OUR 2023 RESIDENTS

Aida Shahghasemi is an independent Iranian musician. With a background in Persian classical music, she has worked with musicians around the world including Marketa Irglova, Iron and Wine, and Glen Hansard. She has released 3 albums and is a McKnight music fellow.

aidashahghasemi.com

IG - @aidashahghasemi

AZ Espinoza (they/them) - is a transmasculine feminist who makes magic through theatre. Their plays have been produced and developed by Azuka Theatre and Seven Devils New Play Foundry. Their commissioned work includes a version of Anne Carson’s The Bakkai that takes place in a BIPOC mutual aid zoom room, and Shakespeare’s Pericles that was performed in a North Philly public park at the height of the pandemic. As a director, educator and co-founder of the producing collective theBlackBestFriend, their work uplifts Black multiplicities and they are a student of liberation everywhere, and for everyone.

Benjamin Rojas, (aka Mincho Vega, He/Him/His) was born in 1979 to parents who had immigrated to California from El Salvador and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Benjamin is an arts educator, father, husband, installation artist, illustrator, painter, paper-based artist, mask-maker, and sculptor.

IG - @minchovega

I am a 74 year old female who has been retired since late 2014. I served as Executive Director of Northern Lakes Art Association for 27 years in Ely. I am a native of Ely and have lived here for most of my life, although I lived elsewhere too: Duluth, Minneapolis, Yugoslavia, and Southern California for shorter periods. I have never married or had any children. My life's devotion has been to being a visual artist.

artRolando.com

After spending the first six years in Japan, D. Jinza Thayer grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University and received an MFA in Dance at George Mason University. Based in the Twin Cities, she has presented over sixty original works as Movement Architecture.

Movementarchitecture.com

Dawn K. Wing is a Chinese American multi-disciplinary artist based in Saint Paul, MN. She earned her B.A. in Studio Arts and Art History at Wellesley College. Her creative interests include mixed media visual narratives, poetry, book arts, under-represented herstories, the realms of dreams and memories.

IG- @comixdawn

Born and raised in the south side of Chicago, Demetrius McClendon, who is also known as ImagineJoy, began dancing with street hip-hop at the age of 15 and has traveled nationally and internationally as a professional dancer, teacher, and choreographer sharing their passion for the arts. They began their formal training at Northern Illinois University (where they also minored in Black and LGBT Studies) and were awarded scholarships to take summer intensives with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Hubbard Street, and Deeply Rooted.

Dustin H. Chinn is a Seattle native whose plays include COLONIALISM IS TERRIBLE, BUT PHO IS DELICIOUS, the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Commission HERSCHEL: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER and SNOWFLAKES, OR RARE WHITE PEOPLE.

dustinchinn.com

IG - @madletters

Emily Swanberg is a queer visual artist investigating the intimacy and materiality of building labor. Her often ephemeral sculptures intentionally fail or evolve over time , emphasizing the systems they were created within. She earned her MFA from the University of Minnesota and currently works at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

emilyswanberb.com

IG - @emily.swanberg

Hassan Ingraham, born and raised in Miami, FL, first discovered dance while attending Charles R. Drew Middle School. He continued his dance training at the New World School of the Arts and then received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at The Juilliard School in New York City. Hassan has worked with various prominent artists from the likes of Alexander Ekman, Christopher Huggins, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Dwight Rhoden, among many others. He also has been teaching ballet, modern, and jazz techniques for over 15 years.

Jacqueline Ultan is a singularly creative cellist, composer & improvisor who’s unique versatility is reflected in the diversity of her many artistic collaborations. Jacqueline has recorded and collaborated extensively with a wide array of local and international theater, dance, pop, rock and new music artists. The recipient of a McKnight Performing Artist Fellowship; MacPhail Artist & Commissioning Grants; MRAC’s Next Step Grant and a State Arts Board Arts Tour MN grant, Ultan is also a dedicated teacher at MacPhail’s Center for Music, and holds a Masters Degree in Performance from Yale University.

