Studio 210 Winter 2025 Residency
Studio 210 Winter 2025 Residency Artists!
with Guest Mentor Yayoi Kambara!
Cyrah L. Ward (seer-ah) is a scholar of Black dance, critical race theorist, and interdisciplinary performance maker. Her value of utilizing dance as a tool for fellowshipping community has led her to work with an array of artists, including Crystal Michelle Perkins & DeShona Pepper Robertson of Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, MK Abadoo of MK Arts, as well as perform with world-renowned dance company Urban Bush Women.
Deeply rooted in the storytelling tradition, Ward’s work converges Africanist aesthetics within movement and language to transform her art into a vessel for sacred ritual, sociopolitical critique, and Black joy. Ward’s most notable collaboration, “Hoofer’s Memory Lab,” performed at New York City Center with tap dancers Brinae Ali and Gerson Lanza, was described by the New York Times as being “reminiscent of baptismal ritual,” further revealing her commitment to conjuring sacred art.
Her interdisciplinary research involves finding innovative ways to privilege the Black Gaze by activating Black oral traditions and digitized Black Archives. In doing so, her work manifests as embodied performances, sermonic poetry, digital collage art, and immersive installations.
Ward holds a B.F.A. with distinction in dance from The Ohio State University and an M.F.A. in dance from The University of Maryland, College Park"
Photo of Cyrah L. Ward courtesy of artist
Tracey is a choreographer, global researcher, and dance filmmaker, born and raised in San Francisco. A central goal of her work is to let people know they are seen and understood—a powerful form of healing. She gravitates to universal themes, and loves to explore them within fantastical, genre-specific frameworks like horror and surrealism. For Tracey, creation is a means of introspection and connection, seeking answers that help her understand her life and the shared human experience.
Through the Studio 210 residency, Tracey will develop a work called "Sikma." With a cast of three, it will tell a story of memory loss through contemporary dance, spoken word, and film, adopting a surrealist aesthetic with dark comedic undertones. The creation process will explore questions like: Who are we without our memories? What is it to fade mentally, but not physically? What is a memory we never want to lose? What does it feel like to be forgotten?
Photo of Tracey Lindsay Chan by DASU Studios
About Winter 2025 Guest Mentor, Yayoi Kambara
Yayoi Kambara started her career as a professional dancer and currently directs and produces multi-media performance works, including film and XR. Kambara was recognized by Opera America as a female stage director and received an Isadora Duncan Dance Award in Outstanding Achievement as a co-interrogator of Dancing Around Race. kambaraplus.org / dancingaroundrace.com
Kambara was a company member with ODC/Dance from 2003–2015. After she retired from full-time dance performance, she completed the 4th APAP Leadership Fellows Program Cohort and led a year-long Community Engagement Residency for Bridge Live Arts. "Aesthetic Shift" was an exchange dedicated to interrogating and analyzing the overlap between equity values, creative practices, and organizations. This research inspires her to lead her creative practices as social practice.
Her dance project IKKAI means once: a transplanted pilgrimage, commissioned by the San Jose Japanese American Citizens League and awarded a William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Hewlett 50 award, premiered in 2023. IKKAI shares the experiences of those illegally incarcerated during World War II and dares to dream of a collective future where this kind of injustice will never happen again.
She produced 二度と(NI DO TO): an XR pilgrimage, sharing the choreographic research for IKKAI and celebrating the resilience of Japanese Americans. Audiences learn obon dance by Nobuko Miyamoto as an interactive hologram, view a 360 film created at Manzanar, hear poetry from a Janice Mirikitani Zoltar-type machine, and reflect on current/future solidarities with communities facing xenophobic policies. 二度と was co-commissioned by Georgia Tech Arts and will be shared at the San Jose Japanese American Museum April 18-June 29, 2025.
We are thrilled to offer the opportunity of this mentorship to our Winter 2025 Residents. Yayoi's love of dance and excitement to work with artists as a movement dramaturg and sounding board in the creative practice is invaluable to any performing artist in developing work.
The Studio 210 Residency is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov.