HOW WE Move
A Dance intensive created for and by Disabled dancers and centering multiply marginalized (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, etc) dancers within our communities.
How We Move is our opportunity as Disabled dancers to figure out what we want to create outside of a mainstream dance lens—while unpacking our own internalized ableism. What’s possible when we stop assimilating to a non-disabled dance world? What happens when we move from the margin to the center? Together, we’re about to find out.
India Harville, Executive Director of Embraced Body and Co-creator of How We Move
What is How We Move?
This six month hybrid program combines virtual gatherings with a 10-day in-person intensive in New York City, providing space and opportunity for multiply marginalized Disabled artists to move together, collaborate, and build cross-disability community.
How We Move will provide a rigorous access framework. Together, we’ll cultivate opportunities on our collective terms and build power towards a transformation of the colonial, eugenicist, and ableist lineages still present in our field.
Meet the Artists
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Assaleh Bibi is a multi-disciplinary artist and healing practitioner. As a child of mountains and wild waters, they migrated through winds of border bullets to find refuge in exile on the sovereign lands of the Coast Salish Peoples.
Their practice is built upon, and ever-growing in, erotic relationship between land and water ecologies and her body. Zir work spans abundant mediums of mixed media, photography, ceramics, painting, sensory installations, poetry, sculpture, film, dance, and performance art to move through ancient futurisms with revolutionary medicine to transform our shit’cistems towards liberation.
Evolving from a 2016 collaboration, Conjuring Lezzat, Assaleh Bibi continues to deepen their praxis of weaving healing ritual and artistic work-a philosophy of art as medicine and medicine as art.
Currently Assaleh Bibi is exploring embodied ancestral poetry as moving and still metaphors through non-binary drag dance theater performances. Xe indulges in the anonymity within drag characters—via make-up and wardrobe transformation—to evoke the celebration and empowerment offered by freedom of expression. This liberatory work also attracts trans hatred and oppressive forces that want to control bodies and penalize such satiating freedom.
This juxtaposition of oppression and liberation, medicine and poison is a theme throughout hir work, art that disrupts rigid concepts of gender, birth, peace, war, genocide, life, death, past, and future, while simultaneously supporting expansive social and environmental justice rooted in mother earth tapestry.
Xir recent collaborations include a multi-year disability arts dance film embodying shapeshifting nonhuman mythical beings and a multi-year dance residency through their dedicated membership in a local Indigenous-led BIPOC performance collective.
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kumari giles is a multidisciplinary artist, connector, administrator and consultant interested in connection, transformation and social change.
As a queer, non binary, mixed maker of many things their work spans across performance, production, food, somatics, writing/poetry, mycology, community arts, mixed media, textiles, and dramaturgy.
They are interested in creating and shaping processes that center interdependence, access and joy. Driven by radical hope and collective care, their work aims to build embodied archives of what it feels like to be free, collectively wayfind and radically imagine new worlds together. They are committed to eradicating colonial systems of oppression by nurturing BIPOC, queer and trans, cross disability solidarity and healing.
kumari has been working in the arts professionally since 2011, locally, nationally and internationally. They work individually, in collectives and with organizations, notably ILL NANA/DiverseCity Dance Company (Right to Dance Programming, 2011-2020, Fire, 2016), Cyborg Circus Project (Safe Words* I didn’t say broccoli, 2021), Young People’s Theatre, the AMY Project, Possibilities Podcast, and the Lab for Artistic Intelligence.
In addition to nurturing a garden of creative and research-based work, they are currently building an artist-led network of disabled movers with the DisDance Collective and are a collective member of the Trans Healing Arts Web- visioning spaces that centre the healing & creativity of two spirit, trans and non binary people.
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Devin Hill is a graduate from the University of Central Oklahoma with a B.F.A. in Dance Performance. Their love of dance began at the age of three and has lasted a span of twenty years.
Devin set sights on dance as a career during their time at Collin College in Plano, Texas. While at Collin College, they were exposed to: Jazz, Ballet, Modern, Hip Hop, Tap, African, Improvisation, and Latin Ballroom.
Devin has had the opportunity of working with multiple artists such: as Christopher K. Morgan, William “Bill” Evans, Clarence Brooks, Hannah Baumgarden, Jeremy Duvall, Gregg Russell, Lachlan McCarthy, Kristin McQuaid, and Cat Cogliandro.
