Rawiyah Tariq is a gender non-binary artist and kink aware professional with roots in queer, poly-amorous, fat community. Their tone is reflective of these roots and their work is informed by how these intersect with their Blackness. Magic, massage, storytelling and performance art are tools they use to liberate, heal and reclaim space for marginalized communities. They believe in cohesive and somatic practices that align body, mind and spirit.

Rawiyah Tariq has danced on stages throughout the country with the award winning and internationally traveled troupe Rubenesque Burlesque as Magnoliah Black from 2009 to 2015. As a solo performer their work (often preformed on mainstream stages) continues to reflect body liberation, visibility and self possession beyond the static sizest and often racist Eurocentric beauty myth. Rawiyah was celebrity model for the first annual Queer Fashion Week in 2015 & 2016, Curvy Girl Lingerie and has been photo’d for Curve magazine in Bertha Pearl’s Size Queen Fashions.

A former member of Santa Clara County Leather Association since and former Associate Producer of Red Hots Burlesque the country’s longest running queer burlesque & cabaret show Rawiyah has worked to create and maintain space for artists and players of diverse backgrounds and talents.

Rawiyah is a past Board Member of good standing and FeMCee of The Body Political and has continued with the organization in creating programming for queer youth. 

Rawiyah is the co-founder of A Sovereign Embodiment Healing Collective. As ASE Collective’s Certified Massage Therapist and spirit worker they focus on QTPOC, Disabled, Elderly, Fat and Other’ed bodied folk. Their prices are set to support low income communities. They offer barter and trade options as well as free monthly massages to community members in need. For more see A Sovereign Embodiment

They have facilitated and spoken at events such as Baycon, NOLOSE, Fat Activist Conference: Tools for the Revolution , Fatty Affair, Pantheacon, Mystic South, The Northwest Pagan Conference and the Modern Witches Confluence.   They have spoken at several universities including UC Berkeley, Stanford, Stanulious and San Jose State regarding intersectionality, sex, fat, feminism and health. 

As a producer and presenter they consciously centers marginalized groups for spotlight appearances at events such as BayCon, Folsom Fringe and the Hubba Hubba Review.

Rawiyah’s most recent published work can be found in “The Politics of Size” co-authored with Juana Tango and edited by Ragen Chastian and their journey documented in interviews in Nia King’s “Queer and Trans Artist of Color”. Connect to them on social media via facebook, twitter and instagram or follow them at their blog mammyisdead.com. You can also catch them as a feature in the film Fattitude and Heavenly Brown Body

Currently, Rawiyah is living in the Bay Area while continuing work on their book and A Sovereign Embodiment as well as providing care to Black Queer & Trans therapists via Project Ete Sen with Ella Ofori LMFT  and launching a Black centered podcast My Black Body Podcast with Jessica Wilson MSRD.

You can find out more and support their work at mammyisdead.com.

Jasmine has been performing since they were a teen when they found a home being a dancer and performer. There was always a interest in creating healing art through music, movement and acting. It first started with booking acting roles throughout the Bay Area and in 2016 they completed a rigorous Meisner technique course in 1 year in Berkeley at WPC. They were chosen as one of Killing My Lobster fellows for their Sketch comedy acting courses in 2019. In 2022 Jasmine was chosen as Seed Commissions recipient through Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. Jasmine has been in many films that have been in films festivals including Kiana in which they were the lead. Jasmine wants to continue to make impactful art and have a great time doing so.

Raven Malouf-Renning received their BA from UC Santa Cruz in 1997, where they studied extensively with Mel Wong and Silvia Martins. Raven is the Assistant Director of the Walks Between Wandering Ensemble, a fusion of Eric Kupers' Bandelion and the CSUEB Inclusive Interdisciplinary Ensemble.

In addition, Raven is also a vocalist and harmonium player in the band Ultrasonic Current. Raven is a Resident Artist at SAFEHouse for the Performing Arts, where they created five solo dance films for the organization’s Online Digital Showcase series, which they also co-hosted. This past summer, Raven premiered their piece on their metagender identity, They, Not She, for the West Wave Dance Festival, and acted as Dramaturg for Gina Stella Dell’Assunta’s piece How To Have A Body.

Most recently, they performed with Joe Landini And Dancers in More Is More!, a site specific dance piece honoring local drag legend Juanita More, and co-produced 13 Threads as part of the international collaboration, Event Horizons.

This spring, they performed in Joe Landini’s City of Ghosts and also premiered their piece The Next Mountain To Climb at ODC. Creating radically inclusive, raw, honest art and empowering others to do the same is at the heart of their artistic and spiritual practice.

Jes DeVille (they/them) is an Afro-Latiné choreographer, director, and visual artist working across mediums to explore the intersections of physical fluency and environmental literacy. Based in the SF Bay Area, DeVille founded fringe entertainment troupe Haus Serpens in 2011 – later rebranding as Openhaus Athletics in 2017 to pursue this work. Awarded the inaugural Updraft artist residency by vertical dance company Bandaloop in 2021, their history includes operating as Managing Director of site-specific performance nonprofit Epiphany Dance Theater and co-curator of the acclaimed San Francisco Trolley Dances; Also fulfilling positions as a co-curator of ODC's inaugural Queer & BIPOC Space Residency and adjudicator for San Francisco Arts Commission's Cultural Equity Initiative grant in 2022. Having completed EcoTherapy coursework through The Earthbody Institute, DeVille is grateful to be uplifted as a regenerative design fellow with Design Science Studio as well as a presenter for University of California, Irvine’s Emergent Media Research Group.

Black. Queer. Mystic. Neurodivergent. Femme. Writer. Creator. Healer. Chris Watkins (she/her) started life in the South, bounced to the Midwest for young adulthood, sat for a quick second in the Northeast, and then finally started to root and bloom in what she now knows are the lands of The Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone people (she previously thought it was Oakland, California.) Stories— listening to them, creating them, reconstructing them, connecting them— are a consistent thread in her life and work whether she’s creating art, providing therapy, or reading Tarot. You can trust that whatever she’s doing, she weaves Womanist, relational, and somatic perspectives with knowledge gained from her lived experiences, identities, ancestral knowledge, and personal healing journey to bring into being new realities. She shapes change. Thunderstorms and dancing bring her joy.