Facilitators
Awilda Rodríguez Lora is a performer, producer, activist, yogi, lover and traveler. She has been creating and performing her own work for almost 10 years. For her, the development of performance art is a constant exercise in self-reflection where she challenges her identity, sexuality and gender. Throughout her career Rodríguez Lora has developed interdisciplinary performances that incorporate dance, theater and visual elements to provide an interactive experience for the spectator. Rodríguez Lora understands the importance of artistic collaboration and has made it a point to collaborate with other artists to not only create new work but also to challenge herself as a performance artist and producer. She has had the opportunity to work with artist and performers from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Norway and Puerto Rico. Some of the artists that she has collaborated with are Nequi Gonzalez, Darrell Jones, Tim Miller, Kortney Ryan Zielger, André Austvoll and Baraka de Soleil.
Rodriguez Lora holds a B.A. from Hunter College (CUNY) where she was awarded The Choreography Award from the Dance Department in 2002, and a Masters in Arts Management from Columbia College Chicago. Award winning producer of internationally acclaimed documetary STILL BLACK: a portrait of black transmen.
Award-winning performance artist Baraka de Soleil has been involved in the experimental movement, music and live art scene, throughout the country and internationally, for the past two decades. His artistry reflects moving images excavated from the multilayered traditions of the African Diaspora; actively crafting from ancestral memories, post-modern aesthetics and cultural legacies. He received the prestigious NY Katherine Dunham/Choreography AUDELCO award for excellence in Black theatre.
As a teaching artist & facilitator Baraka has worked with various communities, organizations and institutions across the country including Brooklyn Academy of Music, MN Center for Arts Education and as one of the developers of Agua/Tierra: a listening project, in Panama. Baraka recently received a Brooklyn Arts Exchange/ BAX Ten Award nomination for excellence & innovation in arts education and named one of the innovating practitioners in the theatrical jazz aesthetic for the 2011 Theatrical Jazz Institute at DePaul University & Links Hall.
