Xeric Meraz is a multidisciplinary movement artist, storyteller, and educator of Purépecha people in Michoacan Mexico and Diné (Navajo) heritage. Raised in Arizona, where borders have shifted but the land has remained, his work explores the body as a living archive of memory, revealing the continuity between identities that history has attempted to divide. Through Indigenous contemporary dance, breaking, mask-making, and embodied storytelling, he creates performances and educational experiences that reconnect people to ancestry, place, and one another.

Shakaya McFarland is a passionate mover, dancer, choreographer, facilitator, and healer who considers movement to be her greatest medicine. Hailing from Portland, Oregon, her career in movement began at Washington, DC’s Dance Place where she specialized in West African, Salsa, Modern, Hip-Hop, Caribbean Folklore, and Breaking. During her time in the Mid-Atlantic, Shakaya discovered original House Music and its rich cultural heritage in queer and urban Black American communities, which led her to create House~Ology, an active community forum and informational repository for original House Music lovers.  Shakaya graduated from the conscious movement program, Open Floor International, and is a certified teacher in the practice. Currently, she resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she DJs, teaches, and performs.

Jade Whaanga an Indigenous Dance Artist (Director/Choreographer/Performer/Producer/Facilitator) based in Aotearoa (New Zealand), of Ngāti Rongomaiwahine - Ngāti Rakaipaaka descent. She holds a Masters in Dance Studies from The University of Auckland, where her research centres on reclaiming the indigenous feminine body and healing historical trauma through dance as ritual. She is the founder of Nū Collective: embracing wellness through creativity, culture and connection.

Clarence Brooks freelances with danceTactics performance group, David Parker & The Bang Group, Pioneer Winter Collective, Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, Megan Williams Dance Projects, and Monica Bill Barnes & Company. A retired professor of dance, they are the recipient of several fellowships, awards, and honors; are in the documentary The World of Alwin Nikolais; are published in Exposure Doesn't Pay the Bills: An Artist Guide to Building a Legacy in the 21st Century and One Teacher in 10: LGBT Educators Share Their Stories; was a featured model in Olto’s Infinity Bike and Allen Edmonds centennial celebration catalog; and their performance of Talley Beatty's "Mourner's Bench" is archived in the Library of Congress. They sit on the boards of danceTactics performance group, Doris Humphrey Foundation for Dance, Florida Dance Education Organization, Miami Dance Futures, Natural Movers Foundation, Inc, and Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble. They are honored to participate in this celebration with Dancing Earth. Instagram: @clbdreadeddancer.

Humlåo Evans is a Micronesian CHamoru interdisciplinary performance artist and educator based in Atlanta, whose work explores physical and vocal poetics through embodied research, intertribal collaboration, and ancestral knowledge. They are honored to collaborate with Dancing Earth in this celebration of  enduring presence and interconnected futures.

Alekzeta Cantu (she/they) is a Brooklyn based movement artist, writer and healer. She has danced and trained with companies including Ballet Hispanico, Alonzo King LINES and Dancing Earth. She is here to tend to all our dancing spirits.

Raven Bright is an Indigenous contemporary artist born in Gallup, NM. His background in Hip-Hop culture has helped define his movement repertoire to help tell the stories of his Diné people. He brings healing through movement and weaves his culture through the sacred gift of dance

Amy Lee emigrated from Hong Kong at the age of 4 and grew up on the Lower East Side. She studied dance at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and has performed with HT Chen, Nai-Ni Chen, Paz Tanjuaquio, Michael Mao, Gabri Christa, Martita Goshen’s Earthworks, and Sally Silvers and Dancers. After a hiatus of more than a decade, she is happy to be moving again.  She has most recently collaborated  in a dance film in residency with Jennifer Scully-Thurston’s Rogue Dance. 

tara george (she/her) is a Jamaican-American, Florida-born writer, dancer, choreographer, and cancer survivor based in the unceded land of the Jaega people (Jupiter, FL). She graduated with a BFA in Dance from the University of Florida before attending the Alonzo King Lines Ballet Training Program. She is currently seeking her MFA in Creative Writing at California College of the Arts. tara is endlessly interested in the ecologies and cultures that raised her and how they shape the way she moves through the world. 

