NEMATOCYST is a live collaborative duo from Los Angeles between performance artist/choreographer Jas Lin and writer/producer/DJ Hearthealer. Their transportive hybrid performances birth unique creature characters who roam through lush sonic dreamscapes.  Their performances have carved immersive habitats across international venues including Creamcake’s 3hd Festival (Berlin), OUTsider Festival (Austin), Hong Kong Art Week, OIL (Shenzhen), Orbitware (Bali), Bussy Temple (Singapore), Cakeshop (Seoul), Shapeshifter (Bangkok), Eaton’s Consciousness Festival (Hong Kong), Red Room (Yangon), and more. In addition, their open movement workshops– rooted in play and experimentation– have been shared with Hong Kong Art Basel, AN(8)X Festival (Berlin), Pluto Space (Valencia), Maju Program (Seoul), Emerging Islands (La Union), and more.

Named after the stinging cells of jellyfish and other cnidarians, NEMATOCYST is a venomous injection of aliveness– a portal into another way of being.

Andrea Muñiz (they/she) is a non-binary Puerto Rican movement artist. They approach their creative work with curiosity and care. As a performer, improviser, bodyworker, and choreographer, they center the body as the source of information and investigation. Andrea holds a B.F.A. from The Boston Conservatory. Their work has been presented at MELLE’s WIP, Salem Arts Festival, and Big Bang 16 among other platforms. They have been an artist in residence at the Dance Lab at the Boston Center for the Arts, and “Rough Drafts” by Midday Movement Series. Their work has been supported by the Next Steps for Boston Dance and the New England Dance Fund. They have had the honor of interpreting the works of Laila J. Franklin, Ryan Landry/The Gold Dust Orphans, Jessi Stegall, Amelia Estrada, and Jules Paramor. Andrea is a committed practitioner and facilitator of contact improvisation. They have taught regularly at Contact Improv Boston and will be teaching at the Ontario Regional Contact Jam and ARCS Festival in 2026. Andrea recently relocated to Montréal, Canada.

Alyah Baker is a dance artist, scholar, and choreographer working at the intersection of art and embodied activism. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at UNC Charlotte, where her research focuses on queer aesthetics, Black feminist praxis, and community building through dance. Her pedagogical and choreographic research has been featured in local and national media, including Dance Teacher Magazine and the New York Times, and published in The Oxford Handbook of Ballet Pedagogy and Anti-Racism in Ballet Teaching. Baker earned her MFA in Dance(’21) and a B.A. in Sociology (’03) from Duke University. She has trained and performed professionally with companies including Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Oakland Ballet, and Carolina Ballet. The American Dance Festival, Choreography Project, Queering Dance Festival, North Carolina Dance Festival, Elon University, and Oakland Ballet are among the platforms that have featured Baker’s choreographic works. Baker and her company, AB Contemporary Dance, were recipients of the 2023-2024 National Performance Network Creation and Development Fund and have received additional awards from the Kenan Institute of Ethics, the Center for Cultural Innovation, and the North Carolina Arts Council.

Wilson Mendieta – Associate Professor at Chapman. Education: MFA in dance from UW; BFA in acting/minor in dance from Montclair State. Performing credits: television, radio, commercials, concert dance and Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals. Choreography: throughout the United States, including The Kennedy Center, and festivals in Colombia and Australia.

I am a LA based movement artist exploring themes of fluidity in gender, tradition, and modern movement. My work encompasses global influences through dance, drawing from kathak, street styles, vogue fem, contemporary forms, and lived experience. I am deeply interested in how movement becomes a site of global storytelling, self expression, and progress.

Azul Lopez (they/them) is a queer, gender expansive, Indigenous, deathworker, artist, somatic practitioner, and facilitator. Azul hopes to create art that reminds people of the infinite nature of their soul and mortal nature of their body, and to inspire them to be themselves and fulfill their desires. Azul desires to empower their community members through their workshops and offerings.

Azul engages in movement practices intentionally as a way to connect to their Indigenous Yoeme roots and spirituality. Azul was born and raised in Sonora, Mexico and this informs a great part of their identity and how they express themself artistically. Azul comes from a long line of cowboys and people who dance by stomping their feet to the earth. Azul prays for blessings to rain on their queer community every time they dance.

Born and raised in San Diego County, I have been performing for roughly fifteen years of my life. I’ve always found comfort in performance, both onstage and off, including theatre, choir, and my main passion: dance. Performing, specifically dancing, has always allowed me to feel not just included, but also given me the space to show my true self to others. As an autistic, transgender, queer, and mixed dancer, I’ve always struggled to find other dancers- let alone choreographers- like myself on stage. Being the only one like me in studios and classes has made me feel isolated and desperate for connection with my communities. I would love to showcase my movement that fosters connections and inspires others to be their authentic selves.

