Leila Awadallah

2022 DANCER FELLOW

photo by Canaan Mattson

Leila Awadallah ليلى عوض الله (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker based in
Minneapolis and partly Beirut, Lebanon. Dancing with a body of Palestinian, Arab-American, Sicilian, and mixed Mediterranean ways and waves. Born on Dakota, Lakota land near the Thick Wooded River (Sioux Falls, SD) she moved to Minneapolis, Mni Sota in 2012 to pursue a BFA in Dance at the University of Minnesota, and found home here.

Leila is the creator, choreographer, and teacher of Body Watani dance project/practice in
collaboration with Noelle Awadallah. As a member of Ananya Dance Theatre (2014 - 2019), she trained in Yorchha, toured Nationally / Internationally, and was impacted by ADT’s commitment to intersecting dance and social justice. She is a founder of Kelvin Wailey (2015-2019), and performed works by Paula Mann, Leyya Tawil, Karla Grotting, Slo Dance, Emma Marlar,
HIJACK, Emily Gastineau, Morgan Thorsen, and Paulina Olowska. She lives and works part-time
in Beirut where she’s a collaborator with Theater of Women of the Camp.

Leila received multiple fellowships: Jerome Hill (2021-2023), Daring Dances (2019) and
Springboard 20/20 (2018). She has been an artist in residence at Hinge (MN), Arab American
National Museum (MI) Hammana Artist House and Amalgam (Lebanon), and the Camargo
Foundation (France). Her works/research received support from National Performance
Network, MSAB, and Goethe. She presented work at the Cedar Tree Project, MIZNA, and RAWI
Arab Lit conference. Leila received a SAGE Award in film (2016) and Best Performance from
the Lebanese National Theater (2019).

leilaawadallah.com

Sharon Picasso

2022 DANCER FELLOW

Photo by Canaan Mattson

Sharon Picasso (she/her) is a Minneapolis based movement, performance and transdisciplinary creative Artist and Founder/Artistic Director of Picasso Projects and Lupa Studio. Her work as a freelance performance and dance artist lives parallel to her work as a choreographer since 1995. Picasso’s creative and collaborative practice has expanded into design including sound, light and installation. Paramount in her collaborative process is cultivating an inclusive, respectful and sustaining creative environment where value is placed on the wholeness of an individual.

Her performance work provides the privilege of collaborating with a wide variety of artists, most recently Deborah Jinza Thayer/Movement Architecture, Rosy Simas Danse, Jennifer Glaws/Jagged Moves, Pedro Pablo/Viva La Pepa, Jess Forest, and Paula Mann/Time Track Productions. Picasso studied Theatre and Psychology at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and earned a degree in Dance Performance and Choreography from The Boston Conservatory.


Picasso is grateful to have been consistently performing and collaborating as a freelance dance artist for decades. The relationships cultivated through the moving performing arts have offered her diversity in artistry, growth and renewed energy. She considers her long-time collaborative relationships and community as the greatest rewards of her craft.



www.picassoprojects.com

Cheng Xiong

2022 DANCER FELLOW

Photo by Canaan Mattson

Cheng Xiong grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota and received his Bachelors of Art in Dance at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Though he began his journey as a street dancer, he currently collaborates with professional dance companies such as Black Label Movement, STRONGmovement and BRKFST Dance Company.

In 2015 Xiong and Black Label presented the “Bodystorming Hits Bangalore” initiative in partnership with the National Centre for Biological Science in Bangalore, India. Two years later in 2017, STRONGmovement and Xiong participated in the Momentum project, “New Dance Works Festival.” He participated in the “I’m From...Vol. 2,” evening show in 2018, where he also debuted his solo “Being Hmong, Being Free.” In 2019, Xiong participated in Rhythmically Speaking’s show, “The Cohort,” where he performed for the Rovaco Dance Company and the JazzAntiqua Dance & Music Ensemble. Later that year, he toured in Gainesville, Florida with Black Label and received a residency at the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. After premiering “60/40” with BRKFST Dance in 2021, they did their first tour residency in Dublin, Ireland.

Alongside his repertoire of performances, Xiong is a Breakdance instructor and educator. He has taught at after-school programs such as Washington Technology Magnet Middle, Hazel Park Preparatory Academy, and Ramsey Middle through the East Side Arts Council. At present, Xiong is currently teaching at Cypher Side Dance School.

Leslie Parker

2022 CHOREOGRAPHY FELLOW

Photo by Canaan Mattson

Leslie Parker, a St. Paul, MN Rondo native, is a dance artist with art bases in Brooklyn, NY and in Twin Cities, MN. As a dance artist/maker, improviser, performer, director, collaborator, and educator, her work is awarded by National Dance Project (2021), National Performance Network Creation Fund (2020), National Performance Network Development fund (2021), National Performance Network community engagement fund (2021), and National Performance Network Storytelling & Documentation fund (2021).

She is an Outstanding Performance Bessie Award recipient and an inaugural Jerome Hill Foundation Artist Fellow. Growing up in the Rondo community rooted her in socially engaged art and led her to hold a BFA in Choreography and Modern dance technique from Esther Boyer College of Music & Dance (Temple University) and an MFA in dance from Hollins University in partnership with the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, The Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and The Dresden Frankfurt Company in Frankfurt, Germany.

