The Embedded Writers Program
The Embedded Writers Program (EWP) was conceptualized by Ginger Farley, former executive director of Chicago Dancemakers Forum, in collaboration with Performance Response Journal. As a decades-long member of the Chicago dance / performance communities, Ginger recognized a need for deep engagement between dance makers and writers in Chicago. This program is an initiative towards that goal whereby we pair a writer—who is also a practicing artist, curator, cultural producer, and/or all of the above—with a dance maker while they are in the process of making a new work. Together they share space, process, dialogue, reflection, and creation.
The 2024 Embedded Writers
The 2024 embedded writers were chosen by dance / performance makers Maggie Bridger and SJ Swilley in collaboration with Performance Response Journal and Chicago Dancemakers Forum. Their time together was made possible by CDF’s production residencies in partnership with Links Hall and The Dance Center of Columbia College. This program is made possible through the generous support of Walder Foundation.
Shireen Hamza
Shireen Hamza is a scholar and artist living in Chicago, moving often with the contact improvisation and disability dance communities there. She is currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern's Science in Human Culture Program, where she continues research and teaching on the history of medicine, Islamic Studies, Indian Ocean History, and the history of sexuality. Shireen also teaches with PNAP, a prison education project, and produces public-facing work in both scholarly and artistic forums. She obtained her PhD from Harvard's Department of the History of Science in May 2023, with a secondary field in Critical Media Practice, and her work has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Dancing Disability Lab, and many fabulous people.
Shireen is working with Maggie Bridger during her production residency at Links Hall.
Aaliyah Christina
Born in Ruston, Louisiana and raised across Louisiana, Maryland, and Texas, Aaliyah Christina creates and supports performance work as an administrator, curator, movement artist, and writer. She makes dances and writes poetic stories about relationship/power dynamics, mental health, and Blackness as a resident on the South side of Chicago. She collaborates with community organizations and fellow artists across the city of Chicago. Since 2015, she has collaborated with Chicago artists like Keyierra Collins, Ysayë Alma, Darling Shear, Wisdom Baty, Ayako Kato, and Dorian Sylvain to name a few. In 2021, Aaliyah received the 3Arts Make-A-Wave grant and as of 2023, she received the Illinois Arts Council Agency 2023 Artist Fellowship Finalist Award. In 2024, she was selected as a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist and a part of the Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio Residency cohort. She created PRAISE MOTHER, a dance theater project highlighting relationships between Black matriarchs and their kin through their mental health journeys.
Aaliyah is working with SJ Swilley during their production residency at the Dance Center of Columbia College.
The 2021 Embedded Writers
The 2021 embedded writers were chosen by dance / performance makers—BraveSoul Movement, Rigo Saura, and Ivelisse Diaz— in collaboration with Performance Response Journal and Chicago Dancemakers Forum. Their time together was made possible by CDF’s production residencies in partnership with The Ruth Page Center for the Arts, The Dance Center of Columbia College, and the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center. This program is made possible through the Chicago Dancemakers Forum’s funding from Walder Foundation.
Katerine Ricardo
Katerine Ricardo is a Cuban actress, dancer, and writer. She graduated from the National School of Arts, Cuba in 2011 and since then she has been working in theater, television, and film. At the moment, she is also studying for her bachelor's degree in Choreography in Dance-Theater at the National University of the Arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As a writer and director, her short film "Desencuentro" is in post-production and she is currently working on a new screenplay "Mahal," a feature film that happens between Cuba, the United States, and Argentina. She also co-stars in the film “Malón" (Argentina) and is part of the leading cast in "Retribution" a film in pre-production in Chicago. Since 2016, she has been a principal dancer of the company "Tango Entre Mujeres" in Buenos Aires and this year she's also teaching at the recently created "Tango Entre Mujeres" dance school.
Katerine Ricardo is working with Rigo Saura during his residency at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts.
