reSET
SEP 25 – 26 | 12TH AVE ARTS
THE ARTISTS
RANA SAN
Rana San is a filmmaker, choreographer, writer, and curator. Her practice centers experimental and analog approaches to storytelling on stage and screen. Lately her research ponders hyper visibility, bodily autonomy, and immigrant liminality. Based between Seattle and Istanbul, she co-directs Cadence Video Poetry Festival and Anadolu Turkish Folk Dancers.
ISSA MAN
Hailing all the way from Anchorage, Issa Man has taken the Seattle Drag & Burlesque scene by storm! Winner of multiple competitions c grants and awards, her resumes is that of a showgirl who’s put in the work over the course of an 7 year career! You can catch her all over Capitol Hill: Unicorn, Queer Bar, Massive, etc or you can catch her creative directing for her burlesque troupe, Babylon! Babylon just recently sold out a two night run of their production: “Fantasia: A Stripping Space Odyssey!” And the show will be returning this fall!
ALIA SWERSKY
Alia Swersky has been engaged in art making for several decades. She is always beginning again, and this current iteration of herself is quite unknown and unfamiliar. Going through a cancer treatment has changed her in ways that continue to unfold and reveal that which is never the same. There are elements of her art making that were once true, that have been a part of her history, and perhaps they will continue to be so––she is a movement artist, performer and educator deeply engaged in dance improvisation, durational time-based art, film, site-specific work, sound and movement collaborations, and environmental installation. Some facts that may seem important, but are not at the core of her creative being. She is an artist and an educator with degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA in dance from the University of Washington. She is currently an Assistant Professor and Chair of Dance at Cornish College of the Arts.
BEHIND THE PROGRAM
ALICE GOSTI
CURATOR
NIA-AMINA MINOR
CURATOR
RANA SAN
CURATOR
MARIA MANNESS
LEAD PRODUCER
NIA-AMINA MINOR
Nia-Amina Minor is a movement artist, choreographer, curator, and educator originally from Los Angeles. Her work focuses on the body and what it carries using physical and archival research to explore memory and history. Nia-Amina is co-founder of Black Collectivity, a collaborative project that explores and celebrates memory and culture through embodied responses. She has received regional and national commissions for her choreographic and film work and has a working background as a performer and dramaturg. In 2021, she was recognized as Dance Magazine’s 25 Artists to Watch. Nia-Amina holds a MFA from UC Irvine and a BA from Stanford University is currently based in Seattle, WA.
Photo Credit: Tawfiq Abdulaziz
RANA SAN
Rana San is an intermedia artist, cultural arts practitioner, curator, and choreographer pondering hyper visibility, bodily autonomy, and immigrant liminality. Her creative and curatorial practice centers experimental and analog approaches to storytelling through film, writing, and movement presented on screen and stage. Based between Seattle and Istanbul, she co-directs the annual Cadence Video Poetry Festival and is a co-curator of Good Symptom: A Serial Anthology of Time-Based Disturbances.
Photo Credit: Anastasia Babenko
MARIA MANNESS
Maria is a facilitator of the performing arts through use of her management, fabrication, and education skills, and love of spreadsheets. She is the Managing Director of Washington Ensemble Theatre, where she started as the Production Manager in 2013. Outside of WET she has worked with institutions such as Velocity Dance Center and On the Boards, but favors working directly with artists such as Emmy Smith-Stewart + Jeffrey Azevedo, Kitten N’ Lou, Alice Gosti, Cherdonna Shinatra, and Drama Tops, many of whom she had the great fortune of meeting through the reSET program, which she has Stage Managed since it’s inception. Sometimes she makes zines under the monicker daisy chain press.
Photo Credit: Kendall Lauren Shea