Current Collaborators
Sam Aros-Mitchell, PhD
(He/Him/His)
Performer: Skin(s); Weave; WEave:HERE; yödoishëndahgwa’geh; she who lives on the road to war; A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:'.
Writer: Articles and poems on performance and creative process of Simas and Rosy Simas Danse.
Sam Aros-Mitchell is a Yaqui choreographer and performance artist whose work bridges Indigenous cosmologies, contemporary performance, and ceremonial practice. Through movement, sound, installation, and embodied research, he creates immersive experiences that explore memory, land, kinship, and Indigenous futures. A Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and McKnight Dance Fellow, he is a longtime collaborator with Rosy Simas Danse and has worked with Limón Dance to reimagine works connected to their shared Yaqui heritage.
Image Description: Sam Aros-Mitchell stands in dramatic blue stage lighting. His face and bare shoulders emerge from a shadow, illuminated by a narrow beam of light. He gazes upward with a contemplative expression, creating a sense of presence, transformation, and introspection. The image emphasizes the contrast between darkness and light, evoking themes of ceremony, memory, and embodiment central to his artistic practice.
Photo credit: Sam Aros-Mitchell
Last updated: June 2026
Talia Majel Dixon
(She/Her/Hers)
Performer: A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:'.
Talia Majel Dixon (she/her) is Payómkawish, enrolled in the Pauma Band of Luiseño Indians of San Diego County, California. She is a dancer, artist, and PhD candidate in Performance Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on California Native Studies and Indigenous art /performance. She received an Honors BFA in Modern Dance with a minor in Ethnic Studies from the University of Utah in 2021.
Image Description: Talia is pictured wearing all black and a tan baseball cap. She is standing above a beach trail leading towards the ocean behind her.
Photo credit: Mina Linklater
Last updated: July 2026
Charlie Maybee
(He/Him)
Performer: A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:'.
Charlie Maybee is a multiracial, interdisciplinary artist, educator, and writer based in Charleston, South Carolina where he teaches courses in dance and the music industry at College of Charleston. He holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois with a certificate in Criticism and Interpretive Theory and creates performances under the name Polymath Performance Project. As a performer, Charlie currently works with Doris Duke Artist, Rosy Simas Danse, and performs in his own original work using experimental approaches to tap dance that emphasize the intersection of technology, punk aesthetics, and improvisation. In 2022, he was selected as a NextLOOK 2.0 residency fellow at the University of Maryland-College Park and as a featured artist for the 2022 BlackLight Summit at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. His latest collaborative project, "Noise Source", premiered in May 2026 as part of the CofC’s Stelle di Domani performance series within the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC. Additionally, Charlie also works as an independent scholar crafting papers and presentations on tap dance aesthetics, while also acting as a research assistant for additional projects including genealogy research for Rosy Simas and data set analysis with Suzanne Callahan.
Image Description: Coming soon
Photo credit: Ell Emadian
Last updated: June 2026
Lela Pierce
(She/Her/They)
Performer: Skin(s); Weave; Weave:HERE; yödoishëndahgwa’geh; she who lives on the road to war; A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:'.
Lela Pierce is a Black Multiracial visual artist and dancer. Born and raised in Mni Sota Makoce, Lela spent seven years living in Rishikesh, India, on and off studying yoga meditation and organizing children's yoga programming. She has danced extensively with Ananya Dance Theatre 2004–2016 as well as Rosy Simas Danse and Pramila Vasudevan of Anichha Arts 2015–present. Lela is has received the Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship (2018) through MCAD and the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2022). She is currently represented by Bockley Gallery and teaches Sculpture at Macalester College.
Image Description: Lela crouches down in front of a bushy asparagus plant. She has medium brown skin and several long braids that are pulled up into a bun on top of her head. She wears a loose, short sleeve, light grey plaid shirt.
Photo credit:
Last updated: June 2026
François Richomme
(He/Him/His)
Composer: We Wait In The Darkness; Skin(s); Weave; Threshold; Transfuse; yödoishëndahgwa’geh; she who lives on the road to war; A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:'.
Composer, sound engineer and sound artist trained in dance and somatics, François Richomme creates the scores of many world-class dance productions, touring the five continents.
Fundamentals of his artistic explorations includes: music/sound boundary; musical architecture as a choreographed sound space using large number of speakers; generative musical environments; binaural beats extensions; just intonation/microtonality; sound/music and movement/dance narratives, haptics and somatic music perception; body, dance and choreography as a source language defining elements and structure in musical composition.
Image Description: Against a soft blurred sand-colored background appears the face of François, a European man in his late 50s with light skin, light brown shoulder-length hair with a firecracker hairstyle, brown eyes, subtle mustache and beard, wearing a red shirt. He is looking straight towards the camera with a soft smile.
Photo credit: Douglas Beasley
Last updated: June 2026
Jeffrey Wells, Fabrication and Project Assistance
(He/Him/His)
Fabrication Collaborator: she who lives on the road to war; A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:'.
Performer: Weave; WEave:HERE; yödoishëndahgwa’geh; she who lives on the road to war.
Jeffrey Wells is a queer creator, performer, designer, fabricator, technician, learner, teacher, and administrator working in Minneapolis arts scene for the past 18 years. He has collaborated with Rosy and RSD for the last 10 years in many capacities and is honored and humbled to be a partner in the process. Aside from work with RSD, he spends his time exploring and cultivating novelty, non-habitual behavior, and the capacity for change through his Feldenkrais® practice.
Image Description: Jeffrey is a 45-year-old white queer man with short brown hair. He is standing outside in front of a red and white barn on a bright October day. He is wearing a purple sweatshirt with a plaid collared flannel shirt underneath and blue jeans. He is smiling and holding a long braid of Seneca white corn in his left hand.
Last updated: June 2026
Rosy Simas, Artistic Director
(She/Her/Hers)
Rosy Simas (Seneca Nation of Indians, Heron clan) is a transdisciplinary and dance artist. Simas’ knowledge of her Hodinöšyö:nih family and lineage is the underpinning of her relationship to culture and history—stored in her body—expressed through her work—of moving people, images, and objects that she makes for stage and installation. Simas’ work weaves personal and collective identity themes with family, sovereignty, equality, and healing. Simas creates with a team of Native and BIPOC artists. Her work is driven by deep listening.
Simas’ works for stage include A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:’ (i hope it will stir your mind), she who lives on the road to war, Weave, Skin(s), and We Wait in the Darkness. Simas’ installations have been exhibited at the Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center, All My Relations Arts, SOO Visual Arts, and the Weisman Art Museum. Simas is a Doris Duke Artist, Forge Project Fellow, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, McKnight Foundation Fellow, Dance/USA Fellow, United States Artists Fellow, First People's Fund Performing Arts Fellow, and a Joyce Awardee. Her other accolades include a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation SHIFT award and multiple awards from the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project, the MAP Fund, and the National Performance Network. Simas is the Artistic Director of Rosy Simas Danse and a 2024–2026 Walker Art Center artist in residence.
Image Description:
Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff
Last updated:
