Cost: Free online
Where: ZOOM (Link shared with RSVP)
Description: Meet artists Vanessa Cruz, Jaklin Romine, and Ande Diedjomahor for a conversation with each other about disability, art, and life. This talk, organized and moderated by dancer and choreographer Alice Sheppard, is the culmination of a partnership with Pieter as part of an Access Initiative.
What to bring/expect: Curiosity and everything you need to make yourself comfortable. It's a zoom call so there will be a time and space to talk and share ideas and responses.
Accessibility note: There will be a live ASL interpreter. Live CART/real time captioning will be available.
About the Artists:
Alice Sheppard: Living into a dare, dancer and choreographer Alice Sheppard resigned her tenured professorship to train with Kitty Lunn and Infinity Dance Theater. After an apprenticeship, Alice joined AXIS Dance Company where she became a core company member, toured nationally, and taught in the company’s education and outreach programs. A USA Artist, Creative Capital grantee and Bessie Award winner, Alice is the founder and artistic lead for Kinetic Light, a disability arts organization, working at the intersections of disability, dance, design, identity, and technology to create transformative art and affirm the intersectional disability arts movement.
Ande Diedjomahor (they/them) is a Disabled & Chronically ill, Black, Queer, NeuroExpansive, Trans anti- binary, spirit babe, born in Nigeria and raised in the US South. They are an Artist, Healing Arts Practitioner, Care Werker, Health Educator, Disability and Mental Health Advocate, and Holistic Wellness Curator & Creatrix who dabbles in everything from plant medicine and vegan cooking to jewelry making, event curation, visual arts and graphic design. Their background is in education and STEM/Mental Health (reTIRED RN), and they now facilitate intuitive movement, meditation sessions, and creative workshops. They have a deep passion and gift for bringing folks together and uplifting & supporting the well- being, healing, joy, and prosperity of creatives, especially Black folks who are multi-marginalized.
Vanessa Hernández Cruz (she, her, ella) is an interdependent Chicana Disabled dance artist, filmmaker, visual artist, poet & an Intersectional Disability Justice activist. She holds her BA in Dance Science from Cal State Long Beach. Over the past six years Vanessa’s work has been shown nationally & internationally. She is currently the recipient of the 2023 California Arts Council x The Center of Cultural Power Artist Disruptor Award. With this award she will expand her current dance work ‘Exhale Static, Inhale Fumes’ that will include more Disabled artist on stage; set to debut in Fall 2024. She had two exciting dance solos that premiered this summer: “Metal, Plastic, Skin” debuting at The Odyssey Theatre’s Dance Festival and “Exhale Static, Inhale Fumes” with her debut at The REDCAT’s NOW Festival. In addition, slated for 2024 Vanessa along with Saira Barbaric & NEVE with the support of a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the three have cofounded Mouthwater Festival, a new Disabled arts festivals happening in Seattle.
Jaklin Romine was born in Burbank, California, and currently lives in Pasadena. She grew up in Alhambra/San Gabriel, then lived in East LA [El Sereno] for 15 years. She obtained her M.F.A from Cal Arts, a BFA from Cal State Los Angeles, and an AA from Pasadena City College. There are three cohesive areas to her practice: idea creation, working in collaboration with art production assistants, and performance. Breaking the language between image, object hood that circumvents the architecture, she allows the space that’s created to float between installation, sculpture, and photography on top of a fabric scape that pushes photography into the third dimension. She confronts the intersection of feminist ideals that are formed by her identity as a disabled, queer, latinx, poc, living in the Southern California landscape. She uses performance art to confront inaccessible art spaces in Los Angeles by documenting her body sitting outside for an entire art opening or closing.