Embraced Body

Pride is a celebration, but it’s also a call to action. Born from resistance, Pride reminds us to keep showing up for those still fighting to be valued, safe, and free. As we honor the joy, let’s also honor the struggle—by centering Black, Brown, trans, Disabled, and other multiply marginalized folks in our movements.


[Image Descriptions: Each slide has white text on a dark purple background with a rainbow in the lower corner.

Slide1: Text reads "Pride is more than parades and rainbows. It's a reminder of the power of protest, and the need to keep showing up especially for those most often left out.

Slide 2: Text reads "Rooted in Resistance. The first Pride was a riot. Stonewall and other uprisings were led by Black and Brown q***r and trans people demanding to be validated, safe, and free. That spirit of resistance is what we carry forward.

Slide 3: Text reads "Awareness vs. Liberation. While LGBTQIA+ awareness has grown, many q***r and trans folks especially those who are BIPOC and disabled are still pushed to the margins. Our movements must center them, not just include them.

Slide 4: Text reads "Let's Celebrate AND Organize. Yes, we celebrate. But we also recommit to the work: Protect trans youth. Uplift disabled voice. Fight racism in LGBTQ+ spaces. Invest in care, safety, and justice for all".]

Meet foster!




[Image Descriptions:
Slide 1: Dark purple background with red ribbon in center-right. White text above reads “HOW WE MOVE ARTIST”, and below reads “foster weems (she/they)”. foster, a fat lightskinned black person, sits in the foreground under a red-orange light. they are sitting sideways in a leather chair and their arm is draped over the chair back causing their right hand to rest in front of them at chest height; a bunny tattoo is visible on their right wrist. they are wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up in an exacted cuffed. the shirt reads "protect black trans children" in white lettering that is stretching and beginning to peel in places. the shirt is cropped, revealing their tattooed belly rolls. their round face dons a light mustache, a double chin with a patchy light beard, clear cat eye framed glasses and a hoop in their right nostril. their turquoise locks drape over their right shoulder. they also have bangs cut above their temple. in the background of the photo, the leaves of a snake plant are visible, but blurry and through the window, bare trees, an evergreen and snow (on the ground) are visible. Smaller pic of foster, a fat lightskinned black person in the foreground. Their arms are crossed in an “x” in cover their chest and most of their face. There is a tattoo on her outer forearm that reads “paint it black. call it god.” in courier font. Her right eye and some of her locs are visible from behind her hands. They stand before a background of a white wall with neatly-arranged paintings of non-descript figures in pastels.

Slide 2: foster JANAE weems (she/they) is a fat black q***r and trans interdependent-disciplinary artist and educator whose life and work takes cues from the black baptist church, black q***r kink community and an ever-expanding adoration of witnessing the capacious and audacious embodiments of the black imagination. foster is a dancer of the black improvisational dance tradition, a painter, composer/arranger and photographer who works to create care-driven spaces for ushering fat black q***r and trans folks into play, experimentation, unbridled being and, ultimately, a deepened intimacy with- and trust of themselves, their desires and creative visions.

Slide 3: foster is a 2025 NC Dance Festival Artist-in-Residence and 2026 Raleigh Arts Performance Fellow, a 2024 Grounded Possibilities Fellow and 2024 BLK Transcendence SEEDS Writing Fellow. They are the facilitator of Black Intimacy Practice (a body-centered space for fat black q***r and trans artists, healers and dancers) and the founder/co-steward of Play Church (a co-op by and for black q***r and trans artists, organizers and healers.]

Meet Miwa!




[Image Descriptions:
Slide 1: Red background with a dark purple ribbon in center right. Headshot of Miwa Nagura McCormick with a smaller image of her on the lower right. White text above reads “HOW WE MOVE ARTIST”, text below reads “MIWA NAGURA MCCORMICK (she/her)”. In the large pic Miwa, an Asian woman with dark brown hair, is standing outside, near trees, wearing a light green, patterned shirt. In the smaller pic,three dancers lined up from the front to the back. The first dancer is on the floor, the 2nd on the chair, and Miwa is standing. She extends her left arm and leans back, and the dancer on the chair supports her weight while leaning back.

