MEET THE 2019 COHORT
The artist-healer-activist Cohort is a diverse group at the core of the DYFIT practice. They collectively explore and research this interdisciplinary practice; support each other in their own related work; and learn by regularly dance in public together. In 2019, the Cohort explores resilience and resistance, social change as “pleasure activism,” (adrienne maree brown’s term), and moving lives with joy, self-care, and community care.
Maria Arriola is a student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities pursuing an Individualized Degree in Ethnomusicology, Psychology, and Human Health and Wellness. She loves to play/create+destroy order.
Stayci Bell is a community gardener, actress, beginner, puppeteer, a mother, and so much more. She is an everythingist! Stayci appeared with zAmya in Home Street Home Minneapolis at the Guthrie and was recently part of Los Angeles Poverty Department’s production of What Fuels Development? at Pangea World Theater.
Conie Borchardt is a Listener, a Vibration, and a Heartist who practices weaving mindfulness, sound, movement, and color to embody her wholeness as well as hold space for others to heal. A descendent of Korean-German immigrant farmers of land previously stewarded by the Lower Sioux Dakota people, she strives to awaken connections among differences.
Shira K Charis has been teaching yoga in the Twin Cities since 2003 and can be found most days of the week at One Yoga Nonprofit in Uptown Minneapolis.
Zoe Cinel is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and community organizer for Florence, Italy. As an immigrant, she sees art as a platform for cross-cultural dialogue and for making community. She is currently a member of Carry On Homes Team and the Mirror Lab.
Julia Davidson is a dancer-scholar based in Minneapolis, MN. She has trained in a grab-bag of phyiscal disciplines including ballet, capoeira, somatics, modern, house, and DYFIT, and she is interested in how delicious academia (in the form of performance studies and critical theory) converges with the lived experience of dancing bodies.
Rae Eden’s earliest memories are of dancing around the living room as her mother played the piano. She currently works in the environmental health field, and is training to be a dance movement therapist. She can be found dancing on the street corner, meditating amongst the trees, or wandering near river banks; with nature and dance as my healers and teachers.
Asher Edes is grateful that DYFIT practice and community makes them feel at home in Minneapolis. The practice includes two of Asher’s favorite things: being outside, and sharing an embodied connection with other people.
When Elizabeth Fontaine hears a song that makes her want to move, she moves. She acknowledges the world around her, and she keeps dancing, creating a ripple of joy, dissent, disorder, silliness, and beauty.
Tana Hargest works in four areas: art making that focuses on issues of power, race, and class; audience and civic engagement through collective art actions and cooperative economics; systemic change within the arts ecosystem; and generating joy with the Subversive Sirens, a synchronized swim team committed to Black liberation, body positivity in athleticism, and queer visibility.
Diane Hellekson is a writer, landscape architect and dancer living in St. Paul. She has practiced with Don’t You Feel It Too? since 2010 and helped lead and organize practices since 2014. Diane values DYFIT for its graceful catharsis, friendly defiance, and the way it allows her to explore and strengthen herself and her community.
Magi Korder is an artist and is interested in how through creativity and community-of-care we can have collective healing, a healing evolution. They are inspired and curious about this inquiry now. They hope to keep understanding themself more through movement in many forms and is sure through that practice this bio will evolve too.
Laura Levinson is a is a movement artist, healer, and deep believer in the power of communities to hold one another lovingly accountable through growth and change. Laura has been performing and creating work in the Twin Cities for the past 6 years with Aniccha Arts, BareBones Puppets, and a variety of other beloved collaborators.
Shea Love works as an educator in the Twin Cities and is interested in how we can bring more transparency, connection and joy into educational spaces! She feels grateful to have stumbled into the dance community. She is most at peace while dancing, especially breaking; either by herself or in space with others sharing music and stories.
Theresa Madaus is a dance-maker and performer best known as 1/3 of the choreographic collaboration Mad King Thomas. She also creates dancework as an individual and is an arts administrator with Don't You Feel It Too?, Link Vostok, and Upstream Arts. Occasionally she writes and more frequently she moonlights as drag sensation Rock Scissors.
Demetrius McClendon began dancing with street hip-hop at the age of 15; he has traveled internationally as a professional dancer. Believing wholeheARTedly in the power of love (plus politics), radical imagination, and spiritual practice, he facilitates workshops that utilize yoga and meditation and emphasize the importance of holistic self-care.