Rulan Tangen is an internationally accomplished dance artist and choreographer whose work values body as source of knowing , as an expression of collaborative eco- somatic and intercultural worldviews, and as central to ritual for transformation. She believes in movement as continuance - from ancient to futuristic -  culminating in her vision for her contemporary dance company: Dancing Earth Contemporary Dance Creations.  Her work has been invited to 14 countries and she has been awarded the Kennedy Center Citizen Artist for Service, Justice,  Freedom Courage, Gratitude; Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art; Catalyst Initiative from Center for Performance and Social Practice; Arts & Social Change Award from Arts and Healing network;  Costo Medal for Education; New Mexico School for the Arts Community Leadership Award; and one of few companies to be awarded both the  National Dance Project and National Theater Project Production and Touring awards for different eco-productions. With Ancestral ties to Kampampangan and Pangasinan heritage of Luzon Island ( Philippine and Norwegian/French/Irish/Scottish , she is so honors to returned to NYC /Lenapehoking where her dance career was made, with incredible mentors/company directors /choreographers  to whom she is deeply grateful , including Michael Mao, Igal Perry, Miguel Valdez Mor, Louis Porcelli, and Harkness’ David Howard, Anne Hebard , Maria Vegh. 

And additional creative contribution from 

Gabriela Wachi SharpFish is a multidisciplinary Indigenous artist, performer, and enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance from the University of South Florida. Working across dance, theater, and creative writing, her practice explores movement as a language for storytelling, healing, and cultural connection.

Her work centers Indigenous perspectives, personal and collective memory, and community engagement, creating performances that invite reflection, dialogue, and human connection. Gabriela has presented work through national performances, residencies, and collaborative projects, and is committed to using art as a catalyst for empathy, resilience, and meaningful social exchange. 

In my dance concept as presented by DE at the Confluence in summer 2026 and reshaped for BDF Moving Together, I aim for embodiment of the enduring strength of Indigenous women and the resilience carried through generations. Rooted in Lakota values and informed by contemporary movement, the original solo explores the balance between vulnerability and power, honoring those who came before while imagining a future grounded in hope, reciprocity, and collective healing. It serves as a moment of remembrance, resilience, and connection within the larger work.

Cynthia Paniagua is a dancer, choreographer, and educator whose work reflects her Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Andean and Nuyorican heritage. Cultural identity, Andean cosmology, spiritual practice and Latine reality as a first generation New Yorker are all themes at the crux of her work, which mixes contemporary movement and Peruvian traditional dance. As featured in documentary 'Soy Andina' Cynthia has traveled throughout the U.S. and Peru, researching Peruvian folk dance, sharing her story and teaching dance workshops. She's the recipient of a Fulbright scholar and has spent over 15 years living in and out of Peru researching ritual dances as a form of conserving ancestral memory, acts of resistance, joy and changing societies.  This work has led her to connect and exchange with dance communities in Peru (Andes, Coast, Amazon), Ecuador, Colombia and Puerto Rico. Cynthia has led numerous workshops and toured her solo work  throughout Peru and the U.S.. She's a member of Bombazo Dance Company and a featured dancer in the movie 'In the Heights.' She is the first choreographer commissioned by the United Nations Symphony Orchestra for the Andean based musical ' El Condor Pasa' during the UN forum for Indigenous Issues in 2019. She is presently the founder of Kaypacha Dance LLC and director of Dance Your Ancestors, a program that's focused on connecting Peruvians in the diaspora to their roots through a deep ancestral and cultural dance travel exchange. Website: https://www.cynthiapaniagua.com/

Kino Benally, also known under the moniker DJ Béeso, is a Diné composer and DJ from Tsé Bit Aí, Navajo Nation (Shiprock, NM). He is known for a distinctive style of electronic music with themes of Juke, Impressionism, Underground Hip/Hop and Dance/Club, while often drawing upon Diné Musical Structure and Philosophy. Kino has been in all parts of musical performance, from scoring films, live scoring for a Dance Company, to more commonly DJ-ing events, and playing shows in bands. Kino has releases from Hush Hush Records, Car Crash Set Records, LaCroixx Records, Hunter-Gatherer Records, as well as many self-released Albums and EP’s through Bandcamp.