Past Collaborators
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.
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Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff
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Lelis Brito, Project Assistance
(pronouns)
Brito is a Venezuelan-American theater director, choreographer, educator, performer, writer and director of the Center for Moving Cultures. As an artist, Brito has performed with local and national companies, creating over 80 original works. The core of Brito’s work is the human body’s potential and activation—the work of clarifying choice-making through the knowledge gained within the direct experience of a moving sensing body. Brito’s recent work explores how to retain one’s cultural body within multiple demands for code-switching. 2021–22 projects include: Choreographer/Director of You Change Me for Northern Spark; The Roles of Queen B and Queenie in the musical QUEEN B and Aurora in Brujeria for Beginners; Co-Curator (with Harry Waters Jr.) of FUTURE NOW series; Srika writing residency in Croatia; Choreographer of A Binding Strangeness; Co-Director of Real Women Have Curves; and ongoing rehearsal and project development with Rosy Simas Danse and Teatro del Pueblo.
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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 is an interdisciplinary performance creator and producer working in Minneapolis. He is a co-founder of the performance ensemble SuperGroup, which has created over 30 performance projects since its inception in 2008. SuperGroup has performed throughout the Twin Cities and nationally and is the recipient of a 2017 McKnight Choreographer Fellowship. Aside from SuperGroup, Jeffrey has worked with several arts organizations in a producing and administrative capacity including Red Eye Theater, DanceMN, Project Success, and Cornerstone Theater. Jeffrey is an accomplished performer and has worked with many performance makers including Pramila Vasudevan, Eric Larson/Toot Performance, Karen Sherman, Fire Drill, and Judith Howard among others. Jeffrey is also a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner.
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Carolyn Payne,
Board of Directors
(She/Her/Hers)
Carolyn serves as Treasurer of the Board of Directors of Rosy Simas Danse. As Director of Soo Visual Arts Center, they first worked with Rosy during a residency and exhibition at the gallery. They joined the board because of a strong commitment to the organization's mission to create and present innovative interdisciplinary Native contemporary art that connects artists and audiences.
As Treasurer, Carolyn brings experience in nonprofit finance, fundraising, organizational leadership, and arts programming. They are passionate about supporting artists, strengthening cultural communities, and helping ensure the organization's long-term sustainability and impact.
Image Description: The head and shoulders of a white woman with olive-toned skin and white and grey medium-length hair. She is wearing a black and white striped tee shirt and is in front of a grey wall and white curtains.
Last updated: June 2026
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 is an enrolled member of the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians whose research focuses on the transformative work of First Nations and Native American dance and theatre artists. Sam has danced in contemporary dance companies for 25 years, touring nationally and internationally.
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Photo credit: Rosy Simas
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Lela Pierce
(She/Her/Hers)
Performer: Skin(s); Weave; Weave:HERE; yödoishëndahgwa’geh; she who lives on the road to war; A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:'.
Lela is a multiracial black visual artist and dancer. She finds inspiration from her childhood home near Hoǧáŋ Waŋká kiŋ (Dakota) aka Jiibayaatigo-ziibi (Anishinaabe) aka the St. Croix River Valley. Lela is currently pursuing a masters of fine arts in the interdisciplinary area of visual arts at the University of Minnesota.
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Photo credit: Valerie Oliveiro
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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:'.
François is a musician, composer, sound engineer and sound designer based in Montpellier, France. His work investigates the relation between sound/music and movement/dance, how vibration affects the body, movements of sounds using multiple speaker installations, and explores how dance and choreography can become a source language defining musical structure in composition.
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Erin Drummond
(She/They)
Performer: Threshold; it’s strange to be here; WEave:HERE; she who lives on the road to war.
Erin is a multidisciplinary artist from Minneapolis. She has travelled nationally and internationally as a dancer and choreographer to work on a wide range of performance projects, and directs the dance program at Winona State University. Her artwork often explores mystery and the unknown, drawing philosophical and physical inspiration from forces of nature.
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Sam Johnson
(He/Him/His)
Performer: Weave; she who lives on the road to war.
