SOULQUAKES

collaborators

Margaret Ogas is a choreographer, performer, teaching artist, and arts administrator based in the Twin Cities. Working at the confluence of dance, storytelling, and experimental performance, her works tell surreal narratives through a collage of movement, text, sound, and object. 

Ogas is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and a 2021 Naked Stages Fellow at Pillsbury House + Theatre. Her work has been presented by the Walker Art Center, Red Eye Theater, Candy Box Dance Festival, Minnesota International Dance Festival, Center for Performing Arts, Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio, and others. She recently established Margaret Ogas Performance Project, a dance company emphasizing artistic experimentation with a commitment to highlighting artists of color and queer artists.

Libby Herrmann is a Twin Cities based dancer and arts administrator. She studied Dance at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. A big fan of skipping, spinning, and the element of surprise, Libby loves dancing to research, squirm, get to know someone, and give herself a hug, among many other things.

Ashembaga (Ashe) Jafaaru is an actor + dancer, writer, artistic administrator, + creative/arts director. She has been involved in theatre + film + movement + voiceover work in the Twin Cities + beyond since 2009. Ashe creates art for liberation of the mind, body and SPIRIT + will continue to write + produce imaginative stories.

recent theatre + dance + film credits include: Love is Like (creative director/AD) a short film by by Wariboko Semenitari + Mariah Hanson, HoneyBuns&Blackedmilds (creative direction/acting coach) a film w/ Jai Stephenson, BAD AFRICANS: A GUIDE TO BEING OSHEY AND BARDEST IN A FUCKED UP WORLD a play by Wariboko Semenitari (director), BDI dance intensive with Leslie Parker Dance, MOONQUAKES a dance piece choreographed by Marggie Ogas (dancer/collaborator), A Raisin in the Sun (Beneatha) w/ South Coast Repetory Theatre, All My Niggas Surround Me, And I’m Surrounded By All My Niggas (creative direction/acting coach) a film w/ Jai Stephenson, Mlima’s Tale (assistant director) w/ Ten Thousand Things, Weathering (Neighbor/Turtle) w/ Penumbra Theatre, JOY ON ME (myself) w/ Pillsbury House Theatre, Impact Theory of Mass Extinction (Fahari) w/ In The Heart of the Beast Theater, Nearly (Lala) a film w/ Atlese Robinson, Zuri’s Tree (Ava) a film w/ Adja Gildersleve, Buttafly Precinct (Lady) a Zoom play w/ Catalyst Arts, Keon (Patience) a film w/ FreeStyle Films, The Convert (Jekesai) w/ Frank Theatre, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf (Lady in Brown) w/ KC Repertory Theatre & Penumbra Theatre, A Midsummer Summer Night’s Dream (Hermia) w/ Black Ensemble Players, School Girls; or the African Mean Girls Play (Paulina) w/ Jungle Theater & Arkansas Rep Theater

Taja Will is a non-binary, queer, disabled, Latine indigenous dance artist, educator, consultant and Healing Justice practitioner. They direct a small dance ensemble and initiate solo projects and teaching ventures locally and nationally. 

Taja has recently started to rebrand themselves as a body positive and queer erotic watercolor artist and also has a dream of becoming a band sometime in the near future. They are deeply grateful to Marggie and this ensemble for embracing them on the SOULQUAKES journey. 

Judith H Shuǐ Xiān is a choreographer, improviser, and sound artist based in Minneapolis. She is a 2017/2022 Q-Stage: New Works and 2019 Momentum: New Dance Works recipient and was part of the 2022 Red Eye Works-In-Progress cohort. She is currently working on a dance meditation distilling the experience and emotions of heartbreak & grief; a shapeshifting study in sulking.

Drew Arrieta

Dameun Strange is a sound explorer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and sound designer whose conceptual electronic and improvised electro-acoustic works focus on stories and themes of the African diaspora, often exploring surrealist and afro-futurist ideas with unique impressionism. He currently lives in the Frogtown Community of Saint Paul, MN with his wife, Corina, and their inquisitive daughter, Ezra.

TECHNICAL TEAM

Alice Endo (she/her) is a lighting designer for live performance. She has collaborated with groups such as Theater Mu, Red Eye Theater, Threads Dance Project, TU Dance, Full Circle Theater Company, Exposed Brick Theatre, Artistry Theater, and GREAT Theater, and has also served as a venue technician for the Twin Cities Horror Festival and MN Fringe Festival. She holds a B.A. in Theatre and Dance from Macalester College.

Ansel Langmead (they/them) has a long list of roles: painter, stage manager, lighting designer, project/production manager, and dancer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ansel’s visual art focuses on communicating their experiences as an autistic/white/queer/non-binary person through intentional shape, texture and color. Their paintings have been featured in the Autism Society of MN’s NeurodivergArt campaign, the Argyle Zebra Community Gallery and Art Glow by the Stephanie Evelo Program for Art Inclusion. Ansel’s theater tech work has brought them to Ted Mann Concert Hall, the UofM Theater Arts and Dance programs, Park Square Theater, the Taja Will Ensemble, and now Margaret Ogas’s SOULQUAKES. They graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Dance in 2021. Ansel aims to create safe and supportive work environments for all marginalized peoples in their theater work, as well as align their art practice with their values of anti-racism, decolonization, disability justice.

Brandon Anderson Musser is a son of a saxophonist truck driver and a union head nurse. He composes music and designs sound for dance and theater. He is the Producing Artistic and Music Director of Doma Dance Theater. Notable credits reflect service as artistic associate to Alexandra Bodnarchuk Dance Projects, composer and sound designer to the Taja Will Ensemble, and technical work for Hatch Dance. Most recently he is collaborating with Marcela Michelle. Occasionally, he creates solo work.