The Women Gather

Wendy Jehlen

Wendy Jehlen’s career has been marked by international explorations, study and creative collaboration. She received her Bachelor’s degree in ritual and performance from Brown University and her Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School with a focus on performance and religion in the former Persian world. Wendy engages in collaborations across languages, culture, media and genres.  Her work questions the boundaries that we imagine between ourselves, and seeks to break down these imagined walls through an embodied practice of radical empathy. This practice takes her around the world to conduct workshops, collaborations and performances which she calls collectively Dance Diplomacy. Her unique approach to choreography incorporates elements of Bharata Natyam, Odissi, Capoeira, Kalaripayattu, West African dance, Butoh, and a wide-range of Contemporary movement forms. Her emotionally powerful choreography has been created and performed in the US, Benin, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Italy, India, Japan, Mali, Mozambique, Palestine and Turkey. Works include The Women Gather (2022); Conference of the Birds (2018); Entangling (2015), a duet with Burkinabe choreographer Lacina Coulibaly inspired by Quantum Entanglement; The Deep (2015), a work for 25 dancers created in São Paulo, Brazil, Lilith (2013), a solo on the first woman; The Knocking Within (2012), an evening-length duet on a disintegrating relationship; Forest (2010), a journey through the archetypal forest; He Who Burns (2006), a trio on the figure of Iblis (Satan); Breathing Space (2003), a collaboration with Japanese choreographer Hikari Baba in Tokyo; Crane (2002), based on images from Japanese Buddhist poetry; and Haaaa (2002), inspired by the experience of childbirth. Jehlen has received support from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art (2017-2018), Theater Communications Group (2018), the Japan Foundation (2017), the Boston Foundation (2012, 2017, 2020), New England Foundation for the Arts (2016-2021), Network of Ensemble Theaters (2016-2021), the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (2015-2020), the Boston Center for the Arts Choreographers’ Residency program (2010, 2015), the Artist Fellowship Program of the Massachusetts Cultural Council (2003, 2012), the American Institute of Indian Studies (2001, 2013), the Boston Dance Alliance (2013), the National School of Drama (2006, 2011, 2013, 2020), the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (2011), the Fulbright program (2005-2006), the National Endowment for the Arts (2005, 2019, 2020), the Tokyo American Center (2002), the Puffin Foundation (2001), and the Ford Foundation/Arts International (1996), among others. She is a Fulbright Scholar and a Fulbright Specialist, an Arts Envoy of the US Dept of State, she is on the speaker roster of African Regional Services and has received Public Affairs grants from US Embassies in Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Japan, China, Mexico and South Africa.

Raquel Flor

Independent artist and massage therapist. She has been practicing martial arts since she was 15 years old. Her trajectory in dance began in 2015 with the practices of Somatic Education in Dance. In 2016 she joined Cia ANIKAYA Dance Theater Brazil. In 2017, she began her independent research on the female figure in society, since then she has participated in projects created by women and that address themes of the feminist struggle and LGBTQIA +.

Christie Dossou

Dancer from Cotonou, Benin. She has trained in Contemporary dance and dance pedagogy at Centre Choregraphique Multicorps in Benin, Ecole des Sables in Senegal and CDC la Termitiere in Burkina Faso, and in latin dance and Capoeira also in Benin. She is currently dancing in Pina Bausch company’s special project Le Sacre du Printemps and with Olivier Tarpaga. She has been working with ANIKAYA since 2017 when she was an apprentice instructor in the first edition of Run Like a Girl in Cotonou and Parakou, Benin.

Ching-I Chang

Made in Taiwan, active in America and quiet places. MFA. She has a deep love for dance and nurturing harmony. She has danced for Susan Marshall, Gesel Mason, Punchdrunk, and many brilliant artists. She was an original cast member of Sleep No More NYC; as well as a rehearsal director of SNM Shanghai. Most recently, she has toured with ANIKAYA to Palestine and African countries. Along with performing, teaching has been her sacred process of learning. She was a visiting professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and an adjunct at U of California San Diego. She is a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst, Yoga and Yoga Nidra Facilitator. She has bathed in contact improvisation, meditation and yoga since 2005 with occasional teaching and sharing with others. In her free time, she practices calligraphy, plays with voices, and makes bad art. And she loves bananas.