Jesse Greenfield, MPH, CHES (they/them) is a public health educator, dancer, and professional goofball living on unceded Kumeyaay land. Jesse is deeply inspired by their teachers, some of whom include: the ground, the moon, lovers, long pauses, bio and chosen family, dreams, community organizers, and a long lineage of dance artists.
As co-founder and lead facilitator of Kaleidoscope Training Center, Jesse facilitates applied improvisation workshops to support communities, medical professionals, youth, and more in improving their spoken and unspoken communication with others, creating joyful connections, and being effective advocates for themselves and their communities.
Jesse is a disabled artist and, until now, has not performed since 2021. They bring the heartache of FOMO and the magic of crip brilliance –sourced from their body and their community members + ancestors– to this present work. Jesse is grateful to Disco Riot for a platform to dream with you.

DeVante Love (they/them) is a queer dance scholar/artist, Olympic martial artist, and two spirit medicinewoman on a mission to spread inner peace through movement. They are a PhD candidate in Performance Studies exploring how vogue dance serves as a means of worldbuilding and liberation for queer people of color.

Through their Inner Peace Dojo, DeVante hosts performances and workshops demonstrating the healing and liberatory potential within dance, meditation, and poetry. Their debut choreoplay, Healing the Father Wound, received glowing reviews and community acclaim. They are currently developing Healing the Brokenheart, a new piece about embracing queerness and finding liberation by reconnecting with the elements.

DeVante is codifying a kung fu dance system that helps queer people connect with and express their true nature while teaching self-protection skills. They have studied, taught, and performed healing movement practices internationally, including in China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Egypt, Greece, France, and Mexico, and have had their work featured on TEDx, CBS News, SF Chronicle, Out Magazine, Amazon Prime, The Trevor Project, Creating Change, and more.

Rowan Janusiak is a queer, interdisciplinary artist creating work that stimulates audiences to question societal standards imposed around pleasure and play. Recent endeavors include drag performances with Chappel Roan and Alaska Thunderfuck; choreography residencies with Aimed Dance, Young Dancers Initiative and the Croft; and leading Dance Church classes in Chicago.

Originally from Dayton, Ohio, Ilyana Carlee is an active performer, choreographer, and teacher in San Diego, California. Since a young age, she has trained at various studios, her most influential training being under DeShona Pepper Robertson at Stivers School for the Arts. Ilyana continued her dance training and choreographic exploration at Howard University, earning a BFA in Dance. Since moving to San Diego in 2023, she has trained at DISCO RIOT, Malashock Dance Company, and San Diego Dance Theater, and has performed with DISCO RIOT, San Diego Dance Theater and NACHMO. Most recently, she was an intern in the (R)Evolution Artist Program with DISCO RIOT, and is currently a founding collaborator with Negative Space Dance Collective and a dance instructor with Tippi Toes. Her art is deeply influenced by her experiences as a Black woman. Her culture is something that is so deeply embedded into who she is that it shines through in every work she creates. She is inspired by both her ancestral lineage and surroundings, creating work inspired by love, grief, community, and the Black experience.

Winter Sinclair is the Ice Queen of Your Queer Dreams; an internationally touring burlesque artist based in San Diego whose work blends camp glamour, musicality, and richly creative storytelling. A high-femme shapeshifter, Winter fuses classic burlesque, pole dance, and drag-lesque into sultry, character-driven performances celebrated for their polish, humor, and visual excess.

Since debuting in 2019, Winter has performed in nearly 50 burlesque festivals across the United States and Canada, with international appearances in Germany, Finland, and Panama. She has been featured and headlined multiple times and is widely known for her Elvira tribute act. Winter won the Elvira Look-Alike Contest, selected by Cassandra Peterson herself, and the act has become one of her most requested performances.

Winter is the founder and producer of CatHaus Revue, San Diego’s only burlesque and pole dance show, and the creator of Barely Scripted, a burlesque-comedy-improv variety spectacle. She is also the co-creator of the upcoming Stay Classy San Diego Burlesque Festival. Notably, Winter was the first artist to bring burlesque to San Diego CityFest, performing her Elvira act alongside her two burlesque sons.

