We Create Festival 2025
The Movements that Free(d) Us
ACT I
Jovielle Gers
RemEMBRA(n)CE
RemEMBRA(n)CE is a video-dance piece that explores our human-ness as nature itself—an expression of awe and a call to remember what we are made of, and what we are a part of. Earth is not a backdrop; it is our very backbone. Through movement and imagery, the piece listens for the sound of a seed sprouting, asking: What body of water are you? In a culture shaped by capitalism and disconnection, RemEMBRA(n)CE invites us to reclaim our belonging to each other and the more-than-human world. It is an embodied embrace of interdependence, rhythm, and ancestral memory.
Simon Montalvo
Ezekiel
Ezekiel is a call back to where the artist’s relationship with the earth began—within the branches and leaves of a childhood tree, a companion through countless hours of climbing, singing to birds, and seeking shade on blistering South Texas days. This piece is an external build of hope, release, love, and celebration—an honoring of the gifts passed down from ancestors and the earth. As those gifts are received, they are shared back with the community through dance, joy, and movement. Ezekiel reminds us: there is never scarcity where reciprocity exists.
Zaquia Luisa
cenotes (excerpt)
Our ancestors left us blueprints for reaching the deepest parts of our humanity—transmissions of alchemy, time travel, communion, and transcendence. A cenote is a sacred body of water once used by Mayan ancestors as a portal to and from Xibalba, the underworld. Water is a transformer. This work is a practice of diving into and surfacing from the dark—of building, allowing, and listening. It is an offering rooted in ancestral wisdom and an invitation to move through shadow toward transformation.
Avatar DeVante Love
飞 Fei
飞 Fei is a martial arts–inspired dance work that merges movement, sound, and visual art to explore themes of power, balance, and transformation. Drawing from the symbolism of the fan and the philosophy of martial arts, the piece reflects on the tension between restraint and release, concealment and revelation. Immersive sound and dynamic projections deepen the emotional landscape, while poetry and imagery trace a journey from societal conditioning toward liberation. 飞 Fei invites the audience into a multi-sensory experience where tradition meets innovation, and where movement becomes a channel for healing, resistance, and the celebration of self.
Egbesola Efunyemi
Efunyemi’s Journey
Efunyemi’s Journey is a vibrant intersection of the mortal and the divine, weaving the human experience with the sacred presence of Ọbàtálá—the Yoruba Òrìṣà of creativity, clarity, and wisdom. This piece traces a spiritual alignment through the body, unfolding in a magical, liminal space between late-night and early-morning hours. The wooden floors unite humanity & creativity with ancestral magic and electronic beats, grounding the experience in both ritual and rhythm. Efunyemi’s Journey becomes a celebration of transformation, where spirit, sound, and movement converge in a dance of remembrance, release, and radiant becoming.
Charmaine C. Santiago Galdón
MY SLICK MYTH
MY SLICK MYTH is a dreamlike journey through memory, spirit, and sound. Merging the healing vibrations of sound therapy with the ancestral rhythms of Bomba, Charmaine crafts an intimate narrative of arrival—into this world, into selfhood, into healing. The piece moves fluidly through phases of childhood and adult trauma, revealing the complexity of personal mythology shaped by pain, resilience, and transformation. At its core, MY SLICK MYTH is a ritual of self-reclamation: a tender, powerful act of honoring ancestral presence while tending to the wounds of the past. Through rhythm, voice, and embodied memory, Charmaine invites us to witness healing in motion.
INTERMISSION
ACT II
Yaya Inaru'ni
Ceremony
Ceremony is a sacred offering—an embodied ritual honoring the living presence of the artist’s ancestors from Borikén. Rooted in ancestral memory and guided by spirit, the work seeks to elevate the voices of those who came before, whose resilience, wisdom, and love remain alive in the body and breath of the present. This ceremony is both remembrance and reclamation: a space to acknowledge what was, what is, and what continues to move through us. Through movement, rhythm, and intentional presence, Ceremony becomes a pathway for healing, connection, and honoring the ancestral lineages that shape our collective being.
Carmen S. Rizzo
Freedame
Freedame: Just another bad feminist in a solo exploration of past, present, and future in a world where there is no winning—yet every day is a victory.
Mnfath
Ode عود
Ode عود is a solo performance that explores the multiplicity of humanity through symbols, embodied states, and interactive experience. A poetic response to the horrors, resilience, and global intersectionality of the ongoing Palestinian genocide, the piece weaves minimalist movement, spoken word, and dance. It illuminates the light, the shadows, and all that lies between for communities subjected to the violent dispossession of militarized racial capitalism. Ode عود invites reflection, witnessing, and connection—honoring the depth of collective struggle and survival.
Ananth Udupa
Upanayana Project
Upanayana Project explores rituals of passage and the complexities of performing (imperfectly) within caste- and gender-oppressive systems. The first section evokes the emotional journey of a young boy undergoing the Upanayana ritual—navigating both reverence for cultural tradition and the deep wounds caused by prescriptive gender norms. The second section shifts into a more explicit portrayal of the tension between internal truth and the performance of gender and religion after the ritual. Through movement and sound, Upanayana Project reflects on how inherited systems shape, fracture, and challenge the self across time and identity.
Nitika Raj
Love
Love is an expression of love, loss, and longing—a journey from prayer to despair, collapse, and renewal. It explores the search for love both within the self and in connection with others. At its core, the piece reflects on how love, when rooted in community, becomes a powerful pathway to liberation.
Danza Orgánica
Brasa | Ember
Brasa | Ember is an evening-length dance theater work currently in development, set to premiere in Spring 2026. This excerpt, presented as part of the We Create Festival, delves into pivotal historical events in 1930s Puerto Rico—events whose echoes continue to reverberate today. Drawing inspiration from War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson A. Denis and Canto de la locura by Francisco Matos Paoli, the piece weaves together dance, memory, and resistance to create a living archive of Puerto Rican history and collective resilience.