ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Beyond the Black Box (BBB) is an arts and cultural organization dedicated to amplifying Black voices, fostering connections, and educating through immersive experiences. Our mission is to celebrate, honor, and uplift the Black dance community by creating supportive spaces for artists to thrive. Motivated by a desire to address the lack of representation and support we encountered in our own journeys, we are committed to promoting inclusiveness, fairness, and visibility in the dance world.

BBB achieves its mission by producing dynamic multidisciplinary works, including live dance productions, community engagement initiatives, mentorship programs, and educational opportunities. Our approach seamlessly weaves together elements of popular culture with boundless enthusiasm, showcasing the remarkable accomplishments of our community.

With your support, BBB will continue to empower Black dancers and artists who champion social and political principles of inclusivity, fairness, and visibility, ultimately enriching the cultural tapestry of our community. Together, we will create a brighter future where Black voices are celebrated and heard through the transformative power of the arts.

ISHMAEL HOUSTON-JONES is an award winning choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed in New York, across the US, and in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Latin America. Drawn to collaborations as a way to move beyond boundaries and the known, Houston-Jones celebrates the political aspect of cooperation.

Houston-Jones and Fred Holland shared a 1984 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders, which reintroduced the erased narrative of the Black cowboy back into the mythology of the American west. He was awarded his second “Bessie” Award for the 2010 revival of THEM, his 1985/86 collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane. In 2017 he received a third “Bessie” for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other Works by John Bernd. In 2020 he received a fourth "Bessie" for Service to the Field of Dance. Houston-Jones is the DraftWork curator for works-in-progress at Danspace Project in New York. He has curated Platform 2012: Parallels which focused on choreographers from the African diaspora and postmodernism and co-curated with Will Rawls Platform 2016: Lost & Found, Dance, New York, HIV/AIDS, Then and Now both at Danspace Project.

As an author Houston-Jones' essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in several anthologies and in numerous journals and magazines.  His FAT and Other Stories: Some Writing About Sex was published in June 2018 by Yonkers International Press.

Ishmael Houston-Jones sits on the Board of Directors of Movement Research and Performance Space New York and is a member of Middle Collegiate Church and Dias y Flores Community Garden. He has received awards from The Herb Alpert Foundation, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts and The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Ishmael Houston-Jones received the 2019 Edwin Booth Award, given annually by the Doctoral Theatre Students’ Association of City University of New York which honors “an individual or organization that has had a significant impact on theatre and performance in New York.” He is a 2022 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. In 2024 Ishmael Houston-Jones was awarded the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching award from the American Dance Festival.

VICTORIA LYNN AWKWARD is a dancer, choreographer, writer and Director of VLA DANCE. She pursued her multiple interests at Goucher College. Through VLA DANCE she researches how to lead with joy and pleasure in and outside of art practices. She most recently choreographed for Huntington Theater, Company One Theater, Boston Lyric Opera, and Commonwealth Shakespeare. Notably she is a Brother Thomas Fellow and a recipient of The Theater Offensive Queer (Re)public Residency.

BLACK LAZARUS, formed in 2023, is pioneering a genre we call Field Folk, an alchemic fusion of ancestral influences and deeply rooted cultural sounds. Drawing from a vast range of styles; gospel from growing up in the church, the soul of the blues, the improvisational spirit of jazz, the energy of punk, the rhythm of rap, and the heart of folk; our music exists at the intersection of spiritual power and modern pop culture.

We create soundscapes that feel both timeless and contemporary, offering a unique and immersive experience for our listeners. At its core, our music is a powerful, spiritual experience meant to connect people to themselves and their communities through deep-seated cultural heritage and a universal language of sound.