A proud queer artist living with invisible disabilities, Winter is known for advocating for minimum burlesque pay rates, safe performance spaces, and diversity at the forefront of all programming and production.

allie miks (they/she/he) is a Queer, Neurodivergent, Japanese-American performing artist, mover, and teacher from Los Angeles. they began dancing at a young age, and continued their dance education by attending Santa Monica College before transferring to California State University, Long Beach where they graduated with a BFA in dance in 2019. allie creates art in a process-based method that a true collaborative process as inspired by radical Queer and BIPOC community organizing principles; to allie, it’s imperative to lead with the possibilities presented by the people in the room. allowing for the piece to change shape over time, process-based work leads with grace and focuses less on how the work will show in the end; creating space for heart-led creativity. their work often follow stories that are Queer, nostalgic, silly, rooted in the current socio-political environment we find ourselves in, or all of the above. to allie, movement and the creation of art in community with others is the most liberating experience, and it is to be shared.

julietta magaña pérez (they/them/elle) is a non-binary chicané artist and aspiring DJ from Kirkland, Washington. they hold a BFA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago (’18) and a Master’s in Arts Management degree from Claremont Graduate University (’23). julietta embraces a process-oriented & collaborative approach in their choreography, ideas that are often sparked by dreams and stories of their ancestral lineage, land displacement, and queerness.

Eon Allum (they/them) is a queer Asian American dance artist and filmmaker born and raised in San Diego, California. They trained at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts and received their BFA in dance at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University in 2025. They have a love for dance film and use visual effects, makeup, and poetry to craft their worlds.

Their art is drawn from the whimsy and disquiet of modern life, and they ultimately strive to fight the dilution of the soul. They aspire to make more space for queer and Asian voices in the arts and create works that fascinate and comfort through liminality and fantasy.

Film Description: 

The crepuscular rabbit emerges from the crevices of humanity’s forgetfulness.
If you’ve ever felt the urge to run away, the urge to stop time, you’ve felt it. The longing for the in between, the nostalgia that sticks to you like honey, the desire to desire, but never to have.

I am a Los Angeles–based movement artist exploring fluidity across gender, tradition, and contemporary expression. My work blends global movement vocabularies, drawing from Kathak, street styles, vogue fem, and contemporary dance. I view movement as a powerful site of storytelling that bridges cultures, challenges norms, and creates space for evolving identities.

Beyond dance, my practice extends into visual art, marketing, and photography, each discipline informing how I construct narratives and connect with audiences. I’m particularly interested in how creative expression can foster belonging while pushing culture forward. Whether on stage or through digital platforms, my work seeks to reimagine tradition through a modern, intersectional lens that centers community, representation, and the ongoing process of becoming.

Film Description: 

This dance film reimagines Hindu mythology through gender-affirming storytelling, centering Ardhanarishvara as a symbol of balance. Blending street, contemporary, and South Asian movement, it explores gender fluidity and identity, set to Beyoncé’s “Already,” with my mother’s voice reflecting on representation, community, and queer belonging within cultural narratives.

earthfruit is a movement-based artist working across experimental, analog modes of film, installation, performance, writing, and printmaking to study how the body remembers, and whether/how the body forgets. earthfruit works with intangible materials including movement, darkness, light, and time to create layered, unstable gestures that are unfixed in form but residual in the body.

earthfruit approaches their work as a trained dancer: through the muscle memory of movement. They look at how the body expresses what it remembers in the viscera, through improvisation, and through that which is not choreographed or scored.

With attention to the physical and psychic space of a room, a page, a screen, or a stage, earthfruit examines the unstable and mutable nature of memory through that which resides in, lingers in, and inhabits the body. They are obsessed with unearthing that which emerges (only) when we release our hold on accumulation, preservation, and certainty.

Film Description:

This is about be(com)ing a complex organism through entanglement of celluloid, earth, human. The hand is a site of touch, care, and relation. Hands cycle relentlessly, becoming other hands, becoming other bodies, reaching for modes of survival in our bones, our cells, our gestures.

MK Ford (they/them) is an antidisciplinary dance artist whose work includes performance, choreography, film and visual arts. Presently, MK Ford holds the role of Clinical Assistant Professor of Dance and Media at Arizona State University. They hold a MFA in Dance from the University of Maryland College Park and a BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ford is currently performing with various dance artists in the New York, Washington D.C., L.A., and Phoenix areas while also working as a freelance multimedia collaborator. Ford’s research includes themes from queer theory such as redaction, code shifting, and multi-mediated cyborg phenomenologies. The dance lineages that Ford moves within include contemporary postmodern, floorwork practices, improvisational strategies, and street styles.

Film Description:

This ScreenDance activates queer imagination through the layered composition of movement, clothing, and fantasy. Themes explored are motifs of codes, gaze, euphoria, magical realism, and technologies of intervention. Implemented in this film are the disciplines of dance choreography and performance, green screen and animation, and cinematography + video editing.

