Nadia Adame
Nadia Adame is a Spanish multidisciplinary award-winning artist with a spinal cord injury. She studied Ballet & Flamenco at the Royal Dance Conservatory of Madrid and has a BA in Theatre from the University of Colorado. She was a company member with AXIS (2001-2003) and Candoco Dance Company (2007-2008). In 2004, she co-founded and was the Co-Artistic Director of Compañía Y in Spain, a multimedia and performance collective. Nadia’s credits include dance, theatre, commercial, and independent film projects in the UK, Spain, US, and Canada. Nadia is currently the Artistic Director at AXIS Dance Company in Berkeley.
Lorris Eichinger
Lorris Eichinger started training in Grenoble at the National Conservatory and continued at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Danse de Marseille. After training at The School of American Ballet in New York from 2010 to 2013, Eichinger joined the Professional Division program of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. He then moved back to France to dance with the Jeune Ballet de Lyon. Eichinger danced with De Dutch Don’t Dance in the Netherlands in 2015, and then moved to Israel to join Kamea Dance Company in 2016. He joined Alonzo King LINES Ballet in 2019. In 2023, Eichinger joined the leadership team of Ballet22 as vice president of the board, and has been working on producing shows and art works in line with the Ballet22 mission.
Niema Jordan
Niema Jordan is a writer, speaker, and an award-winning filmmaker from Oakland, CA. She has a passion for character-driven stories and harnessing the power of media for positive community impact.
Early in her career, Niema navigated the New York media landscape and got her start at Essence magazine. She later returned home to pursue graduate degrees in journalism and public health. Her work has been published in Ebony, and Glamour. Her production credits include Oasis, The Chosen Life, Bobby Kennedy for President, The Me You Can’t See, and Eyes On The Prize: Hallowed Ground.
She is a proud alumna of Northwestern University and UC Berkeley. A member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., she also serves on the Board of Directors of Oakland Kids First.
Vanessa Sanchez
Vanessa Sanchez is a Chicana dancer, choreographer, educator and producer who focuses on community arts to emphasize voices and experiences of Latina, Chicana, and Indigenous womxn. Based in San Francisco, she is a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow and the Executive Artistic Director of La Mezcla, a polyrhythmic dance and music company rooted in social justice through Tap Dance, Son Jarocho and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. Sanchez’s work has been featured on local, national and international stages including Jacob’s Pillow (MA), The Lincoln Center (NY), Teatro Maria Matos (Portugal). Her work with La Mezcla has received the Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Production for Pachuquísmo and Best Short Documentary at Dance Camera West Film Festival for Ghostly Labor: a Dance Film. She has been a featured guest artist and lecturer with organizations including UC Berkeley, Arizona State University and the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy. Sanchez is an artist in residence at Brava! For Women in the Arts and a Dance Lecturer at UC Santa Cruz.
Ben Tarquin
Ben Tarquin is an international videographer, editor, and sound producer at the intersection of the classical arts, street arts, and urban dance. Based part of the year in Japan and part of the year in his hometown Oakland, CA, Tarquin uses visual and electronic media to synthesize movement, light, and acoustics into new and evocative artistic expression. His experience in design led him over the last decade to help build YAK Films into an internationally acclaimed video production company capturing new forms of street dance emerging from the United States, Europe, and Asia. Several viral videos brought this youth-led artistic and political content to the cultural mainstream, giving inner-city youth a powerful and constructive outlet and helping to establish an international street dance scene. In this capacity, Tarquin collaborated with high-profile artists like Lil’ Buck and Les Twins on projects for clients like Sony, Redbull, Adidas, Yonex and Apple. He has collaborated with Post:ballet since 2019 on projects like Snowflakes and Swan Lake, helping to give Bay Area ballet a breath of fresh air.
