Artist Bios 

KT Nelson is a choreographer and dedicated advocate for emerging artists and the environment. She was a dancer, choreographer, and co-artistic director of ODC/Dance from 1976 to 2020. Nelson has been awarded the Isadora Duncan Award four times: in 1987 for Outstanding Performance, in 1996 and 2012 for Outstanding Choreography, and in 2001 for Sustained Achievement. Her collaborators have included Berkeley Symphony, Bobby McFerrin, Geoff Hoyle, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Zap Mana, and Joan Jeanrenaud. Nelson’s Dead Reckoning was presented at Jacob’s Pillow and the Joyce Theater to explore the ways our species ignores or forgets how we contribute to the climate crisis.    

Ed Holmes is a veteran actor and director heralded as “a local treasure” by the San Francisco Chronicle.  Ed scripted and performed as the narrator of 3 Island City Waterways productions from 2016-2022. In the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Ed wrote, directed and performed free outdoor public theater in Bay Area parks for 28 years. He is the founder of the annual Saint Stupid’s Day Parade in San Francisco and performs a solo show Subhuman: tales beneath the sea about his seven years in the navy. Ed has performed with Antenna Theater, and Fratelli Bologna, and has taught workshops in physical theater for ACT, Mills, SFMOMA, Sony, and DreamWorks.  

Jeff Raz has starred in many plays and circuses, from Corteo with Cirque du Soleil to Comedy of Errors on Broadway. He is a graduate of Dell’Arte International, has written 15 plays and directed dozens of circus and theater productions. His first book, The Secret Life of Clowns, was launched nationally at the Smithsonian in 2017; The Snow Clown dropped in September 2018. Both books are fiction taken from adventures Jeff has had in his career -- teaching in Eskimo villages in the middle of winter, starring in a Cirque du Soleil show for 500 performances, etc. 

Kanyon CoyoteWoman Sayers-Roods is Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash. She is proud of her heritage and is very active in the Native Community. She is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family, which currently is one of the few spaces in Central California available for the Indigenous community for ceremony. Kanyon’s art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Gathering Tribes, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is motivated to learn, teach, start conversations around decolonization and reinidgenization, permaculture and to continue doing what she loves, Art. 

Batey Tambó is an Oakland and San Francisco-based, women of color-led, cultural group grounded in the centuries-old musical tradition of Afro-Indigenous Puerto Rican Bomba. Batey Tambó’s mission is to facilitate a conversation, through teaching and sharing spaces for Bomba music and dance traditions developed by enslaved Africans and their descendants. 

Gamelan Sekar Jaya is a Bay Area based ensemble specializing in the performing arts of Bali since 1979. GSJ has been called “the finest Balinese gamelan outside of Indonesia” by Indonesia’s Tempo Magazine and has performed in venues ranging from New York’s Symphony Space to LA’s Hollywood Bowl to remote village squares in Bali. 

Hālau Ka Ua Tuahine is an organization dedicated to the study, protection and perpetuation of the performing arts of Hawai'i for the past 25 years. They have appeared in venues ranging from the Hollywood Bowl and Kū Mai Ka Hula of Kahului, Maui, to the Heiva celebrations of Tahiti, French Polynesia and Te Papa Tongareva, the National Museum of New Zealand. 

The Manilatown Ancestral Ensemble is a traditional ensemble that showcases the joyful and unifying power of tribal Philippine polyrhythmic percussion, song, and dance. Rooted in the pre-colonial music and dance traditions of Mindanao, Southern Philippines, the ensemble presents compelling stories from indigenous perspectives. Through their performances, they preserve and share the rich heritage of their ancestors.