They were also a member of the 2015-2016 award winning Kaleidoscope Dance Company.
Since graduating from UCO, they have continued to further their knowledge of dance by performing, choreographing, teaching, and participating in intensives and workshops across the United States.
In 2018, Devin had the honor of performing with Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. They were also a cast member on the hit Facebook Watch series “Dance with Nia.
Mx. Hill currently resides in the Washington D.C. metro area, where they perform, educate, and advocate as a freelance dancer.
Devin also serves as a board member for Feel The Beat, an educational specialist for Bodywize Dance, and a dance development team member/instructor for Second Skin Society.
Mx. Hill strives to use their artistry to create a more safe, equitable, and accessible dance industry for everyone.
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As a multidisciplinary artist, Hector Machado represents the marginalized dance communities they belong to on stage, while educating and inspiring others. As a member of Pioneer Winter Collective, Machado has been leaving their mark on the Miami dance scene since 2018. A collaborating performer in evening length works: “Reprise (2018/2019) ,” “Birds of Paradise (2023/2024),” and “Ten Years From Now, Duets Reimagined.” Machado has also been a cohort member in the site specific choreography residency: “Grass Stains” (2020, 2022, 2024), and Cohort 3 of “Creative Connections” where they ran a research incubator for their Accessible Majorette Dance initiative, designed to develop a language and practice for bringing the majorette dance form to individuals with disabilities.
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Jackie Robinson is a wheelchair pole dancer based in Dallas, TX, specializing in sensual floor work flow and pole flow styles.
She and her identical twin sister were both born with cerebral palsy and underwent numerous procedures and therapies to learn how to walk.
In her mid-twenties, Jackie decided to reject the idea that disabled people couldn’t dance. She also wanted to connect with her sensual side and embrace her adult identity, so she started pole dancing. As time passed, Jackie’s symptoms progressed, and she gradually lost the ability to walk.
Instead of quitting, she decided to explore incorporating mobility aids into her dance style, which allowed her to feel freer, more comfortable, confident, and safe.
She also has a feeding tube that provides 100% of her nutrition since she can no longer eat or drink. She enjoys decorating and showcasing her medical devices because they give her the freedom to do the things she loves. Outside of dance, Jackie works as a software engineer specializing in Android apps and has a passion for fun fashion.
Jackie’s favorite moment in her dance journey was when her favorite singer, Demi Lovato, complimented her dancing to her fiance’s song!
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Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Zen Spencer is a multidisciplinary artist currently studying at Bennington College in Vermont, where she focuses on visual art and dance.
Her work explores the intersections of movement, identity, and disability, using performance and visual mediums to tell stories that center Black female disability.
Born with hemiplegic cerebral palsy, she has embraced her lived experience as an essential part of her creative voice.
Dancing since the age of three, Zen has cultivated a deep relationship with the body as both an expressive instrument and a site of complex meaning.
Her choreography incorporates improvisation, emotional depth, and embodied storytelling. She draws inspiration from artists such as Mickalene Thomas, Wangechi Mutu, and Jerron Herman, finding resonance in their approaches to representation, abstraction, and disability aesthetics.
Her work is expansive and evolving. She’s currently working on Breakthrough, a multimedia dance piece incorporating stop-motion animation and digital art, which builds on her earlier works, Maiden Voyage and Trapped. These creations reflect her growth as an artist, each layering new skills while centering themes of self-realization and liberation.
With kindness and openness as her guiding ethos, Zen seeks to foster community within her art practice.
She envisions creating work that challenges narratives about disability and expands possibilities for artistic expression, both onstage and in visual form.
Zen’s commitment to storytelling through movement and image positions her as an emerging artist with a unique, powerful voice.
MEET THE TEAM
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she/her
As a Disability Justice activist, performance artist, public speaker, and somatics practitioner, India Harville has made it her mission over the past 20 years to open people's minds to the wonder of their own bodies as a vehicle for growth and transformation, both personal and collective.India has danced with Sins Invalid, Dance Exchange, California State East Bay, The Queer Arts Festival, the Black Spirit Dance Collective, Mouthwater Festival, and Movement Liberation. She’s a two-time recipient of the Access Movement Play Residency funded by Mellon and is currently working on a one-woman show, Liminal. She’s certified as a dance instructor in: NIA, Zumba, Dancing Freedom, and DanceAbility, where she is both a Master Teacher and Master Trainer.
In 2016, she founded what is now known as Embraced Body, a Disability Justice and inclusive arts organization that began by providing accessible movement classes to Disabled communities. Since then, they’ve made disability-affirming dance funded by major philanthropic organizations, while also consulting on accessibility and Disability Justice.
The intersection of India’s own identities as an African American, queer, Disabled/chronically ill, femme, cis woman informs all her work. No matter what she is doing, she sets forth the example that however our bodies show up in the world, they are perfect, worthy of existence, and capable of magic.
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she/her
Kayla Hamilton is a Texas-born, Bronx-based dancer, performance maker, educator, consultant, and artistic director of Circle O—a cultural organization uplifting Black Disabled and other multiply marginalized creatives.She has developed & designed access-centered programming for the Mellon Foundation, Movement Research, DanceNYC, and UCLA, and is a co-director of Angela’s Pulse/Dancing While Black.
Kayla is a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Pina Bausch Foundation Fellow, United States Artist Disability Futures Fellow, NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient, and Bronx Cultural Visions Fund recipient. Her work has been presented at the Whitney Museum, Gibney, Performance Space NY, New York Live Arts and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. Kayla was also part of the Bessie award winning ensemble Skeleton Architecture.
As an educator, Kayla co-developed ‘Crip Movement Lab’ with fellow disabled artist Elisabeth Motley—a pedagogical framework centering cross-disability movement practices. She also worked as a K-12 public school special education teacher in NYC for 12 years.
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they/themJJ Omelagah (they/them) is the Program Director, Access Doula, and Healing Artist for Embraced Body and the founder of Sounds of Kayode.
With two decades of experience in human services and healthcare, JJ brings a unique perspective on care. They provide crucial access support and education while contributing to the organization's overall operations.
As a transgender sound artist, JJ’s mission is to create vibrant frequencies resonating with collective care, healing, and transformation. Each note contributes to the co-creation of a sonic environment where energies converge, intertwine, and uplift. They’ve performed at events such as SF Pride and the National Queer Arts Festival.
JJ studied at Howard University and City College of San Francisco and holds a certification in Project Management from the University of Arizona. They are also a trained Circle Sing Facilitator, Reiki practitioner, Orisha priest, and a committed advocate for Disability Justice and LGBTQIA+ rights. With comprehensive experience in Access Doulaship, project management, customer service, case management, conflict resolution, and volunteer management, JJ brings a wealth of knowledge to their work in access, care, and community building.
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she/any
Jesenia (Jess–N–ee–Ya) is a queer first-generation Indigenous-Venezuelan-American, AutiHD (Autistic & ADHD), living with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.She is an artist, community builder and organizer, disability advocate, scientist, cultural producer and activist. Her approach is rooted in anti-racism, decolonizing, disability justice, and accessible design.
Jesenia founded One Free Community, an online community center helping decolonizing people connect and build mutual aid initiatives together.
Jesenia founded NeuroSpicy Networking to help neurodiverse professionals network and find jobs and runs a consulting business of the same name.
She serves as a Communications Producer with Calling Up Justice and regularly teaches workshops on conflict resolution, access inclusion, creating neuro-affirming spaces and more.
Jesenia is a 2024 Emerge Fellow with the Longmore Institute. She also engages in disability advocacy with Women Enabled International.
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they/them/themme
Ziiomi Law (Zee-o-me) is an embodied et cetera, period!A professional dancer & performer, arts administrative careworker, writer, community consultant, death doula, producer, model, and actor, previously nomadically based nowhere creating everywhere, currently re-rooting back home out of Atlanta, GA.
They are a Blackqueer non-binary icon who sweats possibility & oozes pleasure.
Zii was a proud member of the 6 time Lucille Lortel nominated, New York Times Critic Pick, cast of the Off-Broadway production (pray) in 2023.
Their movement lineages include, Urban Bush Women as a New York Van Lier Fellow, MBDance and SLMDances as a company member, and Atlanta Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as a scholarship recipient, to name a few.
They are most fulfilled when collaborating on projects that feel like soul food. Ziiomi believes if it ain’t a full body YES, it’s a no! You can find themme luxuriating at the intersections of both/and.
