BURNING WOMAN 2026 BIOS

DIRECTOR - LORI SUNDEEN SODERBERGH

Lori is a director, choreographer, dancer, writer and actor who founded Over the Bridge Arts in 2017 and Burning Woman in 2018.  Lori received her BFA in Dance from TCU and MA in Dance History from Trinity Laban Centre, London. She embraces a multidisciplinary and socially conscious approach to the arts.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR - SORANY GUTIERREZ

Sorany is a Colombian-born interdisciplinary artist based in Dallas, TX. Her practice merges diverse cultures and contemporary artistic techniques, addressing pressing issues and challenging norms through art. Sorany holds a BFA in Performing Arts & Fine Arts and has been involved in professional theatrical productions for more than 18 years. 

LIGHTING DESIGN - CHRISTOPHER M. HAM

Chris is the Director of Dance Production for the Dance Division at SMU where he received his MFA degree from the Meadows School of the Arts. Chris has designed costumes, scenic, sound, projections and lighting for theatre, musical theatre, opera and trade shows. 

CAST

Emmyana De Jesus is an emerging dance artist passionate about growing as a performer, choreographer, educator and collaborator. She is seeking opportunities to partner with community organizations that support technical, artistic, and choreographic development. Her choreographic work includes Burning Woman with Over the Bridge Arts, Afterward (Booker T. Washington HSPVA Choreographic Workshop), and original solo works for Fusion Performance Company. Emmy has served as a student teacher at The Dance Movement since 2023, as teacher assistant for The Dance Movement and Columbia College Chicago Dance Workshop, and has participated in Fusion Performance Company's Emergent Choreographic Program since 2022.

Brevity Dance Company is a multi-genre, women-led dance collective that focuses on movement as a form of language and expression. We bring together dancers from a variety of backgrounds to cultivate a diverse atmosphere that challenges our notions of the world around us. Founded in 2023 by co-directors Hayley Duplantier and Hailey Regenbrecht, Brevity desires to create dance that touches on the realities of our shared human experiences, from the bleak to the beautiful. 

Co-Director Hayley Duplantier is a dancer, choreographer, educator, and historian based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Hayley obtained a B.A. in both History and in Dance from Southeastern Louisiana University and her M.F.A. in Dance at Texas Woman’s University. Her choreographic process involves the merging of her two interests, dance and history, in the form of choreographic works that utilize dance as a means to educate audiences on historical events and their long-term impacts on humanity. Hayley is an adjunct professor of dance at The UT Dallas and at Collin College.

Allen LaPoint Dance is a project-based dance company that is interested in the artistic practice of contemporary performance. ALD investigates the disorienting intersection of choreographic process, movement invention, technology, science, math, and Queerness. Rather than treating these fields as separate disciplines, the company integrates them directly into its somatic research, through transposition. Central to this mission is an intentional centering of Queerness, which serves as both a foundational methodology and a lens to subvert traditional structures.

Movement Empress is a multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, and cultural facilitator dedicated to the preservation and active sharing of Indigenous African and African American movement practices. As the founder of Movement Empress, Yezi Willisams empowers communities through a unique fusion of Wellness, Culture, and Movement. Her work bridges ancestral wisdom with contemporary creative expression, providing participants of all ages with tools for self-care, cultural literacy, and joyful connection.

BB Carter is a Dallas-based artist and researcher of interior life. She works with the social concepts so familiar we've stopped seeing them — inherited stories, suppressed voices, the private burdens we carry as if we're the only ones — and turns them into songs, essays, objects, and rooms.  Her practice is rooted in West Texas. She was shaped by the German and Latino mission culture of San Antonio, the high plains cowboy culture of Lubbock, and the a cappella church harmonies of her family. That voice — the one she spent years educating away — is the one she's now making work with.  From 2013–2021, BB performed more than 50 museum concerts across the United States as one half of The Coverlets, alongside art historian and curator Leo Mazow. Together they performed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and dozens of other institutions. She has most recently performed as BB Carter at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at NC State.  

Now performing solo, she brings the same caliber of presence into intimate rooms — salons, hotels, galleriesand anywhere people are willing to sit still long enough for something true to happen.  Her framework is artistic anthropology: fieldwork on the unmarked forces that make us who we are. Her Human | Nature series juxtaposes human experience with corresponding elements from the natural world — the agonies of becoming set against seed pods, wind, open plains, and the slow cycles of growth that don’t announce themselves. 

Nova Pangea Music - Founded in Dallas in 2016 by award-winning music director and songwriter Uriel Vázquez and multilingual vocalist Carmina Murillo, Nova Pangea is a multicultural ensemble that creates immersive performances blending Latin pop, world music, acoustic arrangements, and multilingual storytelling. Guided by its philosophy, Together in Harmony, the ensemble celebrates cultural diversity while fostering connection, kindness, and inclusion. Nova Pangea has performed at leading North Texas venues and cultural institutions, with its work featured by NBC 5, Telemundo, KXT 91.7, and Univision, and is recognized for producing innovative, accessible performances that bring communities together through the universal language of music.

Stefanie Wasserman is an interdisciplinary artist. She combines spoken word and improvised vocals into one performance that is surreal, raw, intellectual and funny. She has performed her

solo work, Algorithm of Desire, at the Museum of Digital Art (Mexico City, Mexico); the Mississippi Museum of Art; and the legendary theater club, The Players, in New York City. Her short stories have been published by ETC: A Review of General Semantics (New York) and E! Magazine for Experimental Music (Leipzig, Germany). Radio broadcasts with vocal improvisation include “Adventurous Music” (Leipzig, Germany); “Disquiet Listening” (16 countries world-wide); and “Ears Have Eyes” (Canada).

Armando Monsivais is a multidisciplinary artist, sound designer, composer, actor, and director whose work blends music, theatre, movement, and storytelling. His sound design and compositions have been featured by Cara Mía Theatre, Teatro Dallas, Pegasus Theatre, and UNT Theatre. He composed and sound designed music for Over the Bridge Arts’ “NEXT… but first, coffee” for the ATTPAC Elevator Project. As an actor, he has worked with Shakespeare Dallas, Dallas Children’s Theater, Bishop Arts Theatre, and international ensembles in Mexico City and Spain. In 2026, he collaborated with Carlos García Estévez and Manifesto Poético to develop a solo performance inspired by a collection of migrant stories.

Ashley Wilkerson is an actress celebrated for her dynamic presence on stage and screen. She earned her B.A. in Cultural Studies and Media from Eugene Lang College at The New School in New York and is a proud graduate of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Ashley blends formal training with spirited storytelling and mindfulness. She has been a principal artist in award-winning theater productions, films, and national commercials. Select credits include the award-winning short The Bond; Hunter Gatherer; The Mountaintop; Coco & Gigi; and Mississippi Goddamn. Ashley has toured extensively with Art2Action and Carpetbag regional theaters. She was commissioned by the South Dallas Cultural Center and the National Performance Network to write, perform, and tour her riveting one-woman show, Freckle in My Eye. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA and Alternate ROOTS. Artistic residencies

include the University of North Carolina at Asheville, BAM Austin, and others. Recent performances include DRONE (Detroit Public Theatre) and DRONE: Testimonies in Music in Cairo, Egypt. Additionally, she is the mother of a beautiful son and the author of two poetry collections: Midnight Verses Morning Poems and her latest, Reverence: Poems and Meditations.