Sam does performance to reorganize again and again being a body. He works most frequently with performance collective SuperGroup but also often collaborates on projects led by other folks.
Image Description: A close-up portrait of a white man with short dark brown hair and a full beard, shown in three quarters-profile from the shoulders up against a grey background. He is looking intently towards the left side of the frame, with a focused expression. He is wearing a dark short-sleeved shirt, and his left arm extends horizontally across the foreground, partially visible.
Photo credit: Christopher Selleck
Last updated: June 2026
Valerie Oliveiro
(She/Her/Hers/Flex)
Performer: Weave; WEave:HERE; she who lives on the road to war.
Lighting Designer: Skin(s)
Production Consultant: RSD Three Thirty One Space
Born in Singapore and based in the Twin Cities, Valerie is a performance maker, performer, designer and photographer. She is Co-Artistic Director of Red Eye Theater collective and runs MOVO SPACE, a studio incubator for performance work and research.
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Photo credit: Lila Hurwitz/Doolittle+Bird
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Pedra Pepa
(They/Them)
Performer: Weave; WEave:HERE; she who lives on the road to war
Pedra is a Venezuelan-raised, Minneapolis-based queer dancer/performance maker. Founder/director of Viva la Pepa, their works are fueled by the overlapping values of Latinx and Queer cultures: melodrama, passion, decadence, and sensuality. An inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Pedra continues a transnational collaboration with Argentinian choreographer Celia Argüello, spending time in natural landscapes researching the nature of the encounter. Pedra developed their work Contained, Alive as a U of MN Cowles visiting artist, in the Berkshires (MA), with Red Eye Theater, and through Candybox festival. Their previous work, Holy Doña, re-imagines the crucifixion as a queer performance ritual; they performed a preliminary iteration of this work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Pedra continues research weaving latinx immigrant identities, queer (gender/sexuality/activism) histories across the Americas: across time/colonizations, and nature; manifesting materially in their 331 residency at Rosy Simas Danse space and in Guna Yala, May 2022. Pedra co-directs a children and family theater program Drag Story Hour, and entertains the adults at night as their draglesque persona Doña Pepa. Pedra is a teaching artist with Upstream Arts.
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Photo credit: Awa Mally courtesy of Walker Art Center
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Sharon Picasso
(She/Her)
Sharon Picasso is a Minneapolis, Mni Sota Makoce based movement, performance and transdisciplinary creative Artist and Founder / Artistic Director of Picasso Projects and Lupa Studio on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe.
Her work as a freelance performance and dance artist lives parallel to her work as a choreographer since 1995. Sharon’s creative and collaborative practice has expanded into design including sound, light and installation. Paramount in Sharon's collaborative process is cultivating an inclusive, respectful and sustaining creative environment where value is placed on the wholeness of an individual.
Sharon Picasso studied Theatre and Psychology at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and earned a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography from The Boston Conservatory.
Sharon is a recipient of a 2022 McKnight Dancer Fellowship. She is grateful to have been consistently performing and collaborating as a freelance dance artist for decades. The relationships cultivated through the moving performing arts have offered her diversity in artistry, growth and renewed energy. She considers her long-time collaborative relationships and community as the greatest rewards of her craft.
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Photo credit: Canaan Mattson
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J H Shuǐ Xiān
(She/Hers)
Performer: Skin(s); Weave:HERE; yödoishëndahgwa’geh; she who lives on the road to war.
J H is an interdisciplinary choreographer, improviser, and sound artist. She has enjoyed presenting works at venues including Paikka, Fresh Oysters Performance Research (R.I.P.), Public Functionary, Bryant Lake Bowl, Walker Art Center, The Southern Theater, Intermedia Arts (R.I.P.), Frey Theatre (Twin Cities, MN), Rochester Art Center and 9 Herkimer Place (Brooklyn, NY). She has enjoyed performing for/collaborating with others including Dua Saleh, Rosy Simas, Heather Kravas, Shayna Allen, lazer axelrood, Valerie Oliveiro, Leila Awadallah, Judith Howard, Shayna Allen, Pramila Vasudevan, Megan Mayer, Emily Gastineau, and Erin Drummond. She was a 2017 Q-Stage: New Works and 2019 Momentum: New Dance Works recipient, and was part of the 2022 Red Eye Works-In-Progress cohort.
