About Me

Transparency Statement

As an independent artist, gig worker, part-time arts laborer and organizer I wish to be transparent about how I continue my creative work. My community and family (chosen and blood) support my creative life in the US to some extent. To share my art publically my day jobs fund 85-100% of production and rehearsal time. I often rely on gifted or shared space to rehearse indoors. I am happy to conspire with others on how we can develop alternative economies and more sustainable arts ecosystems. Some of the people and concepts that shape my understanding of arts + money are gifting, Sarah Wilbur's analysis of philanthropy and national funding, and W.A.G.E. My goal is to transform my own urges toward competition and scarcity into abundance. As such, I welcome budget template exchanges and like to share my own budgets, grant opportunities, and non-monetary resources with other independent artists. I also welcome skill shares and non-monetary exchanges. This does not mean I do shows for free! Rather, I have learned from creative and emotional burnout. I believe that interdependence is necessary to grow my practice sustainably and I prioritize making relationships that are mutualistic.

My project budgets are available if you contact me at ayan4felix@gmail.com. This is a radical vulnerability of my class status in hopes of continuing to scheme alongside artists who want to grow with me. This is also a sincere ask from me for you to consider how you get thee bag.

In their most legible states, my works are accessible to everyone I love. As I am not always legible (and am not pressed to be), I try to provide multiple points of access to my work to be seen and understood. If there is anything on this website that feels inaccessible to you, please let me know.

Artist Statement on Process

I create because I dream of different worlds. One, where I can shed the emotional labor that I inherit as a Black person assigned female at birth (AFAB) and being masculine-of-center. Movement serves as a central medium in that world, not only due to years of training but also because dance provides a special entry point into ancestral and spiritual practices for afro-diasporic peoples. I produce work grounded in my ancestral practices. These practices allow me to explore dance and filmmaking as methods to help capture, explore, and add some of my own Black wisdom.

My artistic research examines the interaction of nature, space, and identity in dance and performance. The methodology is formed by the ideology that the secular is sacred and the sacred is secular. Imagining environmental justice, gender exploration, and spiritual justice as interdependent, I am able to explore what it means to develop sustainable Black and queer communities through ancestral practices of erotics (a la bell hooks), sexuality, and gender.

My most recent movement research is in burlesque, drag, and jazz dance to explore contemporary Black culture as a source of pleasure and futurism. This is inspired by the number of science fiction writers, outta-this-world Black folk, and literary scholars who propose Blackness can be other, alien, and joyful. Filming, or screendance, is very necessary to share my current research and allows for my bi-coastal and cross-discipline connections. To continue to dream—learn and perform— I wish to uplift and celebrate the deeper emotional and social layers that occur when we are in community with our sensual selves.

It is urgent that I develop, present, and workshop art from a mindset of abundance and authenticity. Ultimately, I want to make immersive experiences that I can safely open up to Black queer folks of all ethnicities/nationalities, but I am not there yet in terms of production scale. My intention as a cultural organizer and community organizer for environmental and food justice plays an important role in my creative process so I am moving at the speed of interest and capacity between my communities in Texas and North Carolina. Within these spaces, which have also been held by gender queer black scholars and Black queer folk less known, my creative work juggles with ideas of ownership, security, and community through improvisation/play and environment. In the creative process, I start with what possibilities present themselves now we are dreaming together?




Teaching Portfolio and CV
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