Cassandre Charles

Interdisciplinary embodiment artist from Boston, MA. She comes from a lineage of Haitian revolutionists, artists, musicians, politicians, physicians, and social justice advocates. Cassandre’s most recent residencies include Danza Orgánica’s We Create Residency & Cohort, and Monkeyhouse’s Malden Dance Mile where she showcased her dance films ‘Travel to Nope, A Digital Art Visual Journal,’ and ‘WHATEVER’. This multi-media film series was formed in response to the theme “embodiment of liberation” offered by Danza Orgánica. Cassandre is a member of somatics expert Joshua Elbaum’s Somatic Artistry Cohort and the ArtsAssembly Creative Cohort. She is an Artist Collaborator with Monkeyhouse and a member of the Boston Dance Alliance Dance & Disabilities Cohort on developing accessible resources for people with visible and invisible disabilities. Cassandre holds a BA in Speech, Interpersonal & Organizational Communication from Hampton University.

Mila Thigpen

Mila Thigpen, PhD is an international teacher-artist who has danced works by Doris Humphrey, Paul Taylor, Trisha Brown, Seán Curran, Germaul Barnes, Wendy Jehlen, Arthur Aviles, and Aszure Barton. Thigpen’s work has been presented in CRASHarts’s Ten’s the Limit and the Bronx BlakTina Dance Festival. Her commissions span from concert to commercial work internationally. Thigpen was a Boston cast member of the Bessie Award-winning Skeleton Architecture. She was also the movement coach for Pass Over, under the direction of Monica White Ndounou, which received a Lortel Award for outstanding play.

Thigpen’s advocacy for equity has been nationally recognized, and she has been called to major gatherings on social justice and equity to lead people in embodied practices that support their work. Thigpen created and implemented a cultural humility professional development workshop for artists and educators, which she has facilitated for secondary and post-secondary educational institutions. She has presented research on teaching dance from racialized bodies, and continues learning new methodologies for culturally informed somatic healing practices. Her work in this field has led to invitations as a guest speaker at the Beijing Dance Forum and the Gulf Center for Law and Policy’s Sacred Waters Pilgrimage.

Thigpen earned a B.A. from Kenyon College, an M.F.A. from Boston Conservatory at Berklee, an Ed.M. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in dance at Texas Woman’s University. Her research reclaims salsa as part of the African diaspora through ethnographic inquiry of the Bronx-based Yamuleé Dance Company. Thigpen has presented multiple times at the Dance Studies Association and the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance. Mila is also the Chair of the Dance Program at Boston Conservatory.

Michelle Bach-Coulibaly

Performance artist and educator who has created over 40 original pieces of contemporary movement theatre for that investigate socio-political canvases, cross-cultural narratives, and embodied texts. At Brown University she directs New Works/World Traditions, a research-to-performance troupe of actors, musicians, dancers and imagists who develop new theatre for national and international festivals, educational venues, and for the concert stage. Bach-Coulibaly has conceived, written and performed over thirty different educational programs that regularly tour nationally and internationally that utilize the power of performance to service public health, sustainable entrepreneurship and egalitarian exchange. Since 1990, her work in Mali has been focused upon building Yeredon, a research center for cultural preservation, international collaboration and social activism. Yeredon is the home for the Bloodline Project, a unique international collaboration and edutainment program to combat the devastating effects of malaria and other debilitating calamities.

Melissa Huser

Melissa Huser has been learning Odissi, a Classical Indian dance form, from Mouli Pal, a student of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, for the last 19 years. She has participated in Wendy’s pieces such as Lilith, Silent Flight, and The Deep. From 2008 to 2012, Melissa danced at times for opening songs of the psychedelic alternative New Age band Prince Rama, with Taraka and Nimai Larson. She performed in outdoors spaces like PS1 in New York, and traveled with them to the SXSW (South by Southwest) music festival in Austin in 2011 and to the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Butlins, England, curated by Animal Collective.

