For Nina

September 25th – Public Workshop

Doors open at 6 pm

Workshop at 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

(Perfect for those who want to engage with the artists!)

September 26th – First Performance

Doors open at 7 pm

Performance 8:00 – 9:00 pm 

(Followed by a facilitated processing session). 

September 27th – Second Performance

Doors open at 7 pm

Performance 8:00 – 9:00 pm 

(Followed by a facilitated processing session). 

Victoria Lynn Awkward

Victoria Lynn Awkward is a multi-hyphenate creator, administrator, educator, and the Director of VLA DANCE. She pursued her multiple interests at Goucher College and graduated with high honors in Dance, Visual Art and Secondary Education. As the Director of VLA DANCE she is researching how to lead with joy, pleasure, and breath in and outside of art making practices. This work is guided through the lineage of Black and queer liberation practitioners.

Alongside directing VLA DANCE, Victoria is a freelance artist, who most recently choreographed for Huntington Theater, Company One Theatre, Boston Lyric Opera, and Commonwealth Shakespeare. Victoria is also an educator having worked at Salem State University, Brown University, West End House, Middlesex School, and Urbanity Dance. She continues to deepen her teaching practices as a mentee with Midday Movement Series. Victoria is currently a Brother Thomas Fellow, and recipient of the Next Steps for Boston Grant Dance Program as well as a recipient of the Queer (Re)public Theater Offensive Residency. Through her work she aims to inspire people to pause and reflect on their actions towards themselves, their community and their environment.

Camila Cortina Bello

Camila Cortina Bello is a pianist, educator, musicologist and composer. Born in Havana, Cuba, she has taken the stage in her home country and has performed for audiences around the world. Her music intends to re-imagine the sounds and rhythms of her original Cuban roots through the lens of jazz, classical and world music.

Camila studied classical piano and ethnomusicology in Havana. In 2010, after finishing her studies, she moved to Singapore, where she performed as a pianist and music director for different international bands across South Asia, including Indonesia and Malaysia. She relocated to Boston in 2018 as a recipient of the Berklee World Tour Full Tuition Scholarship to further her studies in Jazz Composition and Global Jazz Performance.

In 2023, Camila was an awardee of New Music USA’s “Next Jazz Legacy Program,” which supports emerging women in jazz. Since then, she has shared the stage with Paquito D’Rivera, Miguel Zenon, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Dianne Reeves, among many others, and performed at the Cape May Jazz Festival, DC Jazz Festival, Ecuador Jazz Festival, and Festival Internacional de Jazz de Punta del Este (Uruguay, 2024). She also released her first EP, “Sonera,” which is available on all streaming platforms.

Damaris Calderon

Damaris Calderon or Mars for short, is a Boston-born Creative, Curator and Arts administrator who cares deeply for arts advocacy, black liberation, and building a thriving community for the next generations to come. She began her passion for community engagement and organizing during her years at Umass Boston as a student of Professor Dr. Tony Van Deer Meer and Aminah Pilgrim within the Africana Studies Department. There she quickly realized the power of the arts as a means of educating the greater public as well as providing access to the experiences of black people worldwide.

In 2017, she completed her first independent seminar as a research project based on her time in Cuba eventually creating a short film called “The Afro Guantanamo Project”. This film was accompanied by her essay examining the influences of Santeria practices in Afrocentric Cuban culture & ideologies, she went on to present her film at the Black Communities Conference in Durham, North Carolina shortly after. This was a pivotal time in her life to truly understand the need to document black culture whether in the states or overseas. Mars continued to create and work in the art world as a cultural producer & curator. She strives to amplify and uplift the efforts of all dedicated to the accurate representation of black folks, hoping to creatively collaborate in building an ecosystem that is sustainable and conducive for our people to live their best lives. She currently is the Manager of Community Engagement at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum leading free, inclusive, artful experiences for all the community to enjoy.

Pascale Florestal

Pascale Florestal is a first generation Haitian American Queer Woman. She is an Elliot Norton Nominated Director, Educator, Dramaturg, Writer and Collaborator based in Boston, MA. Recent Directing Credits: MidSummer; Kinda? Written and Directed by Pascale Florestal at Suffolk University, World Premiere of Phaedra Michelle Scott’s DIASPORA! with New Repertory Theater, Magic Flute with MassOpera, Fairview with SpeakEasy Stage, Spring Awakening at Brandeis University, The Colored Museum with The Umbrella Performing Arts Center, Once On This Island with SpeakEasy Stage, This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing with Emerson Stage, Everybody with Boston Conservatory and others. As an Assistant to the Director she has worked with Timothy Douglas, Liesl Tommy, Billy Porter, Paul Daigneault and M. Bevin O’Gara. Pascale served as the Associate Director to Gil Rose on X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X with Odyssey Opera and Kimberly Senior on Our Daughters, Like Pillars at The Huntington Theater. Pascale also serves as the Associate Director for The Broadway National Tour of Jagged Little Pill.

In 2021 Pascale was named one of the WBUR ARTery 25 Artists of Color Transforming the Cultural Landscape in Boston. In 2020 she won the Inaugural Greg Ferrell Award for her excellence in teaching and supporting young people. She serves as the Director of Education for The Front Porch Arts Collective in residence at The Huntington Theater. She is an Assistant Professor of Theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music and Visiting Guest Artist Professor in Practice in the Theater at Suffolk University.

Desiré Graham

Desiré Graham is a submerging Artist In-Practice from Harlem, NY and holds a BFA in Theatre Arts from Boston University and Minor in Black studies where she earned the Kahn Career Entry Award in 2018. Graham has appeared in productions with Speakeasy Stage, New Repertory Theatre, FreshInk Theatre, Hibernian Hall in Boston, MA and was a company member at the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, in Italy, from 2019-2022. Graham currently works with Double Edge Theatre, VLA Dance, and Wender Collective as a recurring collaborator.

Additionally, Graham curates The Black Residency and hosts the workshop series entitled Somewhere in Between, for BIPOC and ALAANA peoples to discover the use of communal singing, give weight to their vibrational soul, activate, and call on others to join in. Graham is a 2024 Princess Grace Foundation Award winner, having previously received other various honoraria from MASS MoCA, American Repertory Theater, Connecticut Office of the Arts, and other cultural organizations.