Celeste Mercadel is a choreographer, dancer, and community advocate born and raised in New Orleans, dedicated to exploring the intersection of dance, culture, and holistic wellness. She is a performing artist with Tekrema Dance Theater and a former apprentice with Good Dance Since 1984. She is a recent alumni of the choreographic residency with Binge Dance Festival. Celeste works as a full-time dance educator at a community school in Treme, the oldest Black neighborhood in the United States.

With a background in Public Health Science and Sociology, Celeste uses dance as a tool for healing, empowerment, and education in marginalized communities. As the Founder and Artistic Director of Celartise DANCE, she bridges cultural traditions and contemporary movement to create innovative programming for intergenerational audiences. Drawing inspiration from New Orleans’ cultural landscape, her work emphasizes dance as a transformative practice for personal and community growth

Instagram: @celartise.dance

KIM KARPANTY, MA, MFA, NCPT is an international dance artist, educator and wellness practitioner with a career spanning 40 years. She is a prolific maker with a diverse repertory of original work for professional and pre-professional performers in modern/contemporary dance, dance theatre, jazz dance and screendance genres, presented throughout the US and abroad in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Dubai, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Macao, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Her work is relevant, theatrical, and interdisciplinary in collaboration with composers, painters, writers, musicians, actors, technicians and designers.Kim continues to perform as a solo artist, loves meeting artists from around the world, and advocates for longevity, justice, and women in dance. She was a university Professor of Dance for 25 years and is a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher.

Instagram: @kimkarpanty.dance

Nell Breyer is an artist working at the intersection of media, movement and the public domain. Her research explores how we understand human movement in public space. Her work has been shown internationally in art institutes and galleries (Museo del’arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Sadlers Wells, Cankarjev Dom, The Bangladesh National Museum, The National Academy of Arts & Sciences, Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, MASS MoCA, The Philadelphia Art Alliance, Carroll and Sons, Trestle Gallery, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts) and urban settings (Central Synagogue, The Garment District NYC, Art on the Avenue, Coney Island, Boston City Hall, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, The World Financial Center, The Big Screen Project etc.) Nell has completed residencies and/ o received grants from the Bogliasco Foundation, New York City’s Artists Corps Grants and the Garment District Alliance, The Boston Foundation, The Trust For Mutual Understanding, Impulstanz Vienna, Kaleidescope/ UNESCO, Sadler’s Wells, LEF New England, Massachusetts Cultural Council, New England Foundation for the Art’s (NDP), Baryshnikov Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop and the Council for the Arts at MIT.

Instagram: @nbbreyer

Isa Braun (she/they) is a queer, New York based movement artist. She received her B.A. in Theater Studies from Emerson College and is happiest in immersive theatrical environments and site-specific work. Favorite credits include the world premiere of Barbara Hammond’s We Are Pussy Riot, Cyclops: A Satyr Play at American Repertory Theater, and Carmen at The Metropolitan Opera. In 2022 she choreographed The McMurdo Nutcracker while deployed to McMurdo Station, the largest scientific research base in Antarctica. In 2024 she co-founded Green Brain Theater, choreographing their inaugural piece Test Drive presented at CitySpace in Easthampton, MA. Green Brain strives to devise multidisciplinary projects that empower and celebrate communities through movement theater, text, and music. 

www.isabraun.com
Instagram: @isa.braun

José A. Luis was born in Veracruz, Mexico and raised in Racine, WI. He has lived in Milwaukee, Chicago, and now Minneapolis as of 2017. Relocation, departure, and arrival are motifs in his personal life, but present themselves in his works by shaping time and space. As a primary solo dance artist, his determination and openness to others continues by inviting collaborators, seeking ways to support emerging artists, and centering BIPOC processes through his “Reflections” series. The intimate, introspective, honest approach of his choreography and person is also present in his dancing, paving the way as a dancer in other artist’s work. José’s tenacity, skill, and acceptance in navigating the imperfectness of being human is at the forefront of who he is—in and outside the dance floor. 

www.jose.dance
Instagram: @josealuis

Dancer and now taiko player, Minh Nguyen bustles with artistic curiosity. Trained in ballet, modern, and contemporary dance, Nguyen spent her early working years as a freelance dancer.  After frustrations with competitive environments and an unsustainable use of dancers’ bodies, she moved away from seeking freelance work and chose to explore dance as a lifelong personal practice of movement exploration, somatic research, and individual and collaborative choreography.  She is now one half of Arugakki, a performance duo dedicated to dance and percussion and is preparing for a 2026 north-American performance tour debuting the ensemble’s newest work.