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Jessika Enoh Akpaka
(She/Her)
Jessika Enoh Akpaka is a Creatrix born in Memphis and based in the Twin Cities. She is committed to liberation of self, humanity, and Earth through artistic expressions and spirituality. She is most recognized as a dancer and choreographer. Dancing, training, and performing while living in Memphis, her formal training began in musical theater at Lundstrum Center for the Performing Arts in 2009. She then trained at Perpich Center for Arts Education, TU Dance, and the University of Minnesota and received scholarships to study in New York at Garth Fagan Dance and Minnesota’s ARENA Dances. Currently a member of local company Atlantis13, Jessika has also worked and performed with STRONGMovement and SHAPESHIFT. She has choreographed for and taught students at Ballet Co. and Brooklyn Park. Jessika co-produced, choreographed, and performed in the sold-out production “Listen.” that debuted at the Lab Theater in 2018.
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Leslie Parker
(She/Her/Hers)
Performer: Weave
Leslie is an award-winning dance artist, performer, maker, improviser and educator whose rigorous research and practice in dance fusing forms (including the sacred) are derived of the African Diaspora.
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Photo credit: Lila Hurwitz/Doolittle+Bird
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Taja Will
(They/Them)
Performer: Skin(s); Weave; WEave:HERE; yödoishëndahgwa’geh; she who lives on the road to war.
Taja Will is a non-binary, disabled, queer, Latine (Chilean) adoptee. They are a performer, choreographer, somatic therapist, consultant and Healing Justice practitioner based in South Minneapolis for nearly 18 years. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will’s artistic work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through a blend of ritual, dense multi-layered worldbuilding and everyday magic.
Taja initiates solo projects and teaching ventures and is a recipient of the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, in the dance field. Will established a project-based collective, the Taja Will Ensemble, in 2015 and collaborates with local dance, music and design artists. Their work has been presented throughout the Twin Cities and across the United States including local performances at the Walker Art Center Choreographer’s Evening, the Red Eye Theater, Candy Box Dance Festival, and the Cowles Center Merge program. They are a 2018 McKnight Choreography Fellow, National Center of Choreography Akron alumni artist, current coach for MAP’s Scaffolding for Practicing Artists program, and work as a consultant with arts and education organizations across Turtle Island.
In other forms of healing and community work, Taja maintains a dynamic Healing Justice practice that includes consulting with individuals, organizations, and communities in the context of somatic bodywork, group workshops, conflict mediation, disability justice/access training, and individual artist coaching.
Image Description: Taja, a non-binary femme with brown, cinnamon colored skin gazes warmly into the camera. They wear a silver tank top which shows off their many tattoos. Their long dark and silver streaked hair is up in a bun and ornate leather and brass earrings hang down past their shoulders.
Photo credit: Isabel Fajardo
Last updated: June 2026
Carolyn Wong
(She/Her/Hers)
Carolyn is a New York-based lighting designer whose portfolio includes a diverse range of projects from intimate theatrical productions to internationally touring work. Favorites include Children of Eden (Manhattan Concert Productions, directed by Tony Yazbeck), Let Me Mingle Tears With Thee (Pacific Northwest Ballet / Jessica Lang), Come Through (a collaboration between TU Dance and Bon Iver), Une Autre Passion (Le Ballet du Grande Théâtre de Genève/ Pontus Lidberg). She currently works as the Worldwide Associate Lighting Designer for Disney’s The Lion King. She is an alumna of Oberlin College, and a native of San Francisco, California.
Image Description: Carolyn, a white and Chinese mixed-race woman in her 40s with medium length dark brown hair, looks into the middle distance with a faint smile on her face. She is wearing a short-sleeved white shirt with a small red floral pattern while seated in front of a peach background.
Photo credit: Sammy Tunis
Last updated: June 2026
