Victoria Lynn Awkward is a multidisciplinary creator, educator, producer, and the Director of VLA DANCE. She pursued her multiple interests at Goucher College and graduated with high honors in Dance, Visual Art and Secondary Education. As the Director of VLA DANCE she is currently directing projects: “For Nina” – a multidisciplinary show celebrating the lineage of Nina Simone, “In The Space Between” – a production where dance, textile, and audio brings audiences into a world of queer imagination, and “Harnessing our Gardens” – a book celebrating the stories of 17 Black femme movement artists. Alongside directing VLA DANCE, Victoria is a freelance artist, who most recently choreographed for Huntington Theater, Company One Theatre, Boston Lyric Opera, and Commonwealth Shakespeare. As a performer she has worked for Jasmine Hearn, Shura Baryshnikov, Jenna Pollack, and others. Victoria is also an educator having worked at Salem State University, Brown University and more. Notably, Victoria is a Brother Thomas Fellow as well as a recipient of the Queer (Re)public Theater Offensive Residency. Additionally, Victoria is a producer of Performance and Live Art for MoMA.

Jasmine Hearn, born and raised on occupied Akokisa lands (Houston, TX), is an interdisciplinary artist, teacher, doula, performer, and organizer. Named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” (2025), Jasmine is a recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award (2023), a Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize in Design with Athena Kokoronis of DPA (2023), a Jerome Foundation Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2019), and two NY Dance and Performance Bessie Awards for Outstanding Performer (2021, 2017* with the cast of skeleton architecture). Jasmine has collaborated with Dream the Combine, Bill T. Jones, Saul Williams, Solange Knowles, Alisha B. Wormsley, okwui okpokwasili, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Tsedaye Makonnen, Holly Bass, Bebe Miller, and with dance companies, Urban Bush Women, and David Dorfman Dance, performing choreographic works at the Metropolitan Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Live Arts, Guggenheim Museum, Getty Center, Venice Biennale, Ford Foundation, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Danspace Project, and the Hobby Center for Performing Arts. Jasmine is currently leading an archive and performance project, Memory Fleet, which has been awarded a Creative Capital Award (2022), a Creation Fund Award from National Performance Network (2022), and a National Dance Production Grant from New England Foundation of the Arts (2023). With its premiere Houston, TX as part of DiverseWorks Spring 2024 season, Memory Fleet continues to deepen and will be presented at Kelly Strayhorn Theater in April 2026 and NYLA in June 2026.

Myssi Robinson is a Bessie award-winning performer, interdisciplinary maker and ever-evolving steward of care raised on and recently returned to Powhatan lands / Richmond, VA.  Myssi has interpreted many dances, and currently explores imaginative archiving, mixed-media marking + design, ritual curiosity and her own improvising body.  Her archival practice weaves responsive visual art, photography, writing, video poetry and spirit-centered witnessing into material altars that honor embodiment, collective processing, affirmation of being and the blurring of legibility.  She is joyfully rooted in long term archival relationships with Jasmine Hearn’s Memory Fleet and Ogemdi Ude’s MAJOR, and is the Danspace writer-in-residence for Platform 2026: Secret Gardens.  In all her working, intuition and empathy play with maximalist instinct to give life to what comes.  Gratitude to Carolyn, Darrin and all that is unseen for life and her abilities to create freely within it. 

Charmaine Warren — I am a performer, historian, consultant and dance writer. I began the online series “Black Dance Stories” in June 2020 as a platform for Black dance creatives during the Covid pandemic, but it has been my charge to support Black dance creatives for years. I am the founder/producer and artistic director for “Dance on the Lawn:” Montclair’s Dance Festival which ran for 10 years, a co-curator for Harlem Stage’s dance series, EMoves for 11 years, and the lead curator for Dance @ Wassaic Project Festival for more than nine years. In 2019 I became the Producer of DanceAfrica at BAM. After performing for many years with major New York dance companies, I joined the internationally known, New York-based, dance/theater company david rousseve/REALITY in 1989 – 2000. I received a 2017 Bessie Award Recipient for “Outstanding Performance” as a member of Skeleton Architecture Collective. I was the recipient of the 2021 “Angel Awardee.” I currently perform with Jasmine Hearn. I write on dance for The New York Amsterdam News, and over the years The New York Times, Dance Magazine and other print media. I have been published in the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History, Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAM: The Complete Works, Steven Serafin, editor., and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Playbill. I am a former faculty member at Hunter College, The Ailey School and the Alvin Ailey/Fordham University dance major program, Sarah Lawrence College, Kean University, Duke University and Howard University. I hold a Ph.D. in History from Howard University, a Master’s Degree in Dance Research, Reconstruction and Choreography from CUNY, and Bachelor’s Degrees: Speech & Theatre/Dance; and English from Montclair State College. I was a member of the New York Dance and Performance Awards Committee (BESSIES) for more than ten years, and also a member of the Steering Committee for four years.

Seta Morton is an interdisciplinary performance curator, writer, editor, and dancer based in Lenapehoking (New York, NY). She is the Program Director & Associate Curator at Danspace Project and Managing Editor for Danspace’s digital and print publications. Previously she worked as an independent administrator and producer with artists such as Ishmael Houston-Jones, Sarah Michelson, and iele paloumpis. She has guest curated events and exhibitions with Pageant (NYC) and The Feminist Center for Creative Work (LA). She has danced and performed for choreographers iele paloumpis and Miguel Gutierrez. Her writing has been published by Danspace Project, Gibney Journal, The Feminist Center for Creative Work, Co-Conspirator Press, Villa Albertine, BOMB Magazine, and Topical Cream.