Born and raised in San Diego, Casey Hall-Landers is a production and stage manager, AV technician, choreographer, interdisciplinary artist, and accessibility advocate working at the intersection of live arts, disability justice, and performance technology. With a BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a master’s degree in Creative Media and Technology: Live Experience Design from Berklee College of Music NYC, Casey creates and supports live performances that are collaborative, interdisciplinary, and intentionally accessible. They are currently the Production Management Intern at La Jolla Playhouse while freelancing with regional dance companies including Malashock Dance and Disco Riot as a projection designer, stage manager, and production manager. Casey also serves as the audio engineer and lighting and projection designer at the Template OB, and has worked as a live video DJ and lighting designer for concerts at Quartyard in downtown San Diego.

Film Description:

I’m a Person I Promise is a short dance film exploring the visibility of identity through the lens of trans and disabled experience. This abstract film follows dancer, Casey Hall-Landers, wearing a patchwork of past and present clothes tied to their gender presentation. As they dance with their coffee date, Forest Lee, paint streaks across their skin and bleeds through the surface of the patchwork. Attempts to stay within the intimacy of the dance and participate in the seemingly normal activities of the coffee date give way and Casey must uncover what they try to hide alone.

Film Description:

The film is a dive into the many vibrant and intimate sides of lesbianism through examination of the flags beautiful colors. To honor how womanhood can be applied or rejected from the individual we wish to share how the choice is ours. Creating a pedestrian structure for the movement vocabulary held weight to our narrative that our identities shouldn’t be denied or forgotten.

Lázaro Louzao (Lugo, 1988) has been exhibiting photography for almost two decades, with eighteen solo exhibitions so far and participating in various collective exhibitions in Spain and Mexico. He started to work in cinema in 2013 as a director, producer and screenwriter, making three short films and a feature film, ‘That Night of November’ (2018), the first LGTB-themed film shot in Galician language, which toured around the world in more than twenty film festivals and projecting in theaters and screens throughout Spain.

In 2020 he received the XVI Marcela e Elisa LGBT visibility Award for his work and at the beginning of 2022 he published ‘Palpar a Pel’, a book that collects his photographic work of male nudes, with a foreword by Abel Azcona and an epilogue by the collective Los Picoletos. In 2024 he comes back to cinema with the short film ‘Sing to me’ recently awarded Best Short in the Roca Film Festival and exhibiting his new photo series ‘Obumbratio’ in Studio RGF gallery in Madrid been also published as his second photobook in 2025.

Film Description:

The factory closed its doors long ago, but traces of its past activity still remain. What mechanical work was carried out within its walls? What did the workers who dwelled it suffer or feel?

Two souls, lost gears, echoes of the past, wander through the now-decaying space. They reveal with its dance the spirit of that place, which still resonates today in the building’s scars.

Hadi Moussally is a Lebanese-born filmmaker, photographer, producer, and performer whose work bridges fiction, documentary, fashion, and experimental cinema. Born in 1987, he moved to France at 18 to study filmmaking, earning degrees in fiction cinema and documentary and anthropological cinema, influenced by the legacy of Jean Rouch.

In 2013, he co-founded h7o7 with Olivier Pagny, a creative duo dedicated to exploring still and moving images through hybrid forms. His early works include the intimate documentary “Ma vieille grand-mère” and the docu-portrait “Bowl of Cherries.”

Expanding into fashion and dance films, his practice evolved into genre-blending creations. Notable works include “Bellydance Vogue,” selected in over 90 festivals, “Space Woman,” acquired by Canal+, and “La Casquette,” winner of the France TV competition. His films have received over 70 awards and 500 festival selections worldwide.

Film Description: 

Abjad Ḥawaz (أبجد هوز) takes its name from the ancient ordering of the Arabic alphabet. Through the body of Salma Zahore, each letter is danced and embodied in the ruins of Barcelona. Blending fashion, music, poetry, and performance, the film reclaims a language often feared and misunderstood, turning it into a celebration of identity, resilience, and artistic freedom.

Benedito Ferreira and Glauco Gonçalves are Brazilian artists based in Goiás, in central Brazil. Ferreira holds a PhD in Arts from the State University of Rio de Janeiro, with research focused on contemporary photography and video. In recent years, his works have been exhibited in several countries, including Uruguay, Mexico, France, Germany, Georgia, and South Korea, among others. Gonçalves holds a PhD in Urban Geography from the University of São Paulo and is a professor at the Federal University of Goiás, where he develops research on ruins and modern architecture. Armadura de Sabão (Soap Armor) marks the first collaboration between the two artists. In their trajectories, they share an interest in discussions around territory, everyday life in central Brazil, and the multiple forms of queer corporeality in urban contexts.

