Steven “Sen” Choummalaithong (zem/ze//xem/xe) born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island as a first generation American citizen in his family originally migrated from Laos (Southeast Asia) after the secret war in Laos, a story which is interpreted and told in The Historical Fantasy of Esek Hopkins, an original activist dance opera created by The Haus of Glitter Dance Company. As one of five co-directors of The Haus of Glitter, their most recent projects offer a lens around BIPOC ancestral + historical preservation, and self-care + rest practices specializing with dance, movement practices, performance + theater, and yoga + mindfulness. Steven graduated and was certified for yogic studies and practices with the Bhavana Yoga School and continued to become a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance Foundation. Steven also received mentorship in dance education and performance ethics with New Works/World Traditions dance company, founded by Michelle B Coulibaly, in the Department of Theater Arts & Performance at Brown University and received training from international artists in yogic practices and several movement styles such as West African dance, Hip-hop, Contemporary, Butoh, Contact Improv, Latin Dance, House, Vogue. Steven has been sharing their practices with the providence community and youths of all ages for many years creating collaborations, offering yoga + mindfulness workshops, teaching dance and choreography, producing and directing original and local performances, shows, and many more. Steven hopes xe influences others to take care of the self, and understand that learning about art and culture are acts of resistance, empowerment, and ancestral preservation.

Instagram @stevethepeople

Aisha Jandosova is Qazaq-Kyrgyz diasporic designer, learner and educator, currently based in Providence, USA. Aisha co-founded BABALAR PRESS, an experimental research, writing and publishing initiative for relearning, reclaiming and reimagining Qazaq ancestral knowledges. Her long-term re-existencia research involves remaking and learning from the cultural practices of her ancestors, to imagine more loving futures, grounded in pre-colonial Central Asian nomadic worldviews.

Instagram @towardsanidealplace / @babalarpress

Savonnara Alex Sok is a Cambodian/ American visual artist based in Providence, Rhode Island who engages with the community through live painting events, murals, and working with youth. Savonnara started creating art at the age of 14 and received a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design and Illustration. Although art was never a direct career path for Savonnara, it was an ever present passion in his life as a personal passion and in the form of therapy and freelance commission work. As his life progressed Savonnara was able to merge passion with his professional life and he began working as a Teaching Artist at AS220 Youth in the spring of 2021, during virtual programming due to the pandemic. He was then promoted in Spring of 2022 and is now AS220 Youth’s Visuals & Media Arts Coordinator. His inspiration is influenced from his Cambodian heritage, growing up in America as a child of refugee parents fleeing from the Khmer Rouge genocide. Other influences include being bipoc centered, love, death, community, social and racial injustices and human nature are ever present in his work.

Instagram @savonnara401

Jeffrey Yoo Warren (he/him) is a Korean-american artist-educator, community scientist, illustrator, and researcher in Providence, RI, who collaboratively creates community science projects which decenter dominant culture in environmental knowledge production. His recent work combines ancestral craft practices and creative work with diasporic memory through virtual collaborative worldbuilding. Jeff is a member of AS220, an educator with Movement Education Outdoors, and part of the New Old art collective with Aisha Jandosova, hosting art-making and storytelling events with older adults. His current artistic practice investigates how people build identity and strength through their interactions with artifacts and histories, and the ways that objects can tell stories that people can be part of in the present.

Visit Website