THE TRISK GALA
THE TRISK GALA
WELCOME TO THE SHOW!
Host & Emcee: Junior Mint
Performances by:
Chanel Stone & Cemiyon Barber
Beyond the Black Box
Excerpt of rippin’ n runnin
Choreographed and Performed by Chanel Stone and Cemiyon Barber
Lighting Design by Connor Sale
NVA & Guests
Excerpt of Mont Blanc
Choreographed by Nicole Von Arx
Performed by Christian Warner and Annie Morgan
Lighting Design by Connor Sale
Kashia Kancey
Excerpt of I Believed It Too
Choreographed and Performed by Kashia Kancey
With Alondra Balbuena, Kyla Thomas, and Lakeria Robinson
Lighting Design by Anna Wotring and Connor Sale
Assistant Stage Manager
Sabrina Canas
PARTY! Lighting Design
Connor Sale
Vibes and Tunes by Alex Dropo
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
JUNIOR MINTT
Junior Mintt is a drag artist, Business Owner, and motivational speaker based in Brooklyn, She is a proud Black Transwoman out to show how Minty the world can be with a little kindness, empathy, and a strong Black, Trans, Queer perspective. She is the creator of Mintty Makeup, one of the first Black Trans Makeup lines. Mintty Makeup has been featured in Buzzfeed, Paper Magazine, and Vogue Beauty. She's been featured in Vogue, The CUT, ID, and Gayletter for the work she does not only on the stage, but also in the community. She's a cohost of the Brooklyn Liberation March. She’s the creator and producer of “In Living Color”, A drag variety show operating for 3 years, showcasing the talents of the Black, Brown and Trans community members. Junior Mintt has brought to life her message of Black Transpower through getting to speak and co-host the Brooklyn Liberation March, through her comedic and thought-provoking drag performances at throughout NYC, through her mentoring teen and young artists through the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, through her performing stand up at Chelsea Music Hall, through walking the fashion show in Susanna Bartsch’s Love Ball, and speaking and performing for the Gibney Theater.
BEYOND THE BLACK BOX
Chanel Stone founded Beyond the Black Box in Spring of 2022, with a deep inner drive to create the spaces needed to thrive within the Black dance community. Beyond the Black Box is an arts and cultural organization rooted in celebrating, honoring, and healing the Black dance community through sacred, intentional, safe spaces. BBB strives to empower Black artists while addressing the lack of representation and support within our community.
Beyond the Black Box, a team of Cemiyon Barber, Cleo Reed and Chanel Stone, has produced 4 events and choreographed 6 original works. Together, the team works as producers, while also performing and choreographing in every production.
NVA & GUESTS
Born outside of London, and grew up in both Hong Kong and Switzerland, Nicole von Arx (she/her) is an immigrant choreographer now based in Brooklyn. Whether it's theatre, dance, opera, or film, Nicole’s works have a highly emotional and dramatic drive. She is inspired to create storytelling works where the viewer is welcome to either sit back or lean in and participate.
She has been invited to present her works at The Joyce Theatre, Stanford Live, The New Victory Theatre, Joe’s Pub, the Newmark Theatre, Wolf Trap, Judson Memorial Church, le Bâtiment des Forces Motrices, Théâtre Nuithonie, Triskelion Arts, Théâtre de Grand Champ, Luminato Festival Theatre am Gleis, The Westside Theatre, the Center for Performance Research, The Ailey Citigroup Theatre, The Museum of Moving Images, Sam Houston State University, and TACAW.
She most recently choreographed a new work “Glimmers” for the American dance company NW Dance Project. She’s also been commissioned to create original works for the opera “Orphée+” at the Edmonton Opera, Whim W’Him, SALT2, and the LINK Choreography Festival.
She is a 2020 recipient of The Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship At Jacob’s Pillow. She is also a 2023 NYSCA grant recipient, 2023 JCAL Major Commission artist recipient, GLUE 2023 artists in residence, 2022 Dance Initiative artist in residence, 2022 Leimay Incubator, and 2020 Lauréate of a Gland Culture Grant.
Her performance career led her to become a soloist at the Royal Opera House and Chicago Lyric Opera while dancing for Jasmin Vardimon. She’s worked for Carte Blanche - The Norwegian National Company for Contemporary Dance, Bryan Arias, The Metropolitan Opera, Company XIV, Loni Landon, and Romeo Castellucci.