Wendy Morris, Director of Creative Leadership Studio, dances at the intersection of systems change, leadership development, mindfulness and innovation. A consultant, trainer and coach, she collaborates with several global networks for change including the Human Systems Dynamics Institute and the Art of Hosting network.
Mankwe Ndosi is an instrument of song and light, a wild plant woman, a re-memberer of breath and connection through bodies healing - she is patient and determined.
Alys Ayumi Ogura is a Twin Cities-based dancer/performer who enjoys moving between the theater and dance worlds for various projects. She has worked with a variety of talents locally and internationally. Ogura is a 2017/2018 cohort of Pangea World Theater’s Arts Organizing Institute, and she serves as a program ambassador for Patrick’s Cabaret’s sunset season.
James Orione has been practicing yoga for 7 years, and teaches in the Himalayan tradition. James aims to create a safe space to explore yoga with open and accessible classes for students who are diverse in gender, race, religion, age and ability. As an African American male he feels it is important to create access and opportunities for people of color to explore yoga.
Heather Peebles uses art as a mediator for healing. By questioning the perpetuation of oppressive systems in current healing methodologies for victim-survivors of sexual trauma, she facilitates workshops and creates work that interrupts power dynamics, promotes agency, and critically looks at additional barriers such as race and gender.
Miré Regulus is a mover, writer and performance artist. Her work is marked by poetical prose, rich language and non-linear structure.
Actor/writer/storyteller Amy Salloway is a big fan of the Venn Diagram spot where live performance, social activism and human connection overlap. Amy teaches memoir, creative writing and storytelling through Minneapolis Community Ed and The Story Studio, and hosts Story Club Minneapolis one Thursday a month at the Bryant-Lake Bowl.
Keila Anali Saucedo is a Mexican-American story teller & theater maker in the cities. They have the divine pleasure of dancing publicly and taking pleasure seriously through Don't You Feel It Too?.
Diana Siegel-Garcia dances into her own power as an artist, cat mama, organizer, and nonprofit professional. She paints, prints, writes, collages, and likes to collect fabric for that one day. Right now she’s pretty hyped about the podcast “Money Land Power Solidarity”, a show about big development in the Twin Cities, displacement, and gentrification. You can best reach her on the 5 or 21.
Aki Shibata was born in Tokyo, Japan. She moved to the USA for her arts education, and graduated in 2007 with a BFA in Photography from the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, MN. Shibata states that she “creates more places and ways to let people meet their peace.” Her artworks are an examination of her body and mind in public and gallery spaces.
Mike Thurston is an artist and activist studying Art for Social Change/Applied Drama at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. As an Artist Mike has found himself immersed in the world of participatory collaborations. As an activist his goal is to bring people together to engage in honest interaction and see a piece of ourselves in those we see as "other".
Alejandra Tobar-Alatriz has been a bodyworker and trainer in the movement and healing arts for more than 15 years. As a healer, Alejandra is creative and supportive. She is deeply committed to the idea that strong individuals make happy, healthy community organizers, healers, and meaning-makers.
Xiaolu Wang finds her natural state of being - on a train with a book in her hands or dancing in the middle of the street. She seems to be always looking for something, something tiny, somewhere deep, faraway places, a warm bowl to hold, and stories....she has sought out these things for half of her life in China, and half of her life in the U.S.
Claudette M. Webster arrived in the Twin Cities from the East Coast by way of Jamaica, West Indies, less than a year ago. She loves exploring and partaking of the wide range of experiences that being in the Minnesota offers, including aligning with her inner dancer and setting her free....
Marcus Young 楊墨 is an artist who makes behavioral forms for everyone to use and make life better. They expand the repertoire of wellness and human consciousness. He is the founder of Don’t You Feel It Too? From 2006 to 2015, he was City Artist in St. Paul, MN. For a longer bio for Marcus, visit the People page.
Shannon Young is an exuberant and embodied teacher, artist, and dancer currently calling Minnesota home.
Nan Zosel has been dancing for nearly 58 years. She has a B.A. in dance/movement therapy. Other dancing adventures include performing with a caravan, choreography of liturgical dance for local churches, and coaching a hip hop dance team. She believes with every fiber of her being that dance can heal individuals and communities.