Collaborators 

Felecia Baker (Hella) grew up in Chesapeake, VA, and began her dance training at Academie De Ballet, studying the Vaganova Method for ballet technique, tap, jazz, and contemporary dance. She attended The Governor’s School of the Arts in Norfolk, VA, studying ballet under Joni Petre-Scholz, Kathy Brenner Lasakow, and Lorraine Graves and performing principal roles in La Sylphide, Giselle, and Raymonda and soloists roles in La Bayadere and Swan Lake. Felecia also trained at American Ballet Theater, Pointe Park University, and Richmond Ballet summer programs, joining the latter as a trainee. Felecia danced professionally with Charlottesville Ballet and Ballet Memphis, performing the roles of Clara in The Nutcracker, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, George Balanchine's Square Dance, and original choreography by Trey McIntyre. Felecia teaches ballet and pointe technique at Academie de Ballet and the Governor’s School and is a certified GYROTONIC ®Trainer.

Jam Niel Delgado (Giovanni) was born in Puerto Rico. He first pursued dancing at 16 at the School of the Arts in Trujillo Alto, PR and later joined the dance team, where he competed in the college Olympics. In 2014, Jam Niel moved to the States and worked with Koffee Dance Company, Winston Salem Festival Ballet, and Gary Taylor Dance. In 2018, he performed in the annual Wake Forest Dance Festival and began teaching with Infinity Ballet Theater and the Academy of Fine Arts. Most recently, Jam Niel has performed in Durham with Shaleigh Dance Works' The In-Between at The Fruit and with Gaspard & Dancers in American Dance Festival's The Stars Are Out event in 2021. Jam Niel is excited to be part of Ballet Ashani under the direction of Iyun Ashani Harrison. 

Anthony "Otto" Nelson Jr. (dancer) is a Durham, NC-Native performer, dance educator, arts-activists, and organizer of healing and "self-work" spaces. Otto’s career has led him to seek training in various styles, building his repertoire in contemporary, ballet, modern, hip-hop, and jazz and refining his focus in a personal style that blends these traditions. With over a decade of dance theatre experience, Otto has performed with renowned choreographers in the Triangle and beyond, has been an artist-in-residence for Carolina Performing Arts, a featured UNC-Wilmington Fellowship Artist, has performed at Jazz at Lincoln Theatre and Dixon Place in NY, and has been awarded the North Carolina Arts Council's Artist Support Grant Award, in support of his work. Otto works as an independent and collaborative performer, making socially conscious work.

LINDSAY FISHER VIATORI spent the bulk of her performing career in New York City dancing with Helen Simoneau Danse (rehearsal director and founding company member), Nathan Trice/RITUALS, Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, Collective Body/ Dance Lab, Ellen Cornfield, Camille A. Brown, Sidra Bell and VIA Dance Collaborative (founding member). She also had the pleasure of performing works by Twyla Tharp, Jiri Kylian, Ton Simons, Tatiana Baganova, and Miguel Gutierrez among others. She has performed in Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera’s West Side Story and North Shore Music Theatre’s Victor/Victoria. Film credits include Lead Arabian in Robert Lindgren’s The Nutcracker (PBS/UNC-TV), feature film Across the Universe, and the dance film Color Theory directed by Cara Hagen. She also performed for three seasons with The Blanket where she performed works by Lucinda Childs, Christopher Williams and Beth Gill. She excitedly joined Ballet Ashani in 2023 for the world premiere of the contemporary ballet adaptation of James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room.” She holds a BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where she was the recipient of the prestigious Sarah Graham Kenan Endowed Fellowship of Excellence, and holds an MFA in Choreography from the University of Iowa where she was the first recipient of the Strategic Initiative Fellowship recognizing excellence in her field. She is the co-founder and director of the FORGE Summer Dance Intensive, hosted at Slippery Rock University, where she is an associate professor of dance.

Melina Silkai Bezanis (dancer) was raised in Houston, TX, where she attended the High School for Performing and Visual Arts before moving to New York City to attend The Ailey/Fordham program, where she received a BFA in Dance and BA in Political Science. Melina has performed choreography by Martha Graham, David Dorfman, Mark Caserta, Omar Román De Jesús, Jaqueline Buglisi, Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, Janice Rosario, Dwight Rhoden, and Desmond Richardson. She choreographed "New York or Nowhere" for the Chicago Grant Park Music Festival in 2021 and "Urban Jungle" for her 2023 BFA Senior Showcase.

James Clotfelter (lighting & production design) is committed to creating collaborative and socially conscious work for live performance, the built environment, and public space. Working broadly as a designer specializing in light, James maintains an architectural lighting design practice. He is the co-founder of Studio C Projects, a performance-based, collaborative research studio that investigates the intersections of movement, design, and architecture. His work in live performance has been presented throughout the US and internationally with artists that include Rennie Harris, Johannes Wieland, John Jasperse, Reggie Wilson, Bill Shannon, Dan Rothenberg, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Pete Wyer, and Mark DeChiazza. James has a double MFA in Transdisciplinary Design and Lighting Design from the Parsons School of Design in NYC.

Brandon Penn (David) was born and raised in Richmond, VA, where he began his dance training at the Pine Camp Cultural Arts Center, studying with Annette Holt, Rodney Williams, and Willie Hinton. He later enrolled at the School of Richmond Ballet, where he studied under Igor Antanov, Malcolm Burn, and others. After spending three years at the Richmond Ballet, Brandon was accepted as a company trainee while completing high school. After graduating, Brandon studied at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase College Conservatory for Dance with Larry Clark, Taryn Russell, and Ted Kivitt before accepting a position with Atlanta Ballet 2. Brandon has also danced professionally with Columbia City Ballet and as a principal dancer with Fort Wayne Ballet.

Leah Esemuede (dancer) is a senior at Duke University from Frederick, Maryland, double majoring in Dance and Psychology with a minor in Spanish. She began dancing at the age of 4 and went on to complete her pre-college training at CityDance School and Conservatory in Rockville, MD. Leah has completed programs at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Orsolina 28, where she worked with artists Rena Butler, Jonathan E. Alsberry, Ken Ossola, and Sarah Reynolds. Continuing her training at Duke, Leah has had the opportunity to perform in works within the dance department and explore leadership roles and choreography as a member of Embodiment Contemporary Dance and Outreach Chair of Street Medicine.

Alyssa Shi (dancer) began her dance training at Haiyan International Dance Academy in Portland, Oregon, under Haiyan Wu and Yang Zou. There, she trained primarily in classical ballet, contemporary dance, and Chinese classical dance. Alyssa continued her training at Duke University, where she performed with the Duke University Dance Program, Embodiment Contemporary Dance, and Devils en Pointe (two student-run dance groups). At Duke, Alyssa conducted research in the field of dance medicine and held executive positions with both Devils en Pointe and Embodiment Contemporary Dance.

Aaron Brown (composer) is an audiovisual artist based in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Since receiving his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2014, he has focused on his sound art project Baron and highlighting his peers' work via his independent cassette label. Aaron has begun to push his compositional work into a more physical direction, mainly composing for contemporary dance.

William Paul Thomas (scenic design & video) is a Durham-based visual artist and is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Painting Foundations at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. His creative practice is centered on highlighting the individuals and moments that are often overlooked in the mainstream projections of Black life. Through collaborative projects such as serving as guest curator for the 2019 MFA Exhibition at the Ackland Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill, he serves as an arts advocate around the Research Triangle.