INTRODUCING THE 2025 ACCELERATOR COHORT

LAPP would like to thank our

partner, Outside In Theatre in

Highland Park.

www.outsideintheatre.org

Crystal Sasaki (she/her) is a Butoh dancer and multidisciplinary performance artist based in Los Angeles. Her works combine movement, text, and audiovisual poetry in an ongoing investigation of dreams, communication, heritage, animism, and healing in our hyper-mediated world. Californian, born in 1989, Sasaki trained in ballet from early childhood and spent her school years abroad and nomadic with her mother’s humanitarian work, communicating across language barriers and studying world dance forms. She came of age in Bay Area DIY arts communities, turned toward somatic practices, and earned a BA in Dance and Performance Studies from UC Berkeley. Sasaki has studied Butoh with a wide range of international masters and is a certified Deep Listening facilitator.

Emma Irene Olson (she/they) is a queer multidisciplinary performance artist living and working in Los Angeles. Their art explores themes of self, perception, ego, authority, anti-capitalism, and consciousness, while being rooted in love, connection, nature, and play. Following what is fun, curious, or inspiring, they seek to find and create live performance art that connects with an audience and cannot be fully reproduced. Her approach is multi-disciplinary, with written text, original music, improvisation, clowning, audience interaction, and wearable art. Emma Irene has self-produced three solo shows: Astro Cabaret (directed and co-devised by Natasha Mercado), The Faults In My Stars (directed by Justin Gilbert), and Universal and Absolute (directed by Rosie Glen-Lambert). Astro Cabaret, her most recent solo drag musical inspired by her astrological birth chart, premiered at the 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival to rave reviews and was nominated for Best Cabaret & Variety Show by the Hollywood Fringe Community, as well as the Three Clubs Production Award. Their newest work in progress is a satire that explores the absurdity of corporate culture, late-stage capitalism, and an insatiable desire to explore and understand as much as humanly possible.

Jeonghyeon Joo (she/her) is a haegeum performer/composer based in Los Angeles and Seoul. Her practice includes performance, composition, improvisation, artistic research, collaboration, writing, and teaching. She explores the physical, social, cultural, and political relationship between the performer and instrument, frequently collaborating with filmmakers, visual artists, composers, and performance artists. She has received the Emerging Artist Award from the National Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea and the Presidential Award of Korea, and her recent projects have been supported by Arts Council Korea, Sejong Center, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, and California Institute of the Arts, among others. As a soloist, she has premiered many contemporary works written for her, including a haegeum concerto recently premiered with Ensemble Modern. She has frequently given lectures and presented her works at institutions and festivals across North America and Asia, including UCLA, UC Berkeley, CalArts, UC Riverside, San Francisco State University, San Diego State University, Seoul National University, Jakarta Institute of Arts, Philosophical Research Center, International Computer Music Conference, Asia-Pacific Improvisers Symposium, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Pan Music Festival, and Hear Now Music Festival.

Marisa Hamamoto (she/her) is the first professional dancer named to People Magazine’s “Women Changing the World.” A leading authority on mental wellness, disability inclusion, Asian American experience, building a culture of belonging, and changemaking, Marisa is a LinkedIn Top Voice, and has been featured on Good Morning America, NBC Today, Forbes, Fast Company, amongst other media outlets. As a sought-after international speaker, performing artist, and creative director, Marisa has been a speaker at the United Nations, shared the stage with Tim Cook at Apple HQ’s Steve Jobs Theater, and her clients and partners include Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Red Bull, Deloitte, adidas, PayPal, Farmers Insurance, Kaiser Permanente, among other forward-thinking brands. Marisa is a spinal stroke survivor, a late-diagnosed Autistic, a proud fourth-generation Japanese American, and a pandemic-born artistic roller skater. She is the founder of Infinite Flow Dance, an award-winning dance company and nonprofit that employs disabled and nondisabled dancers with diverse, intersectional identities, with a mission to advance disability inclusion, one dance at a time. Marisa is bilingual and bicultural. She completed her BA & MA from Keio University, Tokyo, and is an Honorary Member of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science. Most recently, she was a Finalist for Best Film for the Easterseals Disability Film Challenge 2025 – Film: “Killed It.”

