Jelly Loblack

Jelly Loblack is an Afro-Caribbean and Choctaw multiracial scholar, educator, and activist. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the department of sociology at the University of Maryland-College Park., in which her research centers around the changing meanings and conceptions of blackness and how these differentially inform diasporic consciousness, racial and ethnic identity construction, and calls for racial solidarity in political movements. In addition to research, she has been invited to serve on several community led panels and talks discussing the continued impacts of skin color and hair texture in communities of color, anti-blackness in media, and community building among womxn of color. Jelly is also a co-founder and social researcher for 44th Rose, a mentorship and community outreach program created by a small group of community organizers from her childhood neighborhood in Oklahoma city, OK. Moreover, she works as an anticolonialism workshop organizer and facilitator for Color Code LLC.

             

Ronya-Lee Anderson 

The daughter of Pauline and Roxroy Anderson; the granddaughter of Madge McLellan and of Mavis Lawrence; an Afro-Caribbean woman of Jamaican heritage, Ronya-Lee is an artist, scholar and educator, working with movement, spoken word, costume design, film and original music. Her multimedia work has most recently been commissioned by Dance Place, Duke University, the Maryland State Arts Council, Aunt Karen’s Farm and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A former member of the Chuck Davis African American Dance Ensemble and Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange, she has performed and taught both nationally and internationally. Ronya-Lee holds a Master’s of Divinity from Duke University, an MFA in Dance, and is currently pursing a doctorate in Theater and Performance Studies.

             

Ama Ma'at Oyesii

Obatanpaa Ama Akpenamawau Ayanna Haa’Shenit Ma'at Oyesii is a Philly based dance artist, educator and choreographer. She received her BA in dance from Georgian Court University and her MFA in dance from Temple University. She has had opportunities to work with various choreographers such as Kariamu Welsh, Lela Aisha Jones, Earl Mosley, Sidra Bell, Silvana Cardell and more. At Drexel University she serves as Community-Based Learning Coordinator where she oversees arts based civic engagement and maintains her fellowship with the Lindy Center for Civic Engagement. She is also a 2020 Transformation Grant Awardee with the Leeway Foundation. With support she seeks to continue to decolonize the dance field and use dance for its indigenous properties of storytelling, healing and transformation.