taisha paggett is a dance artist whose individual and collaborative interdisciplinary works re-articulate and collide specific western choreographic practices with the politics of daily life in order to interrogate fixed notions of queer black embodiment and survival. Such works include the dance company project, WXPT (we are the paper, we are the trees) and the collaborative School for the Movement of the Technicolor People, both of which seek to radicalize concepts held within contemporary dance by way of an intersection with social practice; critical pedagogy; somatic and contemplative investigations; queer, feminist and black studies; performance and visual art studies; and the political and philosophical meshes of personal history. paggett's work has been supported by the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts; Clockshop; the MAP Fund (in conjunction with Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions); National Performance Network; DiverseWorks in Houston; and the ICA in Philadelphia, amongst other institutions. From 2005-13 paggett co-instigated the LA-based dance project and discursive platform, itch. In 2014 paggett was featured in Velvetpark magazine's 25 most significant queer women of the year list, and in 2017 was one of ten "womyn, and womyn-led community arts organizations" honored with an Avest Award for their "outstanding contribution to arts in Southern California." As a dancer, paggett has performed, toured with and made significant creative contributions to many choreographers and performance projects over the years including that of Every House has a Door, David Roussève/ REALITY, Victoria Marks, Kelly Nipper, Meg Wolfe and Yael Davids. paggett maintains an ongoing collaborative practice with Ashley Hunt titled On movement, thought and politics. paggett received a BA in Art History from UC Santa Cruz, an MFA from UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and is grateful to now be amongst the UC Riverside community.
Kemi Adeyemi is Assistant Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. Her book manuscript, Making New Ground: Black Queer Women's Geographies of Neoliberalism, is currently in development, and she is in the process of co-editing a volume titled Queer Nightlife, a collection of essays, interviews, writing, and ephemera that documents the diverse expressions of queer nightlife worldwide. Recent publications span academic and arts audiences, and include "Donald Trump is the Perfect Man for the Job," in QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking; exhibition catalog essays for black is a color (Los Angeles, CA), Impractical Weaving Suggestions (Madison, WI), and Endless Flight (Chicago, IL); as well as various interviews with and writings on artists such as sidony o'neal, Brendan Fernandes, Adee Roberson, and Oliverio Rodriguez. Adeyemi's exhibition unstable objects, co-curated with Sampada Aranke, opened at The Alice Gallery in 2017.