2: Miwa Nagura McCormick (she/her) hails from Japan, where she got her dance bug while training in synchronized swimming as a child. She then started taking jazz dance classes and founded a jazz dance club in college. At UC Berkeley, where she studied molecular biology as an exchange student, she encountered modern dance through its dance department, founded by former Graham dancers David and Marnie Wood, and took daily dance classes there. Subsequently, she moved to NYC in 1991 to immerse herself in dance. The teachers who shaped her dance technique include David Storey, Lynn Simonson, Laurie DeVito, Diane McCarthy, and Tee Ross. She is also certified to teach the Simonson Technique. She performed in dances choreographed by David Storey, Donna Thomas, and Lisa Cluth, among others.

Slide 3: Professionally, she has over 30 years of experience producing and directing TV programs and has featured many choreographers, dance companies, and performances in the TV series of the Japanese public broadcasting network. Since her diagnosis of neurodegenerative movement disorder in 2019, she shifted her focus to produce stories about disability advocacy and inclusion. Her documentary about Ava Xiao-Lin Rigelhaupt, Broadway’s first Autistic Creative Consultant in the musical “How to Dance in Ohio,” won the 2024 Telly Silver Award in the DEI: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion category. Miwa has a BA in Biology from International Christian University and an MA in Performance Studies from New York University. She is thrilled to participate in the How We Move program after 23 years of hiatus from performing.]

Meet Ariana!




[Image Descriptions:
Slide 1: Dark purple background with a red ribbon in center right. Headshot of Ariana Martinez with a smaller pic of them in the lower right corner. White text at the top of the image reads “HOW WE MOVE ARTIST”. Text below reads “ARIANA MARTINEZ they/them”. Ariana, a Puerto Rican, nonbinary person with light skin and short, dark brown hair looks calmly into the camera. Ariana wears a black t-shirt and round eyeglasses with lenses tinted a soft, pale violet. Ariana rests their head on their arms while sunlit brick walls and greenery extend behind them. The smaller pic is a still image from Ariana’s performance, Inland Sea. Ariana is dressed in a relaxed, white linen button down shirt and black leggings. Their feet are bare. Ariana is splayed out across their sculptural installation, which resembles a shoreline meeting a body of water. A projected video of water's surface emanates from the ceiling, bouncing off a reflective quilt-like sculpture on the floor. Ariana's hands scan the surface as if treading water.

Slide 2: Yellow background with dark purple border and black text that reads “Ariana Martinez (they/them) is a q***r, nonbinary artist of Puerto Rican descent working across sculpture, installation, and time-based media. Ariana’s geographic lineage spans the Midwest, Northeast, and Southern United States with present, familial homes in Lajas, Puerto Rico and Bronx, New York. Ariana uses their practice to understand how processes of spatial navigation and sensory perception are altered by displacement, debility, and ecological change. As a disabled artist living with neurological and autoimmune illnesses, Ariana works to challenge notions of distanced self-sufficiency and instead make space for a diversity of embodied and relationships to movement, land, and place. Ariana holds an M.F.A from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, a B.F.A in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design and a B.A. in Urban Studies from Brown University.

Slide 3: Yellow background with dark purple border and black text that reads “They are the Art Director and among the Founding Editorial Board Members of Sound Fields, a publication about audio documentary, in theory and in practice. Ariana’s work has appeared at the Open City Documentary Festival (UK), the Barbican Cultural Center (UK), the Third Coast International Audio Festival (USA), LUCIA Festival (Italy), and the Hearsay Audio Arts Festival (Ireland). In 2018 they received the inaugural Signal to Noise Award from Union Docs and Gilded Audio, and has since been an artist in residence at The Steel Yard (RI); Arts, Letters, & Numbers (NY), The Ragdale Foundation (IL), The James Castle House (ID), the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (ME) and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.]