Mieke D is an interdisciplinary performance artist, educator, and mixed-race femme of Asian and European descent. Her original work has been shown at BAX, the Nuyorican Poets Café, Dance New Amsterdam, Under St. Marks, Bushwick Open Arts, NYU, and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. Collaborators, past and present include: Zavé Martohardjono, Kyoung Park, Julia Crockett & Colin Self, Taylor Mac, Brooke O’Harra & the Dyke Division of the Two-Headed Calf, Ping Chong & Company, The Foundry Theatre, La Pocha Nostra, Cornerstone Theater Company, Target Margin, Stephen Wangh, and John Jeserun. Mieke is a proud founding member of A Beautiful Desperation and company member of LAVA–a feminist acrobatic dance company based in Brooklyn, NY.

Samantha Galarza is a queer, mixed-race, Puerto Rican, SAG-AFTRA writer and performance artist. Her work explores queer identity politics, gender, systemic and internalized racism, love, substance abuse, migration, and the U.S. prison industrial complex. Ultimately a storyteller, her dream is to bridge the gap between mainstream media and “de-colonial” art. Her work has been published in award-winning anthologies and performed throughout the U.S. and internationally. Samantha is alum of Rutgers University, the Hemispheric Institute’s EmergeNYC program, and fellow of La Pocha Nostra and EmergeLab residency at BAX. She is co-founder of the performance collective A Beautiful Desperation and Alternate Roots member.

Tova Katz is a New Yorked based writer/performer and musician. She was thrilled to premiere her original solo dark musical comedy See You at the Funeral! at La Mama in June, directed and choreographed by the incomparable Tricia Brouk. Last spring, she was a featured vocalist in Dane Terry’s Another Name in Nightlife at Joe’s Pub. In January, she choreographed, co-directed, and performed in Jordan Martin’s &Wilder at La Mama’s SQUIRTS. Since 2014, Tova has had the joy of developing and performing work across NYC with A Beautiful Desperation. Tova is currently recording her first solo album. Imagination saves her life every day.

Mette Loulou von Kohl is a mixed, queer femme performer currently based in New York City. She is a graduate of EMERGENYC- the Hemispheric New York Emerging Performers Program and participant of EmergeLAB and Needing IT ALL at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and current Fellow at University Settlement. She is the co-founder of the performance collective A Beautiful Desperation and has performed both nationally and internationally in Canada and across Europe.

Manny is a Brooklyn-based theatre artist, playwright and sound designer. They are the proud co-writer of H.O.M.E. (The New Ohio Theatre). Past sound design credits include The Taming of Cats (The Brick), Occupied (Dixon Place), All The Usual Ways to Bruise An All Too Fragile Ego (The Wild Project), Blu (Aaron Davis Hall), Marisol (CCNY). Their work aspires to re-imagine and deconstruct familiar spaces under the influence of their inner teenager.