Since 2014, she's been creating under the name NVA & Guests.
KASHIA KANCEY
Kashia Kancey is a Miami-born performer and choreographer, who earned her BFA in Dance from New World School of the Arts. Some of her choreographic history includes having work presented in The Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center through commissions by Peter London Global Dance Company, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dixon Place and CreateART Performance. Kashia has performed in spaces like Perez Art Museum Miami, South-Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center, Dance Place DC, the American Dance Festival, The Yard, and New York Live Arts. Kashia has had the pleasure of working with Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, Adele Myers and Dancers, and Abby Z and the New Utility. Kashia is most recently an apprentice with Urban Bush Women and is a company member with David Dorfman Dance. She is also a 2023 Gallim Moving Artist in Residence. Kashia is based in Brooklyn, NY, and continues to pursue her career as a performer and choreographer.
JUST ANNOUNCED: Kashia is the the 2025 Trisk Fellow!
THE PRODUCTION TEAM
Anna Wotring, a Pittsburgh native, is a community-minded dance artist, designer, and production stage manager committed to the practice of collaborative leadership. She currently works with Annie Heath, Lauren Horn, Jennifer Nugent, and slowdanger as a technical design consultant, dancer, and production stage manager. Wotring obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance at the Five College Dance Department in Western Massachusetts. She has had the privilege of working with a multitude of dance organizations, including Alvin Ailey Studios, Attack Theater, Ballet Des Ameriques, BalletNext, Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Company, the Dance Conservatory of Pittsburgh, Dance Place, H2O Contemporary Dance, Monica Bill Barnes and Company, New York Live Arts, the Pillow Project, Prayers of the People, RoseAnne Spradlin, Scapegoat Garden, Time Lapse Dance, and many others. Wotring is beyond excited to be working and imagining with the Trisk team.
Connor Sale is a New York based lighting designer and the Resident Lighting Designer at Triskelion Arts. Recent projects include The Living Room Project (PSNY), The Dybbuk Part Two, or Still Between Two Worlds (Triskelion Arts), Helen (La Mama), Julia Antinozzi’s double bill (PAGEANT), the body || dust (Gibney), Earth Temple (with Nocturnal Medicine at SMUSH Gallery), and Sea Change (Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago). He tours internationally with the Akram Khan Company and with the production of Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring that Sadler's Wells and École des Sables is producing. He’s interested in using the temporary nature of light to make people more active in space. More of his work can be found at connorsale.com and at @connorsalelight.
Sabrina Canas (she/her) is a first generation Argentine American artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She holds her BFA in Dance from the University of the Arts (UArts), where she performed works by Jesse Zaritt, Netta Yerushalmy, Helen Simoneau, Marguerite Hemmings, Beth Gill, Sidra Bell, and others. In January 2018, she performed and attended the International Association for Blacks in Dance Conference in Los Angeles, California, under the direction of Tommie-Waheed Evans and Kim Bears-Bailey, and in November 2018, Sabrina produced and presented an immersive installation performance in Solmssen Court, under the direction of Niall Jones. Since moving to Brooklyn, Sabrina has presented a collaborative duet at The Craft, performed at BAM Fisher, 92nd Street NY, Triskelion Arts, Flushing Town Hall, and NOD Theater (SEA). She has been featured in music videos for jazz musician Tony Glausi, When It All Comes Crashing Down in 2021, and Raia Was, Playing God Again in 2023. Sabrina is currently collaborating and performing with Kinesis Project, SAXYN Dance Works and HB² PROJECTS among other independent project based artists in New York. She has shown work at The 14th St. Y, La Mama for EstroGenuis Expand, 28th Street Theatre (TADA!), SAA, and MOtiVE with tidbit collective as the co-director.
Sabrina is a Production Assistant at Triskelion Arts and served as stage manager for NVA & Guests at the Dance Managers Collective 2024 APAP Showcases at Ailey Citigroup Theater. She was the lighting designer and board operator for Yak Milk at Arts On Site in May 2024.
We respectfully acknowledge that the work of Triskelion Arts is situated on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenape peoples. We pay our respects to their land, water, and ancestors, past, present, and future. This acknowledgment demonstrates a commitment to the process of working to dismantle the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism and to learning to be better stewards of this land.
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