FB - @jacqueline.ultan

Joe Chvala has created over 30 original works for the stage that have toured from New York to Paris and from Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival to Litle Falls, MN. He is the founder and artistic director of the highly acclaimed percussive dance company, Flying Foot Forum. Articles and reviews of his work have appeared in national and international magazines and newspapers including the New York Times, La Monde, the Chicago Tribune, Dance Magazine, and the Village Voice. The range of his work has been described as "somewhere between Sammy Davis, Jr. and Samuel Becket" and has earned such accolades as "Fred Astaire on acid" and "the Agnes DeMille of the tap."

John Stumme is a Minneapolis mixed-media artist who paints on a variety of surfaces, most notably mulberry paper and silk. Once the materials have dried he will either tear and compose them into abstract nature pieces or into backgrounds for his figurative work.

john-stumme.com

IG - @johnstumme

Juliet Hinely is a documentary artist and a Peabody Award winning podcast producer. She braids sound and story to explore narratives of place, history, inheritance, and relationships. Juliet holds an MFA from the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art and Design and is based in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

juliethinely.com

IG - @julietflamingo @thelisteninn

K Ho is a writer and photographer from Vancouver BC, unceded Coast Salish territories. Their lyric essay “Dispatches” won The Fiddlehead’s 2021 Creative Nonfiction Contest, and their work has appeared in PRISM Magazine, THEM lit, and elsewhere. They are a VONA/Voices Fellow, and an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Minnesota.

hellokho.com

Keith Thompson is Artistic Director of danceTactics Performance Group and Assistant Director of the Dance program and Associate Professor within the School for Music, Dance, and Theatre at Arizona State University. He danced for Trisha Brown Company and frequently works with Liz Lerman to this day.

www.dancetactics.org

kt shorb (They/Them/Theirs) is a director, actor, and scholar. They are Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Macalester College. kt's theatre focuses on ensemble-devised theatre that examines how queer people of color enact heroic and spectacular moments that defy common-sense notions of physics.

IG - @ktshorb

Laurie Van Wieren is an award-winning curator, choreographer, performer and teacher. Van Wieren uses her choreographic practice to discover connections between artists, audience, aesthetic approaches and our surrounding landscape.

Laurievanwierenprojects.com

Madeline “Maddie” Easley (she/her) –Madeline Easley is a Wyandotte writer and performer. She is the inaugural Four Directions Resident Playwright for 2023, a 2022 Greenhouse Resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm, and a 2021 First Peoples Fund Fellow. Her plays include SHIFT, FEAST FOR THE DEAD, and a new play in-process commissioned by KCREP.

maddieeasley.com

IG - @measley12

Madison Moore is a maker––an illustrator, ceramicist, writer, sewist, natural dyer, gardener, and quilter. She is the author of Bonnie’s New Old Outfit and More Than Just a Game. She studied Visual Arts and English Literature and has been working as a book editor since.

thegirlandthelamb.com

Hello! My name is Mary Miranda and I am a local Black Latine multimedia artist based in the Twin Cities. My focus revolves around the use of collage on paper and film. I discuss the themes of unlearning and transforming, analyzing what nature gives us and what we are willing to take.

IG - @therainisalive

Meg is a mixed media artist working with paint and paper. She earned an undergraduate degree in Visual Art and a Master of Education in Arts Integration. She passionately believes that everyone can learn to draw, paint, sculpt, and be creative in a supportive community that allows students to follow and trust their curiosity.

meg-erke.com

IG - @megerkeart

As a bilingual queer Latina, I engage communities through magical realism, joy, and play. I live with my kinship family in Minneapolis, MN where I befriend librarians, mend clothes, and stoop sit. I have a picture book, Nana and Abuela, and have created many interactive art installations.

www.monicacavanaughrojas.com

I am a queer writer, artist, educator, adventurer, and radical homemaker who enjoys cavorting with insects, eating fibrous fruit, collecting misplaced postal rubber bands, and singing loudly. My wife and I, along with our niece and nephew, live in a cozy and colorful home in Minneapolis, MN.

www.nicolerojasoltmanns.com

Natasha Malmberg is a multidisciplinary artist based in the Midwest who focuses on drawing, textile and apparel design.

