Artistic Director

Teachers

Xochitl Nevel Guerrero (she/her) is a Bay Area practicing artist who began her career in Oakland over five decades ago by creating paintings, public murals, masks, and gourd crafting. Before the age of five, she recalls knowing she would become an artist and teacher as she was inspired and influenced by her parents. Her creativity expanded with a background in dance, music, and theater during her childhood and teen years. While working primarily in the East Bay, Xochitl’s fine art paintings and Day of the Dead masks or altar installations have also been shown in La Galería De La Raza, The Mexican Museum, The Museum of Black Hawk in Danville, CA, the Oakland Museum, and Sanchez Contemporary Gallery in Oakland. Public Art murals and painted tile walls have been at The Spanish Speaking Citizen’s Foundation, St. Elizabeth Elementary School, Cesar Chavez Elementary and Dolores Huerta Academy schools, EastSide Arts Cultural Center entrance (mosaic facade), La Clínica de La Raza, Cesar Chavez Park all in Oakland, a Day of the Dead mural at AutoBody Gallery, in Alameda, the Savant Cafe (formally the King’s Coffee shop), and Mujeres Unidas Activas immigration women mural. She has exhibited locally, state-wide, and nationally. Xochitl received a BFA degree in Studio Arts at Cal State East Bay (formally CSU Hayward) in 1980. She has a Reiki Energy Healing 3rd Degree Master level from 1993 and certification in Hypnotherapy from 2005. In addition to being designated Master Muralist by Precita Eyes Mural Center in San Francisco in 2000, Xochitl received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from Congresswoman Barbara Lee in 2006. In 2015, she received a nomination for a business Indie Award as a “Pillar” through the City of Oakland, and in 2017 received a Local Hero Award issued by Vice Mayor Annie Campbell Washington from the City of Oakland for her community murals at the Savant Cafe (formerly the King’s Coffee Shop) in the Laurel District.

Mana Hayakawa (she/they) is a lecturer in Asian American studies currently teaching at UC Davis and CSU Fresno. Her Ph. D. is in Culture and Performance with a concentration in Asian American Studies from UCLA. Her research examines Asian American dance and performance of non-normative bodies in the context of empire, as well as shifting terms of race, gender, and citizenship. She began dancing with dNaga in 2006 and is delighted to be back dancing with dNaga in 2022.

Freesia Huth (Dance for PD Instructor) has been dancing in the Bay Area since she was three. A native San Franciscan and current Oakland resident, she was a competitive ice skater in her youth, performing atop the Emporium-Capwell building in their yearly rooftop ice show. The love of performing led her to study movement of all kinds. Freesia has collaborated with local artists Ruby and Popo Lee as the principal dancer in their paintings. She went on to study dance at Mills College. She was a founding member of Patricia Reedy and Dancers, and has performed with Colette Bisher-Choate, Unbound Spirit, George Latimer, New York choreographer, David Rousseve’s Reality Company, Purple Moon Dance Project and numerous Bay Area choreographers. Freesia has studied yoga and teaches Tai Chi to adults. She is one of the original partners of Luna Kids Dance, a developmentally based dance school and education program for teachers, where she taught in the children’s program for 11 years. She has choreographed for Berkeley Repertory Theater and the California Shakespeare Festival. Freesia began teaching Dance for Parkinson’s with dNaga in 2009. She has been teaching Dance for PD® at Stanford’s Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences since 2017.

Joan Tarika Lewis (she/her) was born and raised in Oakland, California. She is a well-known visual artist, Jazz violinist, educator and community activist. The projects she brings to GIRL Project have been healing through the arts exercises shared with hundreds of students in the Bay Area. Ms. Lewis currently works with MUSE, sponsored by the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, which brings instrumental music instruction to schools as well as murals for children with disabilities at Santa Fe campus, Verdese Carter Oakland Recreation Center, and Oakland Fine Arts Summer School. She is also engaged in cross-cultural arts organizations providing visual art instruction, murals and lectures on Oakland History. One of which she is extremely proud of is turning a liquor store into a grocery store on 85th Avenue and International Boulevard. Ms. Lewis has appeared in several documentaries about Oakland’s Civil Rights era, including the PBS show “Finding Your Roots.” Oakland community artists continue to honor her by painting images of her on the “Homies Empowerment Community Van,” on the 87th Avenue Wall of Fame portraits, on Women in Oakland at 27th Street near MLK, and in a mural by Brett Cook at Defremery Park.

Wai Mo immigrated to the US from Hong Kong with her family when she was a teenager.  She first settled in NYC Chinatown sewing in a sweatshop factory after school.  After receiving her education at Columbia University and The Wharton Business School, she immersed herself professional in Marketing and Technology in the healthcare industry.

In 2008, she started to experiment and explore her creative side while volunteering in the Fashion Design Club at her son’s high school.  Now, Wai loves creating and making with a passion. She spends her days in jewelry design and fabrication, sewing with textiles, and making with leather.  In her free time, she also enjoys gardening outdoors and tending to her inner landscape with meditation practices. She is currently studying with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach to be a Mindfulness Meditation teacher.

