Douglas Baker and Juliet (jules) Paramor | Choreographers

Juliet (jules) Paramor and Douglas Baker are first-year Dance MFA students at the University of Iowa, working across choreography, performance, music, and improvisation. Paramor is an experimental dance and performance artist interested in the subconscious, intimacy, memory, desire, and embodied states. Baker is a dance accompanist, composer, and performer interested in the intersections of dance and language. This is their first time collaborating. You can read more about them on the Graduate Students page.

Bea Beaman | Choreographer

Bea Beaman (they/them) is a Chinese-American Dance MFA student in their second year of the choreography track. Bea trained in various popular styles and studied contemporary modern dance at St. Olaf College, where they received a BA in dance. Their research now surrounds partnering, improvisation, narrative, and systems of error as methods for movement generation.

Hutch Hagendorf | Choreographer

Hutch Hagendorf, from Houston, Texas, began dancing at age nine at West University Dance Center. After receiving a BFA in dance at the University of Arizona, he danced for Royal Caribbean International Cruises, iKADA Contemporary Dance Company (NYC), De Funes Dance (NYC), and Spectrum Dance Theater (Seattle, WA) (director Donald Byrd). His choreography has been featured on/in Social Movement Contemporary Dance Theater, Exclamation Dance Company, Austin Dance Festival, Brazos Contemporary Dance Festival, and Exeter Academy. He is a second-year MFA student in dance at the University of Iowa and is thrilled to be sharing his voice, choreography, and teaching this year with IWP.

Kingsley UGŪM Ibeneche | Choreographer

Kingsley Ibeneche is an international Choreographer, DJ, and musician from Camden, NJ by way of Nigeria.

Ivan Lopez | Choreographer

Ivan Lopez graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in Dance. During his undergraduate career, Ivan experienced a wide range of cultural dance forms, including Bharatanatyam, Afro-Brazilian, West African, and many more. Training under Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Prof. Hari Krishnan and Bessie Award winners Prof. Joya Powell and Prof. Douglas Elkins has encouraged Ivan to broaden his understanding of what dance can achieve.

At the University of Iowa, where he is pursuing an MFA in Dance on the performance track, Ivan plans to explore the complex, layered connotations of touch through the cultural convergence of Salsa dance and Contact Improvisation. Drawing from his diverse training and his identity as a queer Latine man, the subversion of eroticism, sexuality, gender, and culture informs his artistic framework.

Ricky "Bucky" Medina | Choreographer

Ricky Medina AKA Bucky/White Wolf/Young Fudd is a Hip-hop practitioner from Los Angeles, California. He received a BA in dance from UCLA, a Physical Education Teaching Credential from CSU Northridge, and an MFA in dance from CSU Long Beach. Specializing in krump dance, Ricky is a member of "Demolition Crew," the largest international krump crew in the world. Ricky's research focuses on the spirituality present in street and club dance forms, incorporating popping, locking, breaking, krump, house, waacking, and hip-hop social party dances.

Dhari Piekarska | Choreographer

Dhari Piekarska is a dancer, choreographer and creative thinker who utilizes dance to forge connections rooted in joy and love for movement. While pursuing an MFA at the University of Iowa, she plans to explore the connections between different genres of dance through linking her background of Ballroom and Latin, Argentine Tango and Salsa Dance with improvisation and movement research.

She hopes you enjoy this performance and take with you a small part of the joy we experienced in making this together.

Ella Crosby | Stage Manager

Ella is a fourth-year English & creative writing and theatre arts major with a focus in stage management. Previous work at the university includes stage managing Drill Drill Drill and assistant stage managing An Enemy of the People.

Nina Dragičević | Author, 52 + 36 Play Me

Nina Dragičević is a poet, writer, sound artist, sociologist, and the author of nine volumes of poetry, essays, and theory, as well as numerous sound-poetry compositions and installations. Her work is characterized by formal and stylistic hybridity, linguistic precision, and an articulated queer and feminist stance.

Kawaguchi Harumi | Author, Crossing The Line

Kawaguchi Harumi, a member of the 2026 International Writing Program, has published more than ten solo poetry collections, including works that received the 30th Hagiwara Sakutarō Prize and the 46th Takami Jun Prize. Her poetry explores women’s experiences and memories, while also bridging literature and popular culture, particularly manga and anime. Her work has been nationally and internationally recognized and has been translated into English, German, Italian, and Korean.

Rina Kikuchi | Translator, Crossing The Line

Rina Kikuchi, an Obermann-CAPS International Fellow, is a poetry translator, Professor of Literature at Shiga University, and Adjunct Professor of Poetry in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. Her translations have appeared in poetry journals and magazines worldwide. Her publications include Selected Translations of Sagawa Chika (Shicho-sha, 2023) and Poet to Poet: Contemporary Women Poets from Japan (Recent Work Press, 2017), co-edited with Jen Crawford.

Colin DeJong | Composer, The Life of Ricardo pt. 2

Colin DeJong is a Dance Accompanist in the Department of Dance at University of Iowa. He was previously Lead Accompanist at Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy (Milwaukee, WI), following a decade in Chicago, IL as an independent dance pianist serving several local organizations (most notably: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Joffrey Ballet company & Joffrey Academy of Dance, and The Chicago High School for the Arts, a.k.a. "ChiArts"). He holds Master of Music (Music Theory) and Bachelor of Music (Composition) degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (Bloomington, IN), and hails originally from Macomb, IL.