Tiger Balm #9

Halie Bahr

Halie Bahr (she/hers) is a multidisciplinary artist and performance studies scholar who researches the socio-political implications of trauma in the creative process. She loves creating both performances and educational communities that are playful, sincere, candy-colored-bright, visceral, over-the-top-spectacles that pull at your heartstrings or make us re-think our world. She has presented work and performed nationally in venues such as The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), Movement Research at the Judson Church (New York, NY), Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee, WI), Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center (Salt Lake City, UT), Midwest RAD Dance Festival (Kalamazoo, MI), The Soap Factory (Minneapolis, MN), and Links Hall (Chicago, IL). Halie is a Professor of Dance within the Department of Performance, Production, and Community at Hamline University. She is also the Associate Director and Editor of loveDANCEmore, a dance + new media publication committed to forwarding the professional work of experimental dance artists. She has held professorships within a variety of academic institutions, including Davidson College, University of Kentucky, Southern Utah University, and the University of Utah Prison Education Project, which provides higher education to students currently incarcerated in the Utah State Prison. Halie has published scholarship with Dance Studies Association (2024, vol. 43, Ethics, Risk, and Safety in the Field). Halie holds her MFA from the University of Utah School of Dance and her BFA from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. www.haliebahr.org

Suzette Gilreath

"Observing. Nourishing. Abundance."

Suzette Jornae Gilreath is a Twin Cities native. Born and raised in Minnesota, she is currently a dance artist based in MN. As of May 2020, she received her B.A. in Dance and American Sign Language from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Jornae is a virtuosic, versatile, and curious mover. She began her dance training at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and TU Dance at the age of 16. She is classically trained in Classical Ballet, Contemporary Ballet, Modern and African, with experience in street style Hip-hop, and Heels. As an alumna of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities' Dance Program, she has been taught under the instruction of Carl Flink, Toni Pierce-Sands, Ananya Chatterjea, and Erin Thompson. Through her dance training, she has obtained a greater understanding of the relationship dance has with the world, globally and internationally.

Over the past five years, Jornae has gained professional dance experience by training and performing with Twin Cities-based companies; Contempo Physical Dance and STRONG movement, TU Dance, and JornaeDance. She has also performed works by Kenna Cottman, Sidra Bell, Gregory Maqoma, Leslie Parker, and Robert Moses. She had chosen to learn American Sign Language as a second language requirement and fell deeply in love with D/deaf culture and the language…ASL has shifted her artist praxis, and how she interacts with the world, ethnically, culturally, and spiritually. Jornae's work is approached through an intersectional lens. Through aligning her multitude of identities and practices, she cultivates composition and projects that focus on enlightening the world to see who they are, and how we are all connected to the source. Her mission is to transform, inform, and inspire through art and human exchange.

Aleeza Mandel | Phoenix

I am Aleeza Mandel AKA Phoenix, an upcoming artist focusing in the style of Krump, as well as a painter, poet, singer and sewer. Based in Minneapolis and I am Jewish and Indigenous, from White Earth Nation, building my foundation as an artist. Previously I have participated in Tiger Balm shows through Zhanè Jackson's show The Night Agents and through the Meridians. My vision and mission is to bring more Indigenous & Jewish representation into all the art forms I create within and to honor them in that way. I bring my whole self, leaving no pieces behind.

Asha Rowland

Asha Rowland is a dancer, choreographer, storyteller, and dreamer based in Minneapolis, Mni Sóta Makoce and Chicago, Illinois. Her practice and research center the questioning of environments and mentalities that perpetuate anti-Blackness, environmental racism, and classist structures from an African and South Asian diasporic lens. These inquiries often activate dreams of future-scapes, revitalizing forgotten stories, and liberation.

Aesthetically, her work is narrative-driven, ethereal, and rooted in world-building, often straddling the dualities of chaos and meditation. Her experimental movement methodology draws from over 20 years of dance practice, specializing in Bharatanatyam, Raq Sharqi, and Black American street dance; and is grounded in establishing ancestral connection and flow states.

Asha collaborates with Lakshmi Ramgopal’s project Lykanthea as a dancer, choreographer, and vocalist. She has participated in numerous residencies and has performed nationally and internationally as a soloist, with Lykanthea, and as a company dancer with Natya Dance Theatre. Residencies and programs she has participated in include the Black Ensemble Theater IFE Lab Fellowship, the Center for Performing Arts Residency, the Unrehearsed Residency, the Chrysalis Milkweed Residency, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Performs Series with Lykanthea. She is a 2026 recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals Grant.