MEET THE ARTISTS


Choreographer and director Raja Feather Kelly is the artistic director of dance-theatre-media company the feath3r theory (founded in 2009). Raja has been awarded a Creative Capital Award (2019), a National Dance Project Production Grant (2019), a Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (2018), Dance Magazine's inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018), the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), a Lucille Lortel Award nomination (2019), a Chita Rivera Award nominee for Outstanding Choreography (2019), and is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner (2017, 2018, 2019). Raja's most recent work includes Lempicka (Broadway), A Strange Loop (Playwrights Horizons) and Fairview (Soho Rep, Berkeley Rep, TFANA and winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama).
Yolanda Wisher is a poet, musician, educator, and the author of Monk Eats an Afro. Wisher was the inaugural Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and third Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. A Pew and Cave Canem Fellow, Wisher received the Leeway Foundation's Transformation Award for her commitment to art for social change, and was named a Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Artist Fellow. Wisher performs poetry and song with her band Yolanda Wisher & The Afroeaters; their debut album Doublehanded Suite, was released in 2022. Along with Trapeta B. Mayson, Wisher leads ConsenSIS (consensisphl.com), an initiative that counts, gathers, and memorializes Black femme poets in the Philadelphia area. She works as the Senior Curator at Monument Lab.
Germaine Ingram is a jazz percussive dancer, choreographer, song writer, vocal/dance improviser, oral historian, cultural strategist, and archivist. She creates work about history, collective memory and social justice, and designs and directs arts/culture projects illuminating community cultural history. Her collaborators include jazz/experimental music composers, site-specific/informed choreographers, dance and vocal improvisers, African Diasporic culture specialists, and visual/media artists. Germaine’s work has been recognized by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Leeway Foundation, Independence Foundation, Lomax Family and Wyncote Foundations, the Sacatar Institute, and the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, among others. She is a former civil rights and trial lawyer, law professor and urban school district executive.
Originally from Bermuda, Mark “Metal” Wong is passionate about exploring how Breaking and Hip Hop artistically serves individuals and communities. He studied traditional American dance forms for over 20 years, and competed nationally with his battle crew Repstyles while performing with contemporary touring company Olive Dance Theatre. Metal is co-founder of Hip Hop Fundamentals, a Philadelphia-based dance education company working to empower youth through Breakdancing. In 2021, he joined the Education and Community Engagement department of Ensemble Arts Philly, where he now manages the Theater and Dance Education Programs. He has worked as an adjunct professor at Temple University, teaching Breaking as part of the country’s first Hip Hop dance Minor program. 




Lela Aisha Jones (LAJ) is an embodied multi-genre maker, community-based curator/organizer and inter-arts collaborator. Lela earned a New York Dance and Performance | Bessie Award Nomination, a Leeway Transformation Award, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts for her offerings centering lived experiences of Black folk. Lela is Director of the Dance Program at Bryn Mawr College, and holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida, a Master of Fine Arts in Performance and Choreography from Florida State University, and a doctoral degree in Dance Theory and Practice from Texas Woman's University. Lela’s ventures are an ode to being with the body as an intimate testimonial intermediary, essential for conjuring renewal and revival. 
Vitche-Boul Ra is a Transhumanist Folk-Theurgist with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts (Sculpture concentration) from The University of the Arts [2018] with studies in Dance under Donna Faye Burchfield. Ra investigates Black sovereignty through Performativity. A Philadelphia native, It has shown at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Vox Populi and more. In NYC, Ra presented in both Movement Research and Black Aesthetics/J.A.W. at Judson Church in 2023. Continually It collaborates with Moor Mother [Goddess] stateside and internationally. In 2021, It lectured at Yale School of Art and in 2023 Ra showed at the Murray Art Museum Albury in Albury, NSW (Australia) in addition to being awarded a 2023 Pew Fellowship.
Nikki Powerhouse is a Philly native whose creative force speaks to the human spirit. As a trauma-informed teaching artist, she uses performance and literary art to create a space for collective healing and transformation within communities. She received the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award in 2023. Nikki is a graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater and Communication. Her latest work is her one-woman show The Softest Part of Her that includes her poetry book and self-guided journal book. Nikki believes art should engage and transform the creator and the viewer.


The Re-Emancipation of Social Dance is an invitation to a house party, where five Philadelphia-based, generation-crossing, genre-defying artists will be your hosts. This party blends storytelling with choreography, performance, and multimedia to tell the story of social dance and its impact on people and culture. Created by Raja Feather Kelly and Yolanda Wisher, this one of a kind experience illuminates the timely power of these communal, propulsive gatherings as channels for cultural expression, freedom, and ultimately, change.


  • The Re-Emancipation of Social Dance has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
  • The Re-Emancipation of Social Dance is being produced by Intercultural Journeys.