
Community Engagement Residency
B.L.A.’s Community Engagement Residency (CER) provides year-long support for socially-engaged dance and movement artists to engage in a creative processes within their self-defined communities. In addition to funding, the CER residency supports artist capacity-building through professional development, networking, resource-sharing, and thought-partnership with Bridge Live Arts staff and community. Core values of the residency are equity, dialogue, process, artist autonomy, intersecting art-making and activism, and building meaningful relationships among artists.
Headshots of the the CER 2025 - 2026 Lead Artists. Photos (L to R): Top Row - Nikhil Mandalaparthy courtesy of the Henry Luce Foundation; Preethi Ramaprasad by G. Ramaprasad; KaiKai Bee Michaels by
Sloan Kanter; Mama Celeste by Dominic Saavedra / Bottom Row - The members of Home Bass - Aya Eid by Mitchell, Byron Wong by Ryan Lecluyse; Gunny Jy Liu by Byron Wong.
2025 - 2026
Lead Artists
Preethi Ramaprasad & Nikhil Mandalaparthy
Radical South Asian Poetry & the Body
Mama Celeste & KaiKai Bee Michaels
Recession Pop
Aya Eid, Byron Wong, & Gunny Jy Liu
Home Bass
2024 - 2025
Lead Artists
Photo (L to R): Alice Hur by Ryan Sarakul, B Dukes by Baze Interactions, Karla Flores by Shelley Mae Alingas
Andrea Rodriguez
La Rumba No Para
2022 - 2023
Lead Artists
Asian Babe Gang
Malia Hatico-Byrne, Rose Huey, Kim Ip, Melissa Lewis Wong, Aiano Nakagawa, and Nina Wu
Tammy Johnson
The Black Women's Freedom Circle:
The Progression Project
Photo (Left): Members of Asian Babe Gang (Malia Hatico-Byrne, Rose Huey, Kim Ip, Melissa Lewis Wong, Aiano Nakagawa, and Nina Wu.(Right): Tammy Johnson. Photos courtesy of the artists.
Photo (L to R): jose e. abad by Robbie Sweeny; Stephanie Hewett by Amina El Kabbany; Andreina Maldonado by Cynthia Valeska
2021 - 2022
Lead Artists
jose e. abad & Stephanie Hewett
to be like the river
Andreina Maldonado
Our Work / Our Dignity
2020 - 2021
Lead Artists
Performance Primers
Hannah Ayasse, Chibueze Crouch,
Zoe Donnellycolt
Jarrel Phillips
Living Folklore
Photo (L to R): Performance Primers logo created and photographed by Zoe Donnellycolt, designed by Claire Rabkin;
Jarrel Phillips by Michole "Micholiano" Forks
2019 - 2020
Lead Artists
David Herrera
LatinXtensions: Latinx Choreographic Mentorship Program
Yayoi Kambara
Aesthetic Shift: A Dance Lab for Equitable Practices
Estrellx Supernova and Daria Garina
QTBIPOC Performing Artist Hive
Photo (L to R): David Herrera, Yayoi Kambara, and the QTBIPOC Performing Artist HIVE, initiated by Estrellx Supernova and Daria Garina.
Photo by Hillary Goidell of Julie Tolentino in bury.me.fiercely 2018
The Community Engagement Residency is made possible with support from the California Arts Council Artists in Communities Program Grant.