Alexandra Eady (Rehearsal Director)
Alexandra is a dance artist and teacher across a variety of spaces. She loves working in spaces that prioritize connectivity through practice and rigor. She is grateful to have assisted jess pretty through this tender and grounded process.
Kealoha Ferreira (Rehearsal Director)
Kealoha is a Kanaka Maoli, Filipino, Chinese dance artist from Nuʻuanu, Oʻahu, now residing in Mni Sóta Makoce on the unceded lands of the Dakhóta Oyáte. In 2025, she is celebrating her twelfth season with Ananya Dance Theatre: joining as a company artist in 2013 and named Artistic Associate and Co-Leader of the Shawngrām Institute for Performance & Social Justice in 2018. Kealoha’s creativity and leadership activates through ADT’s transnational feminist technique, Yorchhā and a gradual study of Oli and Hula, Hawaiian embodied practices of relationality. Through these forms, she investigates the intersectional and expansive nature of relationality while remaining rooted in cultural and kinesthetic rigor. Kealoha is a McKnight Dancer Fellow (2024) and selected artist for St. Paul & Minnesota Foundationʻs Art in This Present Moment Initiative (2025). Her artistry and activism have deepened through opportunities such as Chawrchā NextGen ChoreoLab (2023), Stages of Equity (2023), BIPOC Leadership Circle (2022), Hālau ʻŌhiʻa (2021), and Red Eye Theater’s Works in Progress (2020). In Spring 2025, Kealoha worked as Assistant to the Choreographer in the world premiere of Theater Mu’s “50 Boxes of Earth.” Kealoha teaches Yoga as associate faculty in the UMN Theater Arts and Dance Department, and a range of classes at the Shawngrām Institute including the annual Shawngrām Summer Intensive.
Andrew Lester (Rehearsal Director)
Andrew is a 2025 McKnight Dancer Fellow and has been a celebrated staple in the Twin Cities dance community since 2003. A passionate performer, educator and arts advocate, his body of work bridges ballet and contemporary dance. He holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota's and is a long time member of Shapiro & Smith Dance. He is grateful to have set work on these aspiring artists.
Elisandra Mairym Rosario (a.k.a. DJ MEDUSA)
(Sound Collaborator)
Medusa is an artist, activist, and curator of space, vibration, and frequency. Medusa was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, which along with their experience as a dancer, influences Medusa's attraction to social dance cultures. Elisandra Rosario uses their passion for curating social spaces, community engagement, and ownership of ancestry to fuel their dance and filmmaking. Medusa began their disk-jockey journey as a collegetown DJ in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. They continued DJing in Michigan while achieving their MFA in Dance at University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor. Rosario also sprouted roots in Detroit, Michigan, using their dance, music, and production knowledge to curate healing performance spaces for artists. Medusa is a co-founder of Homie Hangz Detroit, an artist collective and weekly DJ practice session that facilitates intergenerational space for evolving knowledge and creating community. Elisandra Mairym Rosario is currently in the mountainous valleys of Utah as an Artist in Residence in Dance at Utah Valley University.
Brian Sostek (Text Writer / Performer)
Brian has created and performed work for numerous theaters and companies including The Guthrie Theater, Children’s Theater Co., Ordway Center for Performing Arts, Park Square Theatre, Shapiro & Smith Dance, Zenon, and Beyond Ballroom Dance Co. as well as Sossy Mechanics, which he founded with wife Megan McClellan and with whom he won a 2015 Ivey Award for Choreography and Playwriting. Since 2018, he has been developing a pedagogy in science communication that finds him working with everyone from high school students to post-docs and faculty members at research institutions including the University of Minnesota, Stanford, Washington University, UT Houston, and the Medical University of South Carolina among others.
Cheng “Technica” Xiong (Rehearsal Director)
Cheng is a local Hmong dance artist, choreographer, educator, and community leader from the east side of St. Paul, MN. Through his journey as a street dancer, he continued his studies in dance at the UMN and was able to broaden to different styles and professional skills. He is currently teaching at the UMN Dance Program, Macalester College, and is a company member of Black Label Movement. He has enjoyed his time with local professional companies such as STRONGmovement, BRKFST Dance, Rhythmically Speaking, and MN Timberwolves’s First Avenue Breakers. Through his performative and choreographic journey, Cheng has performed at venues such as; Jazz At Lincoln Center, Southwest Minnesota State University, University of Florida Performing Arts, National Centre for Biological Science in Bangalore, India, Dance Ireland, The Guthrie Theater, Walker Arts Center, Orchestra Hall, and among other local venues. A 2022 McKnight Dancer Fellow, Cheng is also a Hmong dance artist/researcher who is among the first in MN to fuse forms of Breaking, Contemporary, and acrobatic dance styles.