Nadene Pita (she/her), a Ngātiwai/Ngāpui musician and interdisciplinary artist, weaves contemporary, intercultural music and experimental jazz, using voice, viola, Māori instruments and electronics with dance, film and theater. Her electroacoustic project “Wood, Wire and Bone,” blends taonga puoro, intercultural music, jazz, contemporary dance, and video. It is a reflection on themes of family, nature, lineage, and intersectional feminism; addressing systems of power and privilege, challenging patriarchy, racism, and capitalism. Collaborations with Tibetan monk Lama Tashi Norbu blend the sacred with the experimental, extending to performances with the late David Ornette Cherry, saxophonist Louis Van Taylor and engagements with Indigenous Arts Company, Red Sky Performance. Her album “Turning Arrows into Flowers”, infused with South Pacific harmonies, Māori chants, chamber improvisations and eclectic influences, reflecting her Pacific roots and mixed ancestry. Recipient of the 2023 Emerging Artist Fellowship by the California Arts Council, Nadene’s art transcends conventional boundaries. Her work includes healing-centered arts, integrating experience as a music, dance and meditation teacher for underserved communities including Youth Orchestra LA, Education Through Music-LA and Let’s Dance It Out. Her art, rooted in mindfulness and cultural reverence offers audiences and participants transformative experiences. With an MA in Contemporary Cross-Cultural Improvisation, Nadene navigates musical realms guided by heritage, innovation, with commitment to cultural dialogue and social justice.

Sam Wentz (he/him), originally from North Dakota, is an LA-based dancer, performer and maker. Wentz has collaborated with a wide range of artists and companies, including Ajani Brannum, the Trisha Brown Dance Company (2009–2014), Wally Cardona + Jennifer Lacey, Jay Carlon, Gerald Casel, Dimitri Chamblas, the Merce Cunningham Trust, Katherine Helen Fisher, Levi Gonzalez, Jmy James Kidd, Mark Morris Dance Group, Abigail Levine, Annie-B Parson, Judith Sánchez Ruíz, Kensaku Shinohara, Susan Sgorbati, Jacob Wolff, and Stephanie Zaletel. As a maker, his performance work, often situated within studio and gallery context, draws from improvisational practice and an ongoing inquiry into the relationships between bodies, objects, and attention. His work has been presented at the Bennington Museum (VT), the Firehouse Joshua Tree, the Geffen Contemporary at MoCA, G-Son Studios, Human Resources LA, Pieter Performance Space, REDCAT, and The Tank (NYC). In 2024, he was published by the University of Michigan for “A Society to Me: On Conflict and Intimacy Training” in Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, Volume 43. Beyond his artistic practice, Wentz extends choreographic thinking into organizational and collective contexts. A full time faculty member at CalArts, he was elected Chair of Faculty for the 2024–2025 academic year, where he played a key role in guiding faculty and staff through their successful unionization with the UAW. He currently serves on the CalArts United–UAW Bargaining Committee.

Sharon Chohi Kim (she/her) is a performing artist and composer working at the intersection of immersive experimental opera, performance art, improvisation, sound art, and site-specific activation through movement and voice. She has composed and created performances for institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), LA Phil’s Insight series, and REDCAT. Chohi’s notable opera performances include Meredith Monk’s Atlas with the LA Philharmonic, Sweet Land with The Industry Opera Company, and Polia and Blastema, premiered at Festival O22 by Opera Philadelphia. She has also performed with a wide range of institutions and ensembles, including the Getty Center, Hammer Museum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Industry, Long Beach Opera, Wild Up, Human Resources LA, Getty Villa, The Broad, LA Master Chorale, Berggruen Institute, Hollywood Bowl, LA Opera, Epoch Gallery, Four Larks, and HEX. Her work as a performer and composer has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, KCET, KCRW, New Classic LA, SF Classical Voice, and the Los Angeles Times.