Susanne Takehara – Through EastSide Mosaics, a program of EastSide Arts Alliance, I create mosaic murals which reflect and celebrate the diverse cultures of our neighborhoods with beauty and depth, honoring our ancestors and imagining the future we can build together.

More recently, I have begun to use the mosaic medium as a public art land acknowledgement, a way to honor and lift up the cultures of the indigenous people on whose land we live, work, and interact. As project manager and lead designer, I view working with community residents and stakeholders as an essential and exciting part of the art making process. Collaborations with other artists, craftspeople, clients, and community members are an inspiring means of enhancing and deepening the creative process.

Hamida Yusufzai has over 15 years of experience working in youth development and youth organizing with system-impacted youth of color. She is an advocate for comprehensive CSECS services (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Services) and she contributes to the enhancement of the intensive case management component used to address the economic and emotional needs of SEA (South East Asian) young women suffering from sexual exploitation. She is the Program Manager of Banteay Srei, a youth development and asset building organization that is non-judgmental of young SEA women who are at risk of or engaged in the underground sex trade. They seek to provide the resources that support their healthy development through self empowerment and self determination. Hamida is an instructor of reality-based self defense. She runs short term programs and drop ins for women and girls, prioritizing POC, LGBTQ, and survivors/victims of sexual assault. The sessions are comprised of martial arts and consciousness raising; an attempt at decolonizing patriarchy and the myths around gendered violence. Hamida is trained in martial arts and boxing, and is an anti-sex trafficking practitioner here in Oakland.

Collaborators

Joel Davel is an accomplished percussionist whose performances and compositions range from classical to highly experimental. Davel is known for his performance collaborations with composer Paul Dresher and for his long association with electronic music designer Don Buchla. Davel is the music director for dNaga Dance Company and the technical director for Buchla USA.

Joel Davel ジョエル・ダベルは卓越した打楽器奏者で、古典的なものから非常に実験的なものまでこなします。作曲家ポール・ドレッシャーとのコラボ演奏、電子音楽デザイナー、ドン・ブークラとの長い交際でも有名です。ジョエルはdNagaダンスカンパニーの音楽ディレクターであり、ブークラUSAの技術ディレクターでもあります。

Pamela Wu-Kochiyama (Creative Consultant) - Born in Asheville, North Carolina and raised in New York, She is a creative consultant, visual arts curator, artivist, theater and concert director.  As a multi media theater creative consultant she gently guides the collaborators through their creative process to develop their works from their unique and authentic perspective. She is also a dancer with the Destiny Arts Elders Project.

Ms. Wu–Kochiyama is a co-founder with Claudine Naganuma and was previously the  Producing Artistic Director of the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and the United States of Asian America Arts Festival now in it’s 28th year. She lives in Oakland, California with her partner Eddie Kochiyama and her forever dogs Mimu and Zeruah.

Dale MacDonald revels in the play of light. In addition to being the Lighting Designer and Technical Director of dNaga, he has worked with Moving Arts Dance, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep Chorus, Terrain Dance Collective, and Ruth Botchan Dance Company. He received his M.F.A. at UC Berkeley where studied with David Elliot. He combines his experiences as an artist, scientist, designer, and engineer to bring a certain alchemy to interactions with information. Much of this work has been done for public settings, which adds a significant social component to the design space. Currently he works as Associate Dean of Creative Technologies at the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication, University of Texas at Dallas.

Solitaire M. (SAW-luh-tair) They/She, grew up an only-child-latchkey-neurodivergent-genderfluid-Bi/Pan-settler from the Bisayan/Ilokano (Philippines) and Sāmoan diaspora on Kānaka Ma’oli Land, O’ahū, Hawai’i. Based on Ramaytush Ohlone Land (San Francisco, CA) since 2003, Solitaire has been an educator for 15 years, while creating a lo-fi, community-centered, immersive and experimental Public Access TV Show, ALL IN TV, which continues to air on San Francisco Ch. 29 since 2020. In addition to producing videos that have screened at SOMArts Cultural Center, Bindlestiff Studio, Counterpulse Theater, Mission Dance and CAAMFest, they have experience in many types of performance, including co-founding the improv ensemble, Emotionally Available, and channeling their burlesque persona, Priestess Parfait. Their current performance duo, Mabuhay Gardens, integrates music, improvisation, audience participation, video projection, intuitive card/charm readings and zines as an offering for self and community healing. They are now a Resident Artist at Balay Kreatives Studios in the SoMA Pilipinas Historic District. www.solitairem.com

David W. Young has honed his stagecraft and supported community theater groups since 1979. He has worked with the Asian American Theatre Company, Asian American Dance Collective, Unbound Spirit Dance Company, Asian American Jazz Festival, California Contemporary Dancers, Liss Fain Dance, Saltmarsh Dance, Harapin Ha Butoh Dance Theatre, Ahbinaya Dance Company of San Jose, Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Kulingtang Arts, Lily Cai Chinese Dance, San Jose Taiko Group, Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and dNaga. His venue work includes the Cowell Theater, Laney College, Luis Valdez Performing Arts Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Herbst Theater, Oakland Museum, Oakland Ensemble Theater, Theatre Artaud, ODC Theater, Somarts Cultural Center and recently the Paul Dresher Ensemble Studio. David has assisted the Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema group since 2010.