Omi Osun Joni L. Jones is interested in performance, visual art, community-building and the places where these forms meet. Her original performances include sista docta, a critique of academic life, and Searching for Ọ̀ṣun, an ethnographic performance installation around the Divinity of the River. Her dramaturgical work includes Sharon Bridgforth’s con flama, August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and Shay Youngblood’s Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery. Her most recent book is Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power of the Present Moment. Omi holds a Ph.D. from New York University and an Embodied Social Justice Certificate from Transformative Change. She has been shaped by Robbie McCauley’s activist art, Laurie Carlos’s insistence on being present, and Barbara Ann Teer’s overt union of art and Spirit. Omi is Professor Emerita from African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, a mother, a Queer wife and a curious sojourner.
黎珈璐 Lydia (they/them or she/her) is a theatre creator, storyteller, performer, actor and teaching artist; a Beijinger exported to the U.S.; a Chinese, English, Japanese and Emoji user; a living proof of feminism, autonomism, social justice and global solidarity. They practice radio calisthenics, yoga, Suzuki method, Viewpoints, French Mime, Butō, and Kendo. Lydia is interested in playing with the myth and codes of contemporary lives and happenings from queer, offshore Chinese, and migrant American perspectives, locating a mosaic narrative that is a flight, a pearl and a dynamite to both majority and minorities collaborators and audience.
Lydia's original works in development are <生存者之书 Book Of Survivor>, <游击队之歌 Guerrilla’s Song>, and <少女之眼 EYEYEYE>. Last seen in <Salesman之死> as YING Ruocheng and Inge Morath, written by Jeremy Tiang and directed by Michael Leibenluft. They have previously played with/at Ming Contemporary Art Museum in AoAoIng Ensemble, Double Edge Theatre, Los Angeles Performance Practice, JACK, REDCAT, Park Avenue Armory, with GungHo Project and Yangtze Repertory Theatre at The Connelly Theatre, with Theatre Roscius in residency at Getty Villa Theater Lab and Baryshnikov Art Center, etc. Lydia was in the Resident Artist Program 2023 at Mabou Mines, and currently in the inaugural Paris Hotel Fellowship at a todo dar productions. BFA Major in Sociology and Minor in Theatre from Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and a MFA in (Zoom) Acting from CalArts.
Feng Feng Yeh (she/her) is a chef and emerging multi-disciplinary artist who explores identity, feminism, and activism, under a provocative lens of sensuality, nostalgic camp, and comedy. She is the brainchild of the Chinese Chorizo Project, a MOCA Tucson and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts awarded project. October 2023 was named Chinese Chorizo Month by the Pima County Board of Supervisors thanks to the Chinese Chorizo Project's efforts in recognizing the contributions of immigrants in America. Yeh is the first recipient of the Tucson City of Gastronomy Food Visionary Award and was recently awarded the Downtown Tucson for Everyone Grant. Featured in Vogue and WWD for her NYC based womenswear line Savant, Yeh’s first exploration in multi-dimensional productions evolved to an art utilizing food as a vehicle to explore ideas of consumption and its related performance, spectacle, and response. Providing an intersectional perspective between the connections of collaboration, art, food, history, and humanity, Yeh hopes to uplift underrepresented communities across boundaries.