Lone Motsomi

Started dancing at the age of 7, inspired by hip hop culture. She joined Mophato Dance Theater in 2013. She performed in South Africa at national and international levels working with artists such as Freshlyground and Somizi Mhlongo. She had the opportunity to perform on Broadway with the Pula! Ensemble in 2018 as the lead dancer. She also works as an actor and stunt artist. She recently finished filming The Women King as a stunt performer.

Shaw Pong Li

Violinist and composer Shaw Pong Liu engages diverse communities through multidisciplinary collaborations, creative music and social dialogue. She performs with groups including Silk Road Ensemble, MIT’s Gamelan GalakTika, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Ludovico Ensemble, and Castle of Our Skins. Shaw Pong was one of three Artist-in-Residence for the City of Boston’s first Artist-in-Residence program in 2016 and a 2018-19 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow. She was one of three composers for ANIKAYA’s Conference of the Birds.

Luciane Ramos-Silva

Dancer, choreographer, anthropologist and cultural organizer. She holds a PhD in Performing Arts/Dance at UNICAMP researching the notions of coloniality in dance, pedagogical approaches and south-south relations. She is Artistic Director of the São Paulo-based Luciane Ramos Silva e Coletividade with which she created the works “Brita” and “Na fresta da certitude o vermelho escuro” and received a Fomento a Dança from the city of São Paulo. She was keynote speaker at the 2020 Collegium for African Diaspora Dance at Duke University. She was a guest editor of WSQ Feminist Press in 2021. In 2021 she was a visiting professor in the body arts department at Unicamp in São Paulo.

Fen Rotstein

(she/her) Multimedia artist and AV engineer based in Boston, MA. As a latina and jewish trans woman, her work and collaborative efforts often occupy the intersection of her own lived experience, helping to illuminate her lived experiences, as well as those of other marginalized communities and peoples.

Mali Sastri

Singer, songwriter, composer, and performer based in Boston, MA. For over fifteen years Mali has been the primary songwriter, lead vocalist, and frontwoman for the Boston art rock band, Jaggery. Mali trained in the expressive arts discipline Voice Movement Therapy, and her vocal range exhibits this therapeutic approach to sound-making, moving  from “new-age songbird to woman scorned to woodland fairy to blood-thirsty werewolf to sultry lounge singer” (Boston Herald). Mali is a registered VMT practitioner, helping others to find and free their own voices.  She also produces, curates, and performs in the ongoing performance series Org, out of various underground-and-otherwise venues in the Boston area.

Marlene Santana

Visual artist based in São Paulo and working in many media – from puppetry to installation to private murals and public art. Her work addresses questions of violence against black and indigenous women and children. She works with vulnerable populations, including people with intellectual disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence, and other marginalized people and her own creations reflect this.

Sutikshna Veeravalli

Performing Indian arts vocalist and dancer from Chicago, IL. She has been pursuing both music and dance for over 20 years, takes joy in teaching both arts herself, and intends to continue lifelong. Her performances across North America and India have earned her several accolades by renowned art institutes. Sutikshna also connects music and dance with her work in Special Education and public speaking. She contributes regularly to her Indian arts communities through CAREspaces, a non-for-profit that aims to create a safer and more ethical workspace.

Sam Whyte

Song weaver and story singer. She enjoys vocal improvisation, CircleSinging and vocal exploration as a means to connect to her Self and all her various parts. Her practice comes from her personal journey through mental health challenges. In her work as an IFS informed Voice Movement Therapy practitioner, her desire is to help others feel deeply connected to their voices, their bodies and to create song, dance, story, art as container for even that which we have learned is unspeakable. She has found that the vulnerability that comes from compassionately connecting to the Shadow is vital to understanding our Selves and connecting to others.

Annie Wiegand

One of the only Deaf professional lighting designers in the country. Her heightened sense of sight adds a unique layering to her designs and amplifies her story-telling capabilities with a visually-inspired perspective. She is an Adjunct Professor of lighting design, as well as production management at Gallaudet University. She is also a member of Wingspace Design Collective.