Unearthing

Kiyan Williams is a multimedia performance maker from Newark, New Jersey. They use their body, installation, storytelling, and movement to investigate culture, history, memory, and identity. Kiyan has performed across the country and internationally at venues including: SOMArts (San Francisco), JACK Theater (NYC), La Mama Experimental Theater Club (NYC), SFMOMA (San Francisco), Bing Concert Hall (Stanford), Orpheum Theater (Graz, Austria) and more. Kiyan is an alumn of the Hemispheric Institute’s EMERGENYC Fellowship and the Create Dangerously writing intensive at the Obie-winning JACK Theater in Brooklyn.

A Girl in Rags

Alexander Paris is a multidisciplinary performance artist who has written and performed his own material in collaboration with Bruno Isakovic for Disclosures, which just recently showed at La Mama, as well as with Gian Marco Lo Forte for Pioneers Go East Collective’s Gemini Stars, which had a workshop performance at the Silent Barn in April. He has performed in plays and pieces directed by others at The Kitchen, The Performing Garage, Abrons Arts Center, JACK, and more.

Matthew Dicken recently spent a year in Jaipur, India, where he studied Hindi and worked with a community organization of the India HIV/AIDS Alliance’s program for men who have sex with men, transgender, and hijra communities. His show butyou’reaman or: The Seven Men I Came Out to in India (directed by Arthur Strimling) won an Overall Excellence Award for Solo Performance in FringeNYC in August. Matthew holds a B.A. Theatre (directing/performance studies concentrations) from Muhlenberg College. Matthew has previously worked with Folger Shakespeare Library, Round House Theatre, Incubator Arts Project, banana bag & bodice, NTUSA, and the TEAM.

Louisa deButts studied Theatre Performance at Muhlenberg College and Physical Theatre at the Accademia dell’Arte of Arezzo, Italy. She is a member of Kipuka Theater, with whom she is currently working on the theatrical experiment Psyche and Tools of Water. Other credits include: Vera & Linus (Kipuka Theater), Aladdin and Other Enchanting Tales (Enchantment Theatre Co.), The Velveteen Rabbit (Enchantment Theatre Co.), Woyzeck (Homunculus Inc.), and the upcoming feature film, Flesh Is Heir To.

Cassidy Dawn Graves is a writer, producer, and performance artist who has shown original performance work at Circus of Dreams, Silent Barn, Dixon Place, NYU Tisch, and more. She is the creator/producer of variety show for women and nonbinary artists AM I WRITE, LADIES? (featured in Bushwick Daily, Brokelyn) and recently concluded a sold-out production of her interactive sex education musical, 50 SHADES OF GRAVES. She recently appeared in Erin Markey’s musical A RIDE ON THE IRISH CREAM. Cassidy is a freelance writer and has written on arts and culture for New York Magazine’s Bedford+Bowery, Hyperallergic, Paper Magazine, and Howlround.

Teshale Nuer is a NYC-Based writer, performer and educator who specializes in Holistic Coaching and Embodied Storytelling. Teshale’s work focuses cultivating joy, healing trauma, re-centering the self.