WE CREATE 2026 ARTIST BIOS




















































































Juliet Salameh (she/her) is a queer, interdisciplinary healer-artist of Palestinian American descent. Juliet works as a song and theatre maker, chef, reiki practitioner, and educator. A graduate of Emerson College, she has worked with Rites of Passage, Earthdance, Bread and Puppet Theatre, B.A.W.D; Boston Arm Wrestling Dames, and on The Voyeuges film series. Currently, Juliet leads a protest folk band called Songs of Liberation  and sings with an Arabic folkloric collective called Hawa Society. Juliet believes bringing pleasure and creativity to a larger movement for justice and liberation, strengthens the movement and our community.




Originally from Caracas, Venezuela and currently based in Boston, Yarumi González defines herself as a creator and researcher in the fields of movement, ritual, performance, dance, theater, and grassroots organization. Since childhood, she has been deeply moved by art and social struggles.

She conceives of art as a multifaceted field that extends beyond mere aesthetic enjoyment; it mirrors intricate social and power dynamics. In this sense, she has worked extensively with rural and urban communities, blending art with community outreach2

Her contemporary dance training integrates various techniques, influenced by Popular Education, Theatre of the Oppressed, work with small farmers and underserved communities, influenced by Eugenio Barba's Anthropological Theater, and trained in Teatro Altosf’s "Teatro Desconocido" method.



Prema Bangera (she/they), who is ethnically South Indian (from Tulu Nadu) of lower caste, born in Mumbai, and partially raised on the unceded land of the Pawtucket people (so-called Boston), is a multidisciplinary artist, a community organizer, a cultural worker, a disruptor, an educator, and an editor. 

Their work has appeared in various publications and been showcased at the Boston City Hall, GBH’s Outspoken series, and painted on the streets of the unceded Naumkeag lands (so-called Salem, MA) as part of the Raining Project at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival.

Bangera is the founder of a grassroots consulting & nonprofit arts organization called BIPoC Ancestral Love as Arts (BALA) aimed to uplift QTDBIPoC community members through arts-healing practices.





Laila J. Franklin is a multidisciplinary dance artist based in Boston, MA. A Dance Magazine 2024 “25 to Watch”, her work is interested in meta-commentary, deconstruction, and bits, approaching human themes with nuance, curiosity, and humor. She has been commissioned by Brown University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Salem State University, and presented through Public Space One, Sideways Door Festival, Cotuit Dance Festival,  School of Contemporary Dance and Thought, and Movement Research at The Judson Church. Laila holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a BFA from The Boston Conservatory.





Wenxuan Xue is a Boston-based theater and performance artist, curator, and educator. They create ritual performances weaving in chanting, oral stories, movement, and communal participation towards collective remembrance. Their artistic practice is guided by grief work that disorients conditions of compulsory forgetting—of one’s own ancestral and spiritual lineages, queer kinships, and abundant relations to the earth. They are currently developing their solo performance becoming ancestral mud, a love letter to their ancestral village and the abundant femme and spiritual practices intimately rooted in the soil of Shaanbei. They are an Artist in Residence at Pao Arts Center. 






Angie is inspired by play, poetry, queerness, engaging the senses, and her nonbinary, biracial life experience. They are a dedicated teaching artist to movers of all ages and experiences; from toddlers, to families, to professionals, to seniors. This 2025 Next Steps for Boston Dance grantee graduated from Salem State with a B.A in Modern/Contemporary Dance and has returned there as a guest artist in residence. She is a company member of Human Movement Project, vital team member at High Street Studios in Ipswich, and a co-founding member of a contemporary dance collective, The Click, and recently, a teacher for TransDans. Stay in touch with their work or find ways to get involved @shemovesandmakes on Instagram.






Kathy Lebrón is a healing body apprentice and creative learning to weave ancestral practices into her work and serving as a channel for the joy, medicine, and liberation of all peoples. She deeply believes that dance is not something you "do"; it's something you remember. 













Jireh Calo is an interdisciplinary artist and educator born and raised in the islands of the Philippines, currently based in Boston. For her, creative expression is a means for connecting to spirit and exploring the intricate layers of being and reality. A multi-awarded performing and recording artist with a long-standing international career as a singer, multi-instrumentalist,composer, and producer, Jireh continues to deepen her music practice while integrating it with explorations in dance, visual art, crafts, theatre and poetry. A summa cum laude graduate of the Berklee College of Music, Jireh holds a bachelors in Contemporary Writing & Production and master’s in Global Jazz Performance from the Berklee Global Jazz Institute. Deeply involved with both her local and global community, she performs and collaborates with an eclectic array of artists and organizations while also mentoring young artists, teaching music and facilitating creative workshops.





Aiden K Marshall (he/him) is a dancer, choreographer, and arts administrator based in Boston, MA. Originally from North Carolina, he earned his BFA in Dance Choreography and Performance from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Marshall is a co-founder and educator with TransDans Boston, and a former mentee, and current teacher with MIDDAY Movement series. He has been a company dancer with Jean Appolon Expressions since 2024, and has performed with Abilities Dance Boston, Grisha Coleman, and in his own work. Marshall’s choreography primarily explores Black and queer narratives, and has been presented most recently in residence at the Multicultural Arts Center. 

sarah nichols (she/they) is a cellist from the ancestral and unceded land of the Wampanoag people, also known as Dartmouth, MA. sarah graduated from Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2021 with a Bachelor's of Music in Cello Performance. sarah has been involved in a residency at Boston Center for the Arts (Will to Adorn), a residency at Antenna Cloud Farm, ArtBeat2024, various studio sessions, and loads of improvisation. sarah works for EXPLO,, as an Admissions Counselor and Campus Administrator.





Jenny Huang (she/her) grew up in the greater Boston area training primarily in ballet and Chinese dance. Her movement practice has since expanded, and she is indebted to her street and social dance friends as well as the community of artists at Ananya Dance Theatre (based in Mni Sota Makoce) for deepening her relationship with dance as a liberatory practice. As a dancer and community organizer, she is invested in exploring the ways that dance can be a vehicle for communal healing and social movement organizing. Jenny is currently dancing with Dance Revelasian, a local Chinese dance performance troupe, and is a part-time fellow with Danza Orgánica.



Nahda Project is a group of scholars, educators, activists, dancers and organizers who are based in Boston. In Arabic, Nahda means uprising or renaissance– and our mission is simple: to spread our culture, and uplift knowledge production from underrepresented voices. At its core, Nahda Project members are rooted in grass-roots community organizing and commitment to nurturing our culture in community. We are part of the diaspora, hailing from all parts of the Arab region, and while we reside in the US, our roots are embedded in our homeland and color community, coalition and solidarity using art, literature and movement.





For Danza Orgánica’s Bios, please visit our company page.