KAR’MEL ANTONYO WADE SMALL is an interdisciplinary artist from the South Bronx. In June, he was named a 2025 recipient of the Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) Award for Choreography, supported by the Bronx Council of the Arts. In 2022, Kar'mel was recognized by the Jonah Boaker Arts Foundation to become an Artist-in-Residence of Chez Bushwick, where he performed part of his artist journal, project:MEMORABILIA. Kar'mel has appeared on HBO's Random Acts of Flyness, TelfarTV, UNIVISION's Despierta America, and KAYE's music video "Neon God". He has performed nationally and internationally with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham and Battery Dance Company and has performed works by notable choreographers such as Kevin Wynn, Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Damani Pompey, Sidra Bell, Kayla Farrish, Roderick George, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, and many more. Along with being versed in dance-sport ballroom since the age of 9, Kar'mel studied at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Composition and Performance. As an interdisciplinary artist, he has developed his artistic journal through music, photography, video, writing, and choreography. His choreographic contributions extend to director Dean Irby’s rendition of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “The Brothers Size” and in SUNY Purchase Dance Company’s 2024 Spring Concert, LEGACY, through Charrie Burke performing a solo titled ‘la manta de reina’, which made its revival at the 44th Annual Battery Dance Festival in August 2025. Kar'mel's writing and verbal performance made its mark in 'A Beast'-- a duet choreographed by Kayla Farrish-- for both her Baryshnikov Arts Center residency and for MoMA in June of 2025. Kar’mel’s musical composition can be heard in Damani Pompey’s work ‘Empty Hand’— a piece performed by Battery Dance Company. As a teacher, Kar'mel taught and assisted in various institutions such as Gibney, Princeton University, USC, and overseas to school children and teachers.

JOYBOY is an interdisciplinary performing artist, writer, and educator based in Brooklyn, NY who blends physical theater and clowning to create humorously surreal, fantastical, and immersive performances to explore themes surrounding identity, power dynamics, and our emotional lives.

TAYLOR STANLEY, born in Philadelphia, trained at The Rock School and the School of American Ballet before joining New York City Ballet in 2009, becoming a Principal Dancer in 2016. A Bessie Award recipient, they have originated roles with Justin Peck, Alexei Ratmansky, and Kyle Abraham, and collaborated with Jodi Melnick, Andrea Miller, Shamel Pitts, and others. Their performances span venues from Jacob’s Pillow to Guggenheim Works & Process, exploring the intersection of classical and contemporary dance.

JASMINE HEARN, born and raised on occupied Akokisa lands (Houston, TX), is an interdisciplinary artist, teacher, doula, performer, and organizer. Jasmine, recently named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” (2025), is a recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2023), Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize in Design with Athena Kokoronis of Domestic Performance Agency (2023), a Creative Capital Award (2022) for current project, Memory Fleet. A recipient of two NY Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards for Outstanding Performer (2021, 2017* with the skeleton architecture), Jasmine has collaborated with Dream the Combine, Bill T. Jones, Saul Williams, Solange Knowles, Alisha B. Wormsley, Vanessa German, Okwui Okpokwasili, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Tsedaye Makonnen, Holly Bass, Bebe Miller, and with dance companies, Sandra Organ Dance Company, Urban Bush Women, David Dorfman Dance, Staycee Pearl dance project, and Dance Alloy Theater presenting choreographic work at the Metropolitan Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Live Arts, Guggenheim Museum, Getty Center, Venice Biennale, Ford Foundation, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Danspace Project, and the Hobby Center for Performing Arts.

CHRISTIAN A. WARNER, a Houston Native, is an interdisciplinary performing artist, choreographer, sound maker, and educator whose work spans concert dance, musical theatre, and film. His choreographic and creative direction has been commissioned by JCAL, Pepatian/BAAD, Triskelion Arts, the BlackLight Summit, McKoy Dance Project, and Jeremy McQueen’s Black Iris Project. His creative research "Locating Lucidity," developed with Attack Theatre, was awarded and supported by a Creative Development Award by The Heinz Endowment. Most recently, Christian was recognized as a 2025 Princess Grace Award Winner in Choreography and a 2025 New York Dance Festival Choreographic Fellow.

His performance career includes work with renowned companies such as Sidra Bell Dance New York, Boca Tuya, NVA & Guests, GauDanse, Owen/Cox Dance Group, Pony Box Dance Theatre, slowdanger, Kayla Farrish, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, and TU Dance. As a sound maker, Christian contributed original vocal soundscapes for Sidra Bell Dance New York's "GRAPH", presented at The MET Museum for their exhibit Flight To Egypt, creating layered sonic textures in real time to complement the immersive dance experience. Additional credits include sound for Imani Gaudin's "nanibu," premiering at the acclaimed Marigny Opera House in New Orleans, LA.