George Emilio Sanchez is a writer and performance artist. He created a 24-hour ‘performance filibuster’ on gun violence and gun culture in the United States called Bang Bang Gun Amok at Abrons Arts. This marathon event brought together artists, activists and survivors to create a public space where everyone could acknowledge the trauma of gun violence while addressing how gun culture is historically embedded in our society. Bang Bang Gun Amok II was re-enacted on December 14-15, 2018 at University Settlement. He has been named a Social Practice Artist-in-Residence by Abrons Arts for 2018-2020. For the past 12 years, he has directed EmergeNYC, a program that explores the intersection of arts and activism. In conjunction with Sanchez’s residency, Dixon Place is commissioning a new work, XIV, which will have its world premiere at DP in June 2019. The production will launch his series, Performing the Constitution.

Samantha Galarza is a queer, multi-racial, Puerto Rican, SAG-AFTRA actress/writer/performance artist/educator/ director/professional ranter. As an art-ivist, her work explores queer identity politics, fluidity, gender, systemic and internalized racism, love, substance abuse, migration, the U.S. prison industrial complex, and policy that disproportionately affects ethnic minorities. Ultimately a storyteller, her dream is to bridge the gap between mainstream media and progressive “de-colonial” political art. Her work has been published in award winning anthologies and performed throughout the U.S. and internationally. Samantha is an alum of Rutgers University, the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics’ EmergeNYC program, and a fellow of Guillermo Gomez Pena’s La Pocha Nostra and EmergeLab residency at Brooklyn Arts Exchange. She is co-founder of the performance collective A Beautiful Desperation and a member of Alternate Roots. www.samanthagalarza.com