Scott Lundius

Born and raised in St. Louis, MO, Scott Lundius began his career as a professional dancer. He soon moved his home base to New York City where he joined the Jose Limon Dance Company with whom he toured internationally as an ensemble member and soloist. Since retiring as a performer, Scott has worked in the arts and culture sector with organizations in New York including Pentacle and the Prospect Park Alliance; in New Mexico with Taos Center for the Arts and Taos Talking Pictures; and in Illinois with Chicago Dancemakers Forum, Marwen, Old Town School of Folk Music, the National Public Housing Museum and, most recently, as the executive director of the Morrison-Shearer Foundation.

Judy Natal

Judy Natal is a Chicago-based, hybrid photographic artist, curator, writer, and Professor Emeritus, Photography Department, Columbia College Chicago. An archive of her environmentally focused work was established at The Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art in 2012. Her videos and photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally including the Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil and FotoFest Biennial “Changing Circumstances: Looking at the Future of the Planet” in Houston, TX. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the California Museum of Photography, Center for Creative Photography, International Museum George Eastman House, Museum of Contemporary Photography and Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, among others. She has received numerous commissions most recently collaborating with Houston FotoFest and the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences (CENHS) at Rice University culminating in a site specific outdoor installation utilizing 2 solar powered recycled shipping containers as a library and screening room with photographs; Burlington City Arts; Hyde Park Art Center, among others. Awards and fellowships include Fulbright Travel Grant, Polaroid Grants, New York & Illinois Photography Fellowships and significant artist residencies in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Biosphere 2, and the Robotics Institute. Natal’s current project is “The Weather Diaries”, based upon 33 video interviews she conducted on the island sites of Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Hawai’i, with a particular focus to elevate Traditional Indigenous Knowledge.

Visit her site at www.judynatal.com

Susan Odgers

Susan Odgers lives in Traverse City, Michigan. She is the president of Michigan Writers and a host with the National Writers Series. She is the immediate past president of the Keeweenaw Storytelling Center. A member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, her column “Adapted in TC” has run in the Traverse City Record Eagle since 2008. Twice, she was awarded the Wayne State University Thomas Rumble Doctoral Fellowship. In 2020, she ran for the Board of Governors for her alma mater, and earned just shy of 100k votes statewide. A psychology professor and counseling psychologist by training and experience, she’s a social justice activist in her community. A Ragdale Fellow in 2017 & 2019, she’s currently working on a nonfiction book.

You can reach her at odgers_s@yahoo.com.

Coya Paz

Coya Paz is the Strategic Director of Free Street Theater and an Associate Professor in The Theatre School at DePaul University. She is the co-author (with Chloe Johnston) of Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide to Devised Theater. Above all, she believes in the power of poetry and performance to build community towards social change.

Visit her on the web at coyapaz.com

C. Russell Price

C. Russell Price is the author of oh, you thought this was a date?!: Apocalypse Poems (Northwestern University Press) and Tonight, We Fuck the Trailer Park Out of Each Other (Sibling Rivalry Press). Their next collection Bisquick: An American Seance will be published in August 2026. They work with Story Studio Chicago, the Ragdale Foundation, the Poetry Center of Chicago, and The Anarchist Review of Books. They are a Lambda Fellow, Ragdale Fellow, and two time top 50 writers of Chicago honoree. Price is a genderqueer punk landscaper and floral installation artist in Chicago.

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Ploi Pirapokin

Ploi Pirapokin's speculative fiction and lyric essays are featured in Tor.com, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, Gulf Stream Magazine, Sycamore Review, and more. She has received grants and fellowships from the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Creative Capacity Fund, Headlands Center for the Arts, Djerassi, Kundiman and others. A graduate of the Clarion Writers Workshop, she also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She currently teaches at the Writers Program at UCLA Extension, Story Studio Chicago, and WritingWorkshops.com.

Visit her site at www.ppirapokin.com

Carrie Sandahl

Carrie Sandahl is Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Disability and Human Development. She directs Chicago’s Bodies of Work, an organization that supports the development of disability arts and culture, through festivals, advocacy, and an artist residency program. Her research and creative activity focus on disability identity in live performance and film. Sandahl’s publications include a co-edited an anthology, Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance, which garnered the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s award for Outstanding Book in Theatre Practice and Pedagogy (2006). Her articles have appeared numerous journals, including Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Gay and Lesbian Quarterly, Cinema Journal, and Disability Studies Quarterly among others. Sandahl frequently travels nationally and internationally to speak about her research and arts advocacy initiatives. Her 2003 article, “Queering the Crip or Cripping the Queer: Intersections of Queer and Crip Identities in Solo Autobiographical Performance” inspired the name of a 2022 exhibition at Berlin’s Schwules Museum. She was invited to share with museum visitors how the concepts from that article were conceived and how they have evolved in her work as an artist, activist, and scholar. She collaborated on a documentary, Code of the Freaks, a critique of disability representations in cinema, which premiered in 2020 and has been shown in festivals, on television, and online streaming platforms in the US and Internationally.

Kinnari Vora

Kinnari Vora (born and raised in India), is a Chicago-based dancer, choreographer, and educator. She explores universal human experiences through movement, meditation, and theatrical practices. Collaboration is central to her work, engaging artists, audiences, and environments—fabric, architecture, and nature. Inspired by ancestral wisdom, nature, and cross-cultural dialogues, she creates performances that invite reflection and communal witnessing.

Rooted in Bharatanatyam (guru Sarmishtha Sarkar), Indian folk dances, kalaripayattu martial arts, and contemporary dance, Kinnari’s process is immersive and research-driven, often evolving through shared iterations. Through Ishti Collective (co-founder), she fosters meaningful dialogue through radical dance and artistic risk-taking, and through collaborating with Surabhi Ensemble she shares a positive message of togetherness.

A physical therapist and yoga practitioner, Kinnari integrates movement as a tool for healing. Through the Healing Arts Program and interactive installations, she creates spaces for connection and communal healing.

Her work has been presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Ragdale Foundation, Pivot Arts Festival, Detroit Dance City festival, and internationally in Europe, India, Vietnam, Mexico, Israel, Sri Lanka, amongst others. A 2022 Chicago Dancemakers Lab Artist, she has received support from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Illinois Arts Council.

Visit her website at www.kinnarivora.com