CREATIVE

credits include performing with Gregory Hines, Marvin Hamlisch, The Beatles LOVE and One Drop by Cirque Du Soleil, STOMP, Step Afrika!, resident tap dancer for The Washington Ballet and featured artist in Ayodele Casel’s Diary of a Tap Dancer. soledefined.com | @rkjdance

Aaron Kubacak (Costume Designer) holds a M.F.A. in Theatre (costume design) from The University of Texas at Austin. His credits include Dance Repertory Theatre’s Momentum (2017) and Transcendence (2018); original dance pieces Crone (2017) choreographed by Dorothy O’Shea Overbey, 39 Inside (The Cohen New Works Festival, 2019), Charles O. Anderson’s (Re)current Unrest (Fusebox Festival, 2019); The Crucible (Texas Theatre and Dance, 2017); Performance as Public Practice Graduate Student Alliance’s Telephone (2017) and Mr. Burns, a post-electric play (2018). akubdesigns.com

Ana Lara (Scenic Designer – why they are the way that they are; Blue, Contrapposto, Blue; Renaissance Futura) is a second-year B.A. in Theatre and Dance major with an emphasis in design and technology at The University of Texas at Austin. She has a passion for acting as well as design and has been designing for the stage since attending high school in California. Past design credits include Into the Woods and Elektra, both performed at the Sonoma Academy Fitzsimmons Black Box Theater.

Gesel Mason (Artistic Director; Choreographer –Renaissance Futura) is artistic director for Gesel Mason Performance Projects and associate professor of dance at UT Austin. Her current project Yes, And premiered locally at Fusebox Festival and Dance Place in Washington, D.C. Mason’s solo performance and digital archival project, NO BOUNDARIES: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers, is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and features work by Kyle Abraham, Rennie Harris, Donald McKayle, Bebe Miller and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, among others. Geselmason.com

Jonah Maughan (Assistant Technical Director) is a B.A. in Theatre and Dance major with an emphasis in design and technology. He has experience in multiple areas of theatre including scenic and lighting design. Recent credits with Texas Theatre and Dance include Tiny Fingerprints (UTNT (UT New Theatre), 2022).

Elias Merlo (Sound Designer) is a B.A. in Theatre and Dance major with an emphasis in playwriting and directing at The University of Texas at Austin with plans to pursue a career in sound design. Past credits include sound design for PIVOT and associate sound design for In Sisters We Trust, or My F*cked Up American Girl Doll Play as part of Texas Theatre and Dance, and assistant sound design for The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity at ZACH Theatre in Austin, Texas.

MICHIYAYA (Choreographer – why they are the way that they are) is a femme-centric contemporary dance company based in New York City under co-founders and artistic directors Anya Clarke-Verdery (B.F.A. - Long Island University) and Mitsuko Clarke-Verdery (B.F.A. - Carnegie Mellon University). The dance, performance and visual art duo created MICHIYAYA in 2015 as a way to honor contemporary dance and to center the experiences of queer women and nonbinary folx. Described as “revolutionary and physically virtuosic,” their work has spread nationally at various institutions including Yale University, Brooklyn Museum and The Andy Warhol Museum. They have been supported by CVS Health, Microsof Corporation, Heinz Endowments, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Foundation for Contemporary Arts, among others. Thriving as a powerful group of femme voices, MICHIYAYA has been featured in Artforum, Thinx, Vice Media’s i-D and Medium, among others.

Dorothy O’Shea Overbey (Producing Artistic Director) is in her eighth year on faculty at The University of Texas at Austin. Afer receiving a B.F.A. in Dance and B.A. in Philosophy from Southern Methodist University, Overbey danced for Colorado Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Ballet New York and numerous independent choreog-