IG - @menageatata

OLIVIA LEVINS HOLDEN (they/she) is a queer, mixed Boricua muralist, organizer, artist, and educator living on Dakota homeland, Mni Sota Makoce, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work centers transformation, connection, and narrative. Olivia received a 2022 McKnight Fellowship for Community Engaged Artists.

olivialevinsholdenart.com

IG - @olivialevinsholden_art

Philipo Dyauli is a self-taught painter and muralist from Tanzania, currently living in Minneapolis. His work is primarily acrylic paintings on canvas. Music, nature and childhood memories inspire him to create colorful, life size paintings. His practice allows him to explore issues of identity and multiculturalism in the United States.

philipodyauli.com

IG - @philipowashere

Rachel Gita Karp (She/Her/Hers) makes activist performances to change US politics and policy. She’s developed performances through Drama League, Clubbed Thumb, Mabou Mines, Ars Nova, Center for Artistic Activism, Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics, Philly Fringe, Incubator Arts Project, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Barn Arts, Monson Arts, Orchard Project, Marble House Project, and more.  

rachelgitakarp.com

IG - @rachelgitakarp

Rita Mustaphi is a choreographer, dancer, educator and disciple of the legendary master late Pandit Birju Maharaj in the Kathak style of Indian classical dance. She is known for her innovations in Kathak dance, her multi-disciplinary productions incorporating spoken word, live and commissioned music, and the utilization of production elements. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Katha Dance Theatre. Under her vision and leadership, the company has become renowned for its dynamic productions, distinctive movement style, and technical virtuosity. Her work, intelligently crafted storytelling, is recognized as being profoundly moving and effortlessly intimate.

Ritika Ganguly is a Minneapolis-based Composer, Anthropologist, and Qualitative Research Consultant born and raised in New Delhi, India. Her vocal, compositional, and voice coaching work pushes us to rely less on music notation and theory, and more on audiative practices that deepen our aptitude to hear and vocalize. She is a lover of loose, long-leaf tea, and has an impulse to connect with people over cha (tea).

ritikagangulymusic.com

IG - @aamalaki

Sarah Myers writes creative nonfiction for page and stage. Her work has been produced in Bethlehem, Chicago, New York, Austin, and Minneapolis, and published by Playscripts, Spout Press, Fourth Genre, New Madrid, TDR, Studies in Musical Theatre, and The Reflective Teaching Artist. She is also a passionate educator and mentor.

IG - @sarah.l.myers

sarahlmyers.com

Sarina Partridge (Minneapolis, Minnesota) is a musician and community song-leader inspired by time in the natural world. Her passion is creating and sharing songs in service to community and the wild - songs to celebrate seasons, bring groups together, offer thanks, muster courage, and make room for healing and grieving.

sarinapartridge.com

Vincent DeZutti is a lens-based artist living and working in Minneapolis. He is interested in the relationship between humans and images - how and why we make them, consume them, and how that affects our relationship to nature, other people, and our own memories.

IG - @vdezutti

Born in Tanzania, East Africa, Vanessa (She/Her/Hers) is an oil painter currently living and based in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her paintings explore the idea of self-discovery by drawing inspiration from African sculptures, pattern-making, and tactile fabrics in conjunction with the aesthetic of contemporary Western culture and art. 

@vanessalekule.studio

Yuki Tokuda is a ballet dancer, choreographer, and teacher, based in the Twin Cities. She is originally from Japan and was trained under Mikiko Dei, Hideo Fukagawa, and Jun Ishii, internationally recognized dancers, teachers, and competition judges. She moved to the United States in 2000 to continue her training in New York at the Joffrey Ballet School. Ms. Tokuda has danced professionally with USA Ballet, Peoria Ballet, and the Metropolitan Ballet and she was the principal dancer at Continental Ballet for 7 years.

www.yukitokuda.com