Antuan Byers (he/him) is a dancer, creative entrepreneur, and arts organizer based in Lenapehoking, Manhattan, New York. He uses movement as a catalyst for societal change, balancing his career as a freelance dancer with community-building and arts organizing. A graduate of the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program, Byers has performed globally with Ailey II, The Washington National Opera, and konverjdans. He is a regular performer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, performing in featured roles, and has been a Guest Artist with Mark Morris Dance Group.

Antuan is the Founder and Director of Black Dance Change Makers and serves as the Vice President of Dancers at the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). He is the Operations and Logistics Coordinator for Darkness RISING Project and Interim Strategic Visioning Partner for SLMDances. In 2022, he was named on Urban Arts Magazine’s 40 Under 40 list for his work as a dancer, activist, and leader, and in 2023, he was named an Artist Advocate in Residence with New York for Culture and Arts.

As a passionate advocate for equity and justice in the arts, Antuan continues to empower and uplift creatives. He also serves on the Artistic Advisory Committee for The Metropolitan Opera, the largest non-profit performing arts organization in the United States, is a frequent Thought Partner in the Creative Administration and Research Program by the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron, and is on the Advisory Board of ArtBath.

Antuan is paving his own path, on a mission to create an equitable future for all creatives. As a dancer, innovator, and organizer he is using his craft to ignite the creative spark in new communities, ensuring that those behind him have the freedom and power to achieve even their wildest dreams.

Photo credit: Nick Suarez

Born and raised in California, Amrita Doshi (she/her) is a Bharata Natyam dancer currently based out of Brooklyn, NY. As a young dancer, she pursued rigorous training under leading artists, Viji Prakash and Mythili Prakash, with whom she has toured nationally and internationally. As someone whose love for art is deeply tied to community, Amrita co-founded NYC Adavu in 2018 and continues to produce shows to uplift emerging South Asian artists. Amrita has performed with Mythili Prakash’s Mythili Prakash Dance Ensemble, Sonali Skandan’s Jiva Dance, Preeti Vasudevan’s Thresh Dance Co, and Kasi Aysola’s Prakriti Dance Company at prestigious festivals such as Jacob’s Pillow and Drive East. Most recently, Amrita created her first dance film, Aharya, supported by Jiva Dance, which was screened at festivals including IMGE Dance’s Kinetic Dance Film Festival. Outside of dance, she leads South Asian SOAR, a national organization committed to preventing and ending gender-based violence.

Photo credit Winnie Fung

Jeeno Joseph (he/him) is a first generation Indian-American Bharatanatyam dancer based in New York and is a senior disciple of Guru Dr. Francis Barboza. Jeeno is an established performing artist and has had the privilege of performing both nationally and internationally, often presenting his Guru’s unique choreographies which explores bharatanatyam’s scope to convey multireligious themes. Jeeno also explores his own choreographic voice which often celebrates his lived expericence as a Malayali-American often blending kerala culture and contemporary storytelling. Jeeno is the founder and artistic director of The Nadanam Collective, a dance venture exploring group choreography and dynamics implementing Bharatanatyam and other traditional Indian dance vocabularies. In addition to his ongoing growth and journey as a dancer, Jeeno is a practicing Physical Therapist having earned his Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Stony Brook University and is a co-founder of NYC Adavu; a weekly meetup for like minded dancers to practice together and develop a sense of community and camaraderie.

Photo by Biravy

Yanira Castro’s (she/her/ella) work is rooted in communal construction as a rehearsal for radical democracy. She is an interdisciplinary artist born in Borikén (Puerto Rico) and living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Castro forms iterative, multimodal projects that center the complexity of land, citizenship, and governance in works activated and performed by the public. Co-creating with a team of collaborators under the name, a canary torsi, she investigates choreography as a practice of collective embodiment, grappling with agency and communal action as a body politic. She has developed over fifteen projects that have been recognized with national awards, commissions and residency support including Creative Capital, Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Dance, NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary Artist and Choreography Fellowships, multiple New Music USA awards, and two Bessie Awards for Outstanding Production. She has recently been in residence at LMCC, MacDowell, Yaddo, and The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography.

Photo credit: Simon Courchel