@jokeydokeyahmed

Joseph Ahmed (he/they) is a mixed-race Asian theater artist and arts administrator whose work spans theater, circus, dance, and interactive performance. They are a co-founder of the nationally-recognized worker-owned cooperative Obvious Agency, which creates interactive performances and advocates for democratic practices within the arts ecosystem. As a playwright and solo artist (Half Magic, Philly Fringe 2023) he creates dynamically physical and genre-defying work, often infused with nerd culture and fantasy, to explore how the world sculpts us with stories and how we can use stories to sculpt it right back. They are a major collaborator with Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists, a former company member with the Barrymore Award-winning Tribe of Fools (2018-2020) and of Almanac Dance Circus Theatre (2016-2018). He co-directed ikantkoan’s Chaos Theory which won Immersive Nation’s Best Social Immersion award in 2019. As a performer and director he has worked throughout Philadelphia with companies such as the Arden Theatre Company, Theater Exile, Philadelphia Artists’ Collective, and Asian Arts Initiative. He is a former youth circus coach at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts and holds a BFA in Theater Arts from Boston University.

@leila_delicious

Leila Delicious (she/her) is a burlesque artist who exists at the epicenter of queer Palestinian decadence. She began her performing career as a political performance artist and sees burlesque as a continuation of that work. Performing indulgence and abundance is Leila's ritual of embodied decolonization and Palestinian futurism. Aside from performing, Leila is currently getting her masters degree in Dance/Movement Therapy. She looks forward to serving her own and other marginalized communities, inviting them to create their own decolonization movement practices and heal through dance and revolution together. Leila is based in Philadelphia, and has performed internationally in burlesque and performance festivals such as Cannonball, Burlesque n Beyond, Radical Acts and Mophradat. She’s smoother than olive oil and thicker than hummus. She’s the incredible edible Leila Delicious.

@rhondadances

Rhonda Moore (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, performance artist, and educator. A former member of the very first Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (1983), Moore has collaborated behind-the-scenes, on the screen and onstage with international artists in music, dance, and theater, such as Michael Jackson (The Wiz), David Gordon/Valda Setterfield, Douglas Dunn, Sylvain Émard, Boris Charmatz, Mariana Arteaga, Shayla Vie-Jenkins, Nia Benjamin, Ang Bey, Yael Bartana, Nichole Canuso, Doug Varone, Max Roach, Connie Crothers, Cheryl Porter, Maurizio Zanolli, Luigi Bonafede, Carlo Ceriani, and many others. Her pedagogy as a Dancing Classrooms Philly senior teaching artist and as adjunct faculty in Temple University’s Department of Dance connect Rhonda with Philadelphia’s richly diverse, intergenerational populations.  Her collaborative creative work with locally-based artists Megan Bridge (Grounds That Shout), Nichole Canuso (The Garden/Being:With/Lunar Retreat), Jillian Harris (PAFA), Laura Katz Rizzo (Grounds for Sculpture), and Ben Grinberg (Almanac Dance Circus Theater) stand as further testimony of the power and impact of dance in creating and building community.

@tajrauch

Taj Rauch is an immersive game developer, theater maker and filmmaker whose work focuses on centering the audience as the protagonist of every story. He is driven toward pushing the envelope of immersive world-building to ask: in a myriad of worlds, would you still find yourself to be you?
His work has been featured in the IceBox Project Space, exhibited in the PAFA Museum, and played at the VGTVG Conference. He currently teaches Advanced Technical Theater at the Community College of Philadelphia, and previously taught Media Design at the University of the Arts up until its sudden closure.
Taj is the recipient of a 2024 Residency with the Tony Award Winning Wilma Theater, as well as a recipient of the Niantic Developer Accelerator Fund.

@me.jesus.prince.picard.bronx

Shavon Norris is an Artist. Educator. Facilitator. She grew up in a Black Sci-Fi Christian home in the Bronx that sparked her curiosity about the magic, medicine, and meaning living within us. Shavon uses movement along with text, sound, and imagery to reveal the stories living in our bodies. Her work explores our relationship to our identities, our experiences, and to each other. An examination and celebration of what we feel, think, and believe. As an artist her work has been presented at venues in NYC and Philadelphia. As a performer, she has performed for Silvana Cardell, Leah Stein, Merian Soto, makini poe, and toured with Pig Iron Theatre Company. As a facilitator, she works with artistic, educational, and corporate institutions, offering learning on Creativity, Movement, Inclusivity, and Healing Centered/Trauma Informed Practices. Shavon’s artistic and educational philosophies are rooted in the desire to offer herself, learners, performers, and audiences, opportunities to deepen the understanding of self and the collective. She loves the living and working she gets to do in the world. Venmo @ShavonNichelle (a picture of yellow and black butterfly)

@missgenderdotcom

Miss Gender (yes/and/also) is a wish and a wish granted, a local star, a state of being. She invites you to witness her in witness of herself, in practice/in process, and hopes that through that we all learn how to learn more of that which is close to us - always already a part of us - but may often feel far away. Both rooted in her before, and wayyy too forward thinking, she is painstakingly and imminently (inevitably) "in the moment" and offers (((although sometimes confusingly))) spoken permission to mirror her in that, as she reflects to you as much beauty as you choose to look for. Miss Gender is a dream come true.