Film Description:

In the shade of a tropical tree, a cowboy-cria slowly guides his ox cart. Between soap bubbles and latent desire, the journey opens onto an electro-country musical dream in the heart of Brazil’s Central-West.

Okwae A. Miller is a research-based and interdisciplinary choreographer, educator and community activist that explores curiosity as a mechanism of personal healing, ancestral veneration and the decolonization of black/queer experiences. An Atlanta native, he studied dance at The University of North Carolina, Duke University/ADF and The Ailey School. Nuanced, reflective and athletic, his work has been featured with exceptional acclaim throughout the eastern coast, including New York, DC and the Atlanta since his establishment of Okwae A. Miller & Artists in 2017. Throughout his artistic career, Okwae has collaborated with Spelman College, The Lucky Penny, and T. Lang Dance. In 2022, Okwae relocated to San Diego, to explore intentional displacement in efforts of healing, contemplation and redefinition of process and composition of dance and performance. In his time in SoCal, he completed his IMPACT artist residency at Bread & Salt Gallery where continues to incubate his creative practice.

Film Description:

‘a shy, [RED] moon’ is an integrated choreographic short-film combatting the complex and volatile attitudes of a silent killer that has succeeded in claiming the lives of millions of black gay men, the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Understanding that HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence, we must acknowledge the crumbling and discouraging impact of stigma on kept secrets, personal sickness and community. Employing investigative qualitative research, this work follows the HIV-positive lives of four black gay men within the city of Atlanta. Connected by their status, we will identify with the literal rearrangement, painful past and the powerful gesture of healing from the awkwardness and discomfort surrounding being infected and accepted. Additional research includes a collection of personal essays, Fighting Words by Charles M. Smith; research studies from the Center for Disease Control; and HIV-positive author, Danez Smith, collection of poems, “Don’t Call Us Dead.”

Christophe Madrolle was born on March 24, 1988 in a rural region of central France. At 18, he moved to Tours. He entered jazz school and sang in several gospel groups for two years. Through various encounters, he developed his musical world: a striking and enigmatic universe. Shortly after, Christophe tried his luck in Paris « on a whim, without money… I made my first songs and I produced my first album: “GRAFITURES” was released in 2009 ». Intimate and melodious, “Grafitures” has known a honorable success. Self-taught, enigmatic, uninhibited and committed are several qualifiers to describe Christophe Madrolle. « I am extrovert in my creations, but very modest in private; I’m OK with this paradox… I want people to know me with my heart and my feelings. I want to give people the desire to express their emotions and human values », this young singer-songwriter says.

He hopes to climb the ladder of fame to defend causes that are dear to him. « Thanks to the LGBT Quebec Fugues magazine, I had my first international press. But I always had in mind to share my values and how other LGBT communities live. This English album, “We Are The Love”, allow me to join them and support them… » Since 2021 and the release of his latest album PRIDE (a record celebrating a decade of commitment to the queer community) Christophe has been touring all across France as part of his “Pride Tour,” making numerous public appearances and even serving as marshal of several pride marches.

Film Description:

“Bullying” is a work that poignantly and symbolically addresses the devastation caused by psychological and physical violence experienced at school. This video features a solitary character dancing in an abandoned, stripped-down setting. Little by little, the viewer understands that this figure is the ghost of someone who was bullied—deeply affected, traumatized, and broken by what they endured. The dance, both fragile and intense, takes place around a hanging rope, suggesting that this person took their own life.

This powerful artistic choice is meant to raise awareness, break the silence, and pay tribute to those whose lives have been destroyed by harassment. Aware of the sensitivity of the subject, I have approached this theme with the utmost respect, avoiding any form of voyeurism. My intention is to contribute to collective mobilization for prevention, awareness, and support for victims.

This project is deeply personal to me, as I myself was a victim of school bullying. During the five years I spent in middle school, I endured physical assaults, insults, and daily ridicule. What I went through has left a lasting mark on me. Today, I transform that experience into artistic expression, in the hope that this video may resonate with those who are suffering and serve as a catalyst for change.

Oddalys Salcido is a choreographic media artist born and raised on the internet. Their work slips between movement, technology, and critical theory. Rooted in dance and expanded through screendance, their work invites urgent, joyful, and speculative play toward futures where bold emotionality and radical tenderness are not only possible, but necessary.

Film Description:

Captchas are everywhere and they’re getting difficult. People are pushed to absurd and surreal lengths to verify their existence. Are You Human explores the glitching lines between flesh and machine while questioning how dance may be the last indicator of being human.