Ishmael Houston-Jones: choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed world-wide. He and Fred Holland shared a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders. He was awarded his second “Bessie” Award for the revival of THEM, his 1985/86 collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane and a third for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found… He curated Platform 2012: Parallels and co-curated with Will Rawls Platform 2016: Lost & Found, both at Danspace Project. Houston-Jones’ work has been supported by a 2013 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Artists Award, a 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award, a 2016 Herb Alpert Award, a 2021 USA Artist Award and a 2022 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

Fred Holland (1951 – 2016) received a 1973 Bachelor of Fine Arts from Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, Ohio. After that, he had a one-man exhibition of his paintings at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia where he met dancers Terry Fox and Ishmael Houston-Jones who were performing there. Intrigued by their improvisations he took his first dance classes with them. Houston-Jones introduced him to the emerging practice of Contact Improvisation and they both became members of the Philadelphia Contact Collective. Upon moving to New York, Holland began combining his dance practice with his visual arts working alongside Houston-Jones, with whom he shared their 1984 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders.

Stephanie Hewett is a queer Afro-Caribbean multidisciplinary artist from Munsee Lenape land (Bronx, New York). She is a graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts in New York City and has studied at the Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She holds an MFA in Dance Studies and works with movement and electronic music production to decode ancestral wisdom and knowledge stored in the body. Hewett DJs and produces electronic music under the moniker Madre Guía, and experiments with sound to explore polyrhythmic potentialities of intergenerational healing. She is a member of RUPTURE, a bicoastal performance collective examining Black gatherings that center collective rest, folk games, somatic experimentation, and the creation of communal dance spaces as spiritual technologies and practices of resistance and refusal.

Kris Lee (she/they) is a New York based dancer/performer and home chef. She received her BFA in Dance from University of the Arts in 2019. Kris was a member of the Stephen Petronio Company (2021-22) and has toured with nora chipaumire (2019-20). She was one of the creators and performers for high noon (2022), the interdisciplinary performance work produced by Ninth Planet. Most recently they have performed in Remains Persist (2022) & Out of and Into: Plot (2023) By Moriah Evans; Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd (reprisal) by Ishmael Houston-Jones & Miguel Gutierrez (2023); duel c (2023) & duel H (2024) by Andros Zins-Browne. They also had the pleasure of being a part of Impulstanz’ Danceweb scholarship program mentored by Isabel Lewis (2024).

Born and raised in Philadelphia, AJ Wilmore is an artist and performer who delves into storytelling, identity, and the complexities of black familial relationships. She excavates her innermost desires while grappling with questions of visibility, intimacy, and selfhood. Wilmore graduated from The University of the Arts, where she honed her craft in movement investigation and approaches. Her recent performances include ‘ADAKU’ by Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born at BAM’s 2023 Next Wave Festival and Joan Jonas’s ‘Mirror Piece I and II’ at MoMA. Driven by a practice of making love to her fears, Wilmore investigates the stakes, texture, and vulnerability of her social and sexual life.