Emily Johnson, originally from Alaska, is an artist who makes body-based work and the artistic director of her performance company, Emily Johnson/Catalyst. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, she is based on the Lower East Side of Manahatta in Lenapehoking. Emily is of the Yup’ik Nation and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. She is a land and water protector and an activist for justice, sovereignty, and well-being. Her dances function as portals and installations, engaging audiences within and through space, time, and environment–interacting with a place’s architecture, people, land, history, and role in community. Emily is a co-compiler of the document Creating New Futures: Guidelines toward Ethics and Equity in the Performing Arts, is developing a Global First Nations Performance Network with colleagues Reuben Roqueni, Ed Bourgeois, Ronee Penoi, Lori Pourier, Vallejo Ganter; and has hosted ceremonial fires in partnership with Abrons Arts Center on the Lower East Side since 2017.

Karyn Recollet Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is an urban Cree scholar/writer currently living in the Williams Treaty territory, and teaching in the Dish with One Spoon treaty territory. Recollet explores celestial land pedagogies as ‘kinstillatory’ in her work, expressing an understanding of land pedagogy that exceeds the terrestrial. Recollet thinks alongside dance making practices, hip hop, and visual/digital art as they relate to forms of Indigenous futurities and relational practices of being. Recollet co-writes with dance choreographers and artists engaged in other mediums to expand upon methodologies that consider land relationships and kinship making practices that are going to take us into the future.

Danielle Olana Jagelski

Danielle Olana Jagelski is a composer, conductor, and creative producer. She is the Artistic Director of Renegade Opera, Producer for First Nation Performing Arts, and Faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Division.

A fierce advocate for equity in artistic spaces and citizen of the Oneida Nation/Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe, Danielle is especially passionate about Decolonization through collective creation and performance. Her performances have been described:

“At once timeless and of its time, it expands your heart and mind with every note, telling a story of grief and love that is as honest as it is hopeful.” (Oregon ArtsWatch, 2021)

An avid composer of song, opera, choir, and music for theatre, recent premieres have been by New Native Theatre, Voices of Ascension, Hear Us Hear Them Ensemble, Artemis Singers, and American Patriots Project among others. Her works have been performed throughout the country including at Roulette Intermedium, Performance Space New York, The Green Room 42, and Shaking the Tree Theatre.

As a conductor, she is sought out for her execution of contemporary works and has worked with companies such as Opera Theatre Saint Louis, Anchorage Opera, Opera Ithaca, and City Lyric Opera. She has received grants from The Plimpton Foundation, Oregon Regional Arts and Cultures Foundation, and Opera America as well as receiving awards from the National Opera Association for her passionate work in contemporary opera.

Ty Fierce Metteba

Ty Fierce Metteba has accumulated an assortment of skills in pursuit of what sparks passion not only in themselves but also in the community to motivate and galvanize sustainable solutions to intergenerational poverty and trauma. As a Diné speaker at qualms with reclamation, revitalization, and renewal, the responsibility to demonstrate reciprocity for the continuation of my culture and community has brought me far from my homelands but with trust to find my strengths and weaknesses in how to best help my community. In being at odds with language, polyglots have inspired me to at least understand the universal languages of math and music, so I can bridge further concepts with the other languages I speak and learn…

Ms. Josephine

Ms. Josephine former name known to some as Henu Josephine Tarrant, is a lifetime NYC native community member descending from the Rappahannock, Ho-Chunk, and Kuna nations. She will be sharing her newest original songs created for her EP SERPENT set to record in 2024. The songs she will be sharing are what she hopes become the soundtrack of the life of a spiritual Indigenous femme surviving the urban landscape. Speaking to death, rebirth, empowerment, sexuality, and native cosmologies in the ever-changing metropolis of New York City. Her debut single 'Don't Miss the Sunshine' can be found on all music streaming apps & platforms and she encourages everyone to listen to her newest summer release 'SkyRockets' written & performed with Jayden Avery Love. She also encourages anyone who enjoys her tunes to check out her music video for 'Don't Miss the Sunshine' on YouTube directed by Mi'kMaq New York Native Frankie Pedersen.