in Contemporary Dance and Women's Studies, they have been researching, processing, and performing in ways influenced by their passions of dance and social justice. They believe performance can be an impactful means to question social standards, and past choreographies and collaborative projects have touched on themes such as gentrification, community strength, personal political struggles, and media and gender. Levana has had works presented in Montreal events such as Nuit Blanche, Art Matters, and Short and Sweet. In July and August, 2014, Levana took part in the performance project Biblioteca Do Corpo, as part of the International Contemporary Dance Festival Impulstanz, in Vienna, Austria. The spectacle was performed in Vienna, as well as in São Paulo, Brazil. Levana is interested in how the ways we relate with and within a community can help us see parallels with how we relate to our own bodies, and vice versa. They believe that the more we can learn to understand and support our body (mind included) and its movements, the more we can be open to understanding and supporting each other. Get at Levana at lev.prudhomme@gmail.com.
Matthew Weisberg loves. Loves to eat, Loves to dance, Loves to listen, Loves to shout. His work as a teacher, farmer and performer have allowed all him to fill his life with those loves. 'Stay at Home Dad', his first video-record under the name Moses Cicero, expresses exactly that. He is currently developing a rooftop greenhouse farm in Bushwick, Brooklyn and working on his next video-record. Shout out to Matt at matt6289@gmail.com.
Randy Reyes recently graduated from Williams College with B.A. in Dance & Performance Studies. His most recent work is titled "Expanding Traces - Intimate Spaces" which investigated how various spaces create specific notions of intimacy and these spaces took form in an exhibition in a dorm room, a club opening in a gallery space, and a site-specific piece. Reyes was inspired by artists Ana Mendieta, Franz Erhard Walther, Voguing & Ball Culture, Felix Gonzalez Torres, and is continuing to find ways of learning more about somatic, physical, and healthy efficient approaches to choreography. This past summer he was in Berlin participating in SMASH; an experimental performance platform which had various teachers share their approach to improvisation and collaboration through costume making, task-oriented studies, and theatre/voice/movement practices. Currently, he is living in NJ and is hoping to find ways to get involved in community outreach programs involving dance practice, and throwing queer underground fiestas. Send some sweetness to Randy at Randy.Reyes05@gmail.com.
Sol Arechiga Mantilla is a linguist and editor exploring how to do her job away from a desk. Such wanderings has taken her to explore other ways of thought through movement and dancing, both in land and water. She is part of a minute publishing house that develops peculiar projects using a Riso printing machine. Track down Sol at Heliotropoi@gmail.com.
Choreographer and dancer Hanna Satterlee grew up in East Montpelier, Vermont. She attended Goucher College in Maryland to achieve a double BA in Dance and Psychology/Dance Therapy, and has spent many years traveling throughout the US and in Ghana and Brazil, to intensively study dance and movement. She has produced her own choreographic and dance instillation work, and has performed with professional companies in Baltimore, NYC, San Francisco and throughout the state of Vermont- including projects with Double Vision (Sean Clute/Pauline Jennings) and BIG APE (Tiffany Rhynard), as well as contributing to the choreography and performing in Hannah Dennison’s latest work, “Dear Pina.” She returned to VT in 2010 to become the Director of Professional Programming, as well as the Artistic Director of the Teen Jazz company, at CDFS, and joined Montpelier Movement Collective as a dancer and choreographer in May 2012 for the commission of a new dance work. She is currently in the MFA-IA graduate program at Goddard College. She is currently directing a new evening-length dance-based interdisciplinary performance, titled ANIMAL. Send her a note at hannasatt@gmail.com.
Levana Irena is a choreographer, dancer, and performer based in Montreal, Canada. They are continuously fascinated by the human body and have focused on movement and voice practices such as Axis Syllabus, Qi Gong and Gong fu, and Open Source Forms. Since graduating from Concordia University in 2013 with a BFA double major in Contemporary Dance and Women's Studies, they have been researching, processing, and performing in ways influenced by their passions of dance and social justice. They believe performance can be an impactful means to question social standards, and past choreographies and collaborative projects have touched on themes such as gentrification, community strength, personal political struggles, and media and gender. Levana has had works presented in Montreal events such as Nuit Blanche, Art Matters, and Short and Sweet. In July and August, 2014, Levana took part in the performance project Biblioteca Do Corpo, as part of the International Contemporary Dance Festival Impulstanz, in Vienna, Austria. The spectacle was performed in Vienna, as well as in São Paulo, Brazil. Levana is interested in how the ways we relate with and within a community can help us see parallels with how we relate to our own bodies, and vice versa. They believe that the more we can learn to understand and support our body (mind included) and its movements, the more we can be open to understanding and supporting each other. Get at Levana at lev.prudhomme@gmail.com.
Matthew Weisberg loves. Loves to eat, Loves to dance, Loves to listen, Loves to shout. His work as a teacher, farmer and performer have allowed all him to fill his life with those loves. 'Stay at Home Dad', his first video-record under the name Moses Cicero, expresses exactly that. He is currently developing a rooftop greenhouse farm in Bushwick, Brooklyn and working on his next video-record. Shout out to Matt at matt6289@gmail.com.
Randy Reyes recently graduated from Williams College with B.A. in Dance & Performance Studies. His most recent work is titled "Expanding Traces - Intimate Spaces" which investigated how various spaces create specific notions of intimacy and these spaces took form in an exhibition in a dorm room, a club opening in a gallery space, and a site-specific piece. Reyes was inspired by artists Ana Mendieta, Franz Erhard Walther, Voguing & Ball Culture, Felix Gonzalez Torres, and is continuing to find ways of learning more about somatic, physical, and healthy efficient approaches to choreography. This past summer he was in Berlin participating in SMASH; an experimental performance platform which had various teachers share their approach to improvisation and collaboration through costume making, task-oriented studies, and theatre/voice/movement practices. Currently, he is living in NJ and is hoping to find ways to get involved in community outreach programs involving dance practice, and throwing queer underground fiestas. Send some sweetness to Randy at Randy.Reyes05@gmail.com.
Sol Arechiga Mantilla is a linguist and editor exploring how to do her job away from a desk. Such wanderings has taken her to explore other ways of thought through movement and dancing, both in land and water. She is part of a minute publishing house that develops peculiar projects using a Riso printing machine. Track down Sol at Heliotropoi@gmail.com.
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The Conspire Project is an initiative of Fierce Allies.
Fierce Allies supports groups with contentious dynamics to have fiercely honest and deeply embodied dialogues about the very issues that divide them. |