Khalid Long
Khalid Long, PhD, a recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award (2020), is an assistant professor of theatre and coordinator of theatre studies at Columbia College Chicago. Khalid’s research and teaching interests rest at the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality within marginalized and oppressed communities. He has published scholarly essays in Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance, as well as the Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance. His forthcoming scholarship includes essays in Theatre Design & Technology, TDR: The Drama Review, and Critical Essays on the Politics of Oscar Hammerstein. Khalid is a freelance dramaturg with a focus on production dramaturgy, new play development, and audience engagement. He is currently at work on two book projects: (1) Glenda Dickerson, An Architect of Black Feminist Performance, and (2) Acts of Rebellion, Activism, and Solidarity in Contemporary Black Theatre and Performance.
Khalid Long is working with BraveSoul Movement during their residency at The Dancer Center of Columbia College.
Benji Hart
Benji Hart is a Chicago-based author, artist, and educator. Their essays and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, and their commentary has been published at Teen Vogue, Time Magazine, The Advocate, and others. They have led workshops for organizations and at academic institutions internationally, and facilitated convenings for groups like Law For Black Lives, National Bail Out, and the Social Justice Initiative’s Portal Project. Their performances have been featured at CA2M (Madrid), Museo del Chopo (Mexico City), BRIC (New York), and elsewhere. They have been a fellow at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, MacDowell, and are a 3Arts awardee.
Benji Hart is working with Ivelisse Diaz during her Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center residency.
Christine Shallenberg
Christine Shallenberg is a multimedia artist whose work ranges in scale from performative physical encounters to mediated light and sound installations to participatory choreographies for audiences. She currently co- engineers the JCSpaceRadio collaborative, engaging in a casually critical dialogue with frequencies through workshops, performances and interactive installations. Her work has been presented by Links Hall, High Concept Laboratories, Experimental Sound Studio, Hume Gallery, Tritriangle and No Nation in Chicago, as well as Movement Research, Galapagos Art Center, Williamsburg Arts Nexus, and Triskelion Arts in NYC. Christine has been nominated for a Bessie (NY Dance and Performance Award) in visual design for David Neumann’s Restless Eye, for which she designed a system for scanning and translating the performers’ EEG brain waves into large-scale lighting shifts for the entire performance space. She also worked as the Lighting Designer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for whom she designed Second Hand, Antic Meet, Nearly 902 and more than 30 unique Event performances seen around the world. She continues to design for performance with Every house has a door.
The 2020 Embedded Writers
The 2020 embedded writers were chosen by dance / performance makers—Nejla Yatkin and Jumaane Taylor— in collaboration with the Performance Response Journal and the Chicago Dancemaker’s Forum. Their time together was made possible by CDF’s production residencies in partnership with the Dance Center of Columbia College. Additional financial support for the 2020 Embedded Writers Program was provided by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and individual donations.
Yoshinojo Fujima
Yoshinojo Fujima (a.k.a. Rika Lin), is a shin-nisei, a part of postwar Japanese American diaspora, an interdisciplinary performing artist, teacher, choreographer, and curator. A Grandmaster in Fujima style Japanese classical dance, Yoshinojo blends traditional aesthetics with contemporary music and movement practices to make dance pieces relevant with 21st century ideas of roles and identity. Yoshinojo crafts contemporary awareness with identity and tradition. Her projects stem from traditional pedagogy, lulling people into believing what at first appears to be a traditional presentation, but is in fact a transgression filled with subtle expressions of humor and protest.
Yoshinojo Fujima is working with Nejla Yatkin.
Adam Zanolini
Adam Zanolini is a multi-instrumentalist, ethnomusicologist, and arts organizer based in Chicago. He received his PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2016. He is the Executive Director of Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago and former Associate Director of Arts for Art, inc., presenter of the annual Vision Festival of avant-jazz in New York City. He is also co-founder of the Participatory Music Coalition (PMC) and the current Treasurer of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Adam performs most frequently with the PMC, SuRa Dupart’s SidePocket Experience, and with the AACM’s Great Black Music Ensemble.
Adam Zanolini is working with Jumaane Taylor.