Parker’s original works have been presented by New York Live Arts, HarlemStages EMoves13, Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center, Tribeca Performing Art Center, University of Minnesota Dance Program, Southern Theater, Pillsbury House Theatre, Pangea World Theater, Walker Art Center, and Painted Bride Arts Center. Parker co-directed the annual 44th (IHOB Puppet Theatre) MayDay Tree of Life Ceremony 2018. She was choreographer for Jimmy & Lorraine: A Musing by Talvin Wilkes and Collidescope 4.0 adventures in Pre and Post Racial America by Ping Chong and Talvin Wilkes; Penumbra Theatre’s 45th production of Black Nativity; and Parks, a portrait of a young artist.

For more information, go to: www.leslieparkerdance.com

Touring Information

Pedra Pepa

2022 CHOREOGRAPHY FELLOW

Photo by Canaan Mattson

Pedra Pepa is a Venezuelan-raised, Minneapolis-based queer dancer / performance maker. Founder/director of Viva la Pepa, their works are fueled by the overlapping values of Latinx and Queer cultures: melodrama, passion, decadence, and sensuality. An inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Pedra continues a transnational collaboration with Argentinian choreographer Celia Argüello, spending time in natural landscapes researching the nature of the encounter. Pedra developed their recent work Contained, Alive as a U of MN Cowles visiting artist, in the Berkshires (MA), with Red Eye Theater, and through Candybox festival. Their previous work, Holy Doña, re-imagines the crucifixion as a queer performance ritual; they performed a preliminary iteration of this work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Pedra continues research weaving latinx immigrant identities, queer (gender/sexuality/activism) histories across the Americas: across time/colonizations, and nature; manifesting materially in their most recent 331 residency at Rosy Simas Danse space and continues in Guna Yala, May 2022. Pedra co-directs a children and family theater program Drag Story Hour, and entertains the adults at night as their draglesque persona Doña Pepa. Pedra is currently a teaching artist with Upstream Arts and with the Pillsbury House Theatre.

www.vivalapepa.org

Touring Information

Rosy Simas

2022 CHOREOGRAPHY FELLOW

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

Rosy Simas is an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation. She is a transdisciplinary and dance artist who creates work for stage and installation.

Simas’ work weaves themes of personal and collective identity with family, sovereignty, equality, and healing. She creates dance work with a team of Native and BIQTPOC artists, driven by movement-vocabularies developed through deep listening.

Simas’ dance works include Weave, Skin(s) and We Wait In The Darkness, which have toured throughout Turtle Island. Her installations have been exhibited at the Seneca Iroquois National Museum, All My Relations Arts, SOO Visual Art Center, and the Weisman Art Museum.

Simas is a 2013 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Choreography Fellow, 2015 Guggenheim Creative Arts Fellow, 2016 McKnight Foundation Choreography Fellow, 2019 Dance/USA Fellow, 2022 USA Doris Duke Fellow, 2017 Joyce Award recipient from The Joyce Foundation, 2021 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation SHIFT award recipient, and has received multiple awards from NEFA National Dance Project, the MAP Fund, and National Performance Network.

Simas’ yödoishëndahgwa'geh (a place to rest)  a micro-short film, performance, and installation, has been shared with audiences in New York City, Minneapolis, Colorado Springs, Miami, Niagara Falls, and Buffalo.

Simas’ upcoming work, she who lives on the road to war, will premiere in September 2022 at All My Relations Arts and the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration in the Weisman Art Museum, both in Minneapolis, and will tour Turtle Island in 2023–2024. 

Simas is the Artistic Director of Rosy Simas Danse and three thirty one space, a creative studio for Native and BIPOC artists in Minneapolis, MN.

www.rosysimas.com

Touring Information

Mário Nascimento

2022 McKnight International Choreographer

Photo courtesy of the artist

Mário Nascimento began his studies in Brazil in 1978, majoring in classical ballet, modern dance, and jazz. He studied with Toshie Kobayashi, Lenie Dale, Fred Benjamin, Redhá Bettenfour, Joyce Kermann, Tony Abbot, and Mayza Tempesta. In 1989, Nascimento studied modern and contemporary dance in Europe. He performed with Charleroi Danses from Brussels. With the creation of the show "Escapada," in partnership with the musician Fábio Cardia, he performed in Germany and started to practice martial arts, athletics, and the composition of musical rhythms, which contributed to the development of his own technique and language. He is considered an artist from the underground world of São Paulo.

Nascimento is the Founder, Artistic Director and Choreographer of Cia Mário Nascimento created 20 years ago. He was the assistant director and choreographer of Cisne Negro Cia de Dança (São Paulo), directed by Hulda Bittencourt, where he created the works: "7 por 7 and “Maracatu de Chico Rei.” In 1997 he was invited by the Choreographic Center of the French-Belgium Community to teach classes at the Post in Hamburg. In 2002, he established Cia Mário Nascimento in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais.

In January 2020, Nascimento assumed the artistic direction of Corpo de Dança do Amazonas - CDA, in the city of Manaus, Amazonas, where he currently resides.

For more information about the residency activities, visit our International Choreographer page.

For more information on the residency co-host Contempo Physical Dance.