Scottie Harvey (she/her) is a writer, performer, and animator from Los Angeles. She received her BFA & MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she found animation’s unlikely twin in theatre. Dramatic work has been featured at Dynasty Handbag’s Weirdo Night (2025), and writing will be included in Michelle Tea’s Clown Anthology (2026). Her play “A Live-Action Adaptation of an Episode of Tom & Jerry” ran at Pageant (Brooklyn, 2023) and was read at Theatre Rhinoceros (San Francisco, 2024). Older plays have premiered at Ars Nova’s ANTFEST and received the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival’s Paula Vogel Award. Her animated work has been featured by musician Julien Baker and screened at many festivals. Scottie runs the performance space “Van Noord Van Noord,” which has hosted resident artists such as Erin Markey, Carl Holder, and Sacha Vega. She co-hosts the monthly “Animation Clubhouse” with Sam Lane.

Sophia Cleary (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist focused on performance and liveness. Making her work through the lens of the fool, or trickster, Sophia uses play as a method and critical position to engage her audience in a system where power dynamics necessarily shift. In her live performance work, she focuses on the space between performer and audience as an aperture that both restricts and expands, deploying humor as a lubricant to mirror, respond to, or disrupt the status quo. Throughout her practice, she addresses the stakes of live performance and lays bare its attendant contracts and procedures. Sophia has presented her work in Scotland at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in New York City at the Center for Performance Research, Danspace Project, The Chocolate Factory, Dixon Place, and The Kitchen, and in Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum, MoCA, and Human Resources Gallery. She is the founder and coordinator of works-in-progress performance series REHEARSAL, where she has advised over 75 performing artists in the development of their work. She holds a BA in Dance and Art History from Marlboro College, an MA in Performance Studies from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and is currently an MFA candidate in Visual Arts at UC San Diego. Contact: sophiacleary.com

Tanya White is a theater artist working and performing as a playwright, actor, director and teacher. Her plays include BIG BLUE RIDE, CAREFULLY TAUGHT, 7 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SLAVERY and LEMON YELLOW KITCHEN. She’s a frequent contributor to storytelling shows in Los Angeles and believes the personal narrative is the foundation for healing collective trauma. She’s been an adjunct professor at AMDA Los Angeles teaching students Scene Study, Storytelling and Creative Writing and is a co-founder of SPACE. connecting women writers with hosts with rural property where writers can focus on craft in a restorative natural environment. She is currently the Artistic Director of Santa Monica Repertory Theater.

Los Angeles native, Teila Theisen (she/her), has worked in community-based art and culture advocacy for over a decade. She obtained a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts cum Laude from Northern Illinois University, with an emphasis in Theater, Voice, and Dance, under the Lila Dole Talent Scholarship. Her performance credits include solo work with DanszLoop Chicago, a revival of work choreographed by James Truitte, and several multidisciplinary vocal performances throughout the westcoast. Teila has performed locally with Selah Gospel Choir, The DC6 Collective, and Open Fist Theater company. With a passion for producing art in historically underserved communities, Teila has choreographed and directed dance and music performances and festivals through collaborations with The Arroyo Stomp Festival, DanceWorks, Central City Opera, Pacific Opera Project, and the Pueblo de Cochiti. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who led projects with traditional West African music and dance to increase gender-equity and Female Genital Mutilation prevention in The Gambia. Teila Theisen has a passion for creating accessible, equitable, and inclusive live theater experiences for every adult and child, believing that art as a basic human need that deserves preservation.

VORA (she/they) is a sonic and visual storyteller, integrating movement, visuals and sound in performances to illuminate themes of mysticism, deep ecology, and humanity’s imprint on nature. Rooted in vibrant experimentation, their work is guided by gratitude, reverence, and devotion for the divine. Their performance embodies an intensely animalistic, raw and spiritual force, centering the body as a vessel for direct connection to earth and spirit. Their practice emerges as a chimera of ballroom vogue, shamanism, music production and modern divination, transmuting mythologies of experiences within land, body and emotion. Using sound, sculpture and performance, they draw on ancestral traditions, folklore, and lived experience. VORA is the founder and co-director of Water&Power, an artist-run community space in arts-underserved South LA serving emerging artists. They also curate VISCERA, an experimental performing arts show that bridges the gap between DIY and traditional performance art. VORA received the highly competitive Rising Artist Grant, and was mentored by electronic musician and activist Nicolas Jaar. They have been commissioned and supported by organizations such as IO Music Academy, MTV Composing Program, and REACH LA.