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Movement Research, founded in 1978, is one of the world’s leading laboratories for the investigation of dance and movement-based forms. As a creative incubator for artists and emerging ideas, Movement Research provides space and resources for adventurous dance. Valuing the individual artist, their creative process and their vital role within society, Movement Research is dedicated to the creation and implementation of free and low-cost programs that nurture and instigate discourse and experimentation. Movement Research strives to reflect the cultural, political and economic diversity of its moving community, including artists and audiences alike.
In January 2019, Movement Research moved into its first permanent home at 122 Cultural Center. In 2024, Movement Research broke ground on the build-out of its two studio spaces located in 122CC to create: two dance studios to house MR programs and to serve artists and the community with subsidized rates for rehearsals, practice and convenings; a vestibule outside of the studios that offers a space to gather, stretch and converse; a resource room to provide meeting and lounge space for artists, and access to MR’s library and publications.
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Dance Magazine
How We Move Offers a New Kind of Intensive Designed for Disabled and Multiply Marginalized Artists
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Crip News
How We Move is seeking applications for a six month hybrid program for multiply marginalized Disabled artists
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Broadway World
Embraced Body Announces How We Move Program
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Dance Informa
Embraced Body Announces How We Move Program
FAQ
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How We Move is for multiply marginalized Disabled dance artists.
We define disability broadly:
Mobility Disabilities
Neurodivergence
Mental Health Disabilities
Developmental Disabilities
Intellectual Disabilities
Sensory Disabilities
Chronic Illness
Chronic Pain
Other Disabilities
We define multiply marginalized as being Disabled + being BIPOC, queer, trans, or other marginalized identity points.
You can be at any stage of your dance journey, as long as you:
Are interested in learning about cross-disability solidarity and dancemaking
Are willing to share a workshop about your practice to your peers
Have a commitment to building disability community
Want to build a longer-term relationship with a cohort
Have an awareness of your own access needs and want to learn more about access
Are interested in disability aesthetics
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We will provide some combination of the following access, based on what is requested by program participants.
For in-person events
Live audio description/audio description
American Sign Language (ASL) for all group activities, including meals
CART
Wheelchair accessible
Accessible transportation
Accessible and gender neutral restrooms
Masking and Covid precautions
Soft lighting options
Low-sensory space
Fidget toys
Accessible seating options
Breaks
For virtual events
CART
ASL
Transcripts
Recording
Audio description
Camera optional
Breaks
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Each participant will receive a $2,000 stipend.
An additional $1,000 stipend is available for Personal Care Attendants (PCA) who attend the in-person intensive with a participant.
How We Move will also cover housing, travel, ground transportation, and meals for all participants and Personal Care Attendants (PCAs) of the in-person intensive.
How We Move will cover access costs for all virtual gatherings and the in-person intensive.
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We are committed to prioritizing the centering of BIPOC, Queer, and trans Disabled dance artists in the intensive; including the centering of QTBIPOC Disabled artists in all leadership roles.
We are committed to creating spaces for cross-disability experience and collaboration, aiming to undo any hierarchy that positions a singular disability category as the representation of our community’s multiplicity.
We are committed to dismantling the gatekeeping that deems some of us legible due to professional/educational opportunities many of us are denied access to. Our space is open to anyone who experiences dance/movement as a central practice in their lives, regardless of training level or previous institutional support.
We are committed to providing professional development opportunities both within the intensive and in the field as a whole, including collaboration with non-disabled accomplices looking to expand their access practices and training Disabled artists to become facilitators, teachers, and mentors themselves.
We are committed to providing the space for artists to build relationships with one another and to prioritizing addressing the most pressing issues raised by participants in the intensive.
We are committed to providing a blueprint and guidance for other artists seeking to create similar intensives within their own cities and communities.
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2024: Planning Phase
October 1: Applications open
October 17, 3-5PM PT: Q&A support session for applicants
October 31, 5pm PT: Applications close
2025: Pilot Cohort and Evaluation
March 1, 10am-1pm PT: 1st online community building session
May 15 & 16, 2-4pm PT and May 17,10am-12pm PT: Online community building weekend
June 15: Arrive & settle in New York City
June 16-25: How We Move Dance Intensive in New York City (We recognize that Disabled energy levels vary. We will build an intensive schedule together that works for all attendees.)
June 26: Rest & recharge before traveling back home
August 7, 2-5 pm PT: Closing online event
2026: Second Cohort
FUNDED BY MELLON FOUNDATION
