RAICES VIVAS: WOMEN WHO CARRY THE WORLD

Monica Rojas-Stewart (Lima, Peru) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at the University of Washington. Her research areas include Afro-Peruvian culture, Afro-Latine communities in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean, their diasporas, and their performance traditions as transborder technologies of resilience and community building. As a community artist and activist, Rojas-Stewart devoted over 15 years to extensive community-based organizing, research, and artistic work as a pioneering performer and educator of Afro-Peruvian culture and of the Afro-Latine arts movement in the Pacific Northwest. She is the founder of the DE CAJóN Project and Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle (MÁS), two grassroots arts organizations dedicated to educating others about the history and cultural resilience of people of African descent in Peru and Latin America, respectively. Rojas-Stewart is the recipient of the Tumi USA award, a recognition granted by the Peruvian diasporic community in the U.S. for "having excelled in her career, community service, and for her contributions to the betterment of society."

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Adri, a Mexico City native, is an artist, producer, and dancer based in Seattle, Washington. Her most treasured dance style, cumbia, has been a part of her life since early childhood. Adri believes in liberation through arts education in which she encourages people to show up fully and authentically, using dance as a tool for self-expression and connection. Her cumbia wepa and sonidera classes are her form of cultural preservation and connecting to her roots, community, and heritage.

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Deise Costa is a Brazilian dance artist, choreographer, and cultural educator with over 15 years of experience performing and teaching in Brazil and across the United States. Originally from Piauí, she is deeply rooted in the Afro-Brazilian tradition and a passionate advocate for the preservation and sharing of Brazil’s cultural heritage.

She is a student of Rosangela Silvestre and has completed three intensive dance residencies in Salvador, Bahia through the Associação Cultural Silvestre Technique. Her training includes mentorship from renowned masters such as Vera Passos, Nildinha Fonseca, Tatiana Campelo, Dan Imperador, Dude Conceição, and Bira Santos Alabê, all pillars of Salvador's rich Afro-Brazilian dance and music community.

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Leika’s journey with Capoeira started in 1999 when she was first introduced to the movements, music, and history of this powerful art. She began training in 2002 with Mestre Jurandir and later with Mestre Silvinho when he moved to Seattle in 2004. She graduated as Contra Mestra at the International Capoeira Angola Foundation conference in Belo Horizonte in July 2025. She is humbled to be a guardian of this ancestral tradition. She honors the African roots of Capoeira and works to elevate Capoeira as a transformational tool for social justice and self-awareness.