Research & Development Spring 2026

Kelsey Hirte (she/her)

Kelsey Hirte (she/her) is a modern and contemporary dance artist based in San Diego, California. She started her dance training at age 4, predominantly in ballet, and started training in modern and contemporary styles in high school. From there, she has trained with San Diego based dance educators such as Joei Waldeon, Sadie Weinberg, Heather Zornes, Faith Jensen-Ismay and Terry Wilson and has performed as a part of Avocado Dance Theatre and Mojalet Dance Collective’s Core Group. She has been creating work since 2014 where she got her start as a volunteer dance coach at Mission Hills High School, where she was a graduate, with the visual and performing arts dance program. She gathers inspiration for her work through introspection; taking in her own personal experiences as a woman, a wife and mother and someone who is neurodivergent, and observation; gathering information from her environment to find concepts and principles she wishes to communicate through movement.

Christina Madueño (she/her)

Christina Madueño is a dancer, choreographer, and dance educator from El Centro, CA. After a disabling injury at age three, she began taking ballet lessons to find joy in movement. She trained in ballet, jazz, and modern at her home studio before attending San Jose State University and receiving additional training in contemporary, improv, and choreography. During her undergrad, she performed with Cypher Dance Company, an improv-focused dance collective. She also created and showed work for Mark Foehringer Dance Project’s Emerging Choreographer’s Forum. Most recently, she has shown commissioned work for Disco Riot’s Queer MVMNT Fest as well as Within Us Dance. Christina’s work primarily focuses on utilizing movement that is focused on the feeling rather than the appearance and music that both contrasts and exemplifies what is being seen. She seeks to find a balance between technical training and the childlike pleasure in free movement. Christina is a dance teacher who seeks to bring up the next generation of movers, as well as introducing beginners to all that dance has to offer.

Okwae A. Miller (he/him)

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 personal 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, presented his culminating choreographic installation ‘rose.water//copper.garden’ at Best Practice and now currently exploring new movement with DISCO RIOT in their Research & Development program.

Jess McNely (she/her)

Jess Dizon (McNely) is a performer, educator, choreographer, and community builder based in San Diego, CA. She recently earned her Master of Fine Arts in Dance: Creative Practice from Saint Mary’s College of California, where she researched Californian street and club dances through the lenses of embodiment, critical pedagogy, social justice, and choreological studies.

Through interactive and imaginative movement vocabulary, she uses whacking (also known as waacking) as her primary dance language. She honors whacking as an evolution of punking; thus, her choreography is rooted in musicality, gesture, and empowering imagery. Recent works by Jess have been showcased at the Asian American Dance Festival, Move America, Physical Poetry, and in her master’s thesis concert in the Bay Area, California.

Jess is most passionate about her work as a teaching artist. She hopes to promote collective liberation, cross-cultural alliances, and resistance through dance. More specifically, dance history is a central focus of her classroom because it opens discussions about the role of performing arts in social progress.

Fabiola Garcia (she/her)

I began dancing at four years old. I was enrolled in my first ballet class at Escuela de Danza Gloria Campobello in Tijuana, Baja California. I spent my childhood and early teens focusing on ballet, tap and jazz. I moved to San Diego at 13, and kept training at a local studio called and continued my training in my high school dance program. In 2018 enrolled in my first modern dance class and instantly fell in love with the style. It was like coming back home to myself. I received my Associates in Dance in 2023 from Grossmont College. I have showcased some of my work at Stomping Ground L.A., the Music Box, and most recently at The House of Blues. I recently got the opportunity to perform in “Trolley Dances”. I am always looking for more performance opportunities; as well as opportunities to showcase choreography throughout my community.