My name is José Ome Navarrete Mazatl, and I am interested in elevating socio-political consciousness through the arts.
My name is Debby Kajiyama, and I dance and create devised performance works for stages and street corners.
Together we have created work as NAKA Dance Theater for the past 25 years.
Since 2017, we have been conducting experiments using a performance container that interrogates systems of supremacy and domination. We convene a cohort of performance artists (poets, singers, musicians, dancers) who have a deep practice of challenging systems of power. We unearth what is urgent in our communities, find inspiration in improvisation as a strategy for survival, and witness what emerges through an intensive creative process together. The Dismantling Tactic X project made its first performance offering at the Kathleen Hermesdorf FRESH Festival in January 2018 at Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco. The fifth iteration, Fugitivity, was presented at Dance Mission Theater’s D.I.R.T. (Dance in Revolt(ing) Times) Festival in October 2025.
Fugitivity was developed in a multi-year process in a cohort of eight collaborating artists. From October 11-22, 2024, just before the presidential election, NAKA was fortunate to be artists-in-residence at the Maggie Allessee National Center for Choreography (MANCC), a program of Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, Florida. NAKA invited six artistic collaborators to join us. These artists, hailing from Mexico City, Frankfurt, the San Francisco Bay Area and New York, each brought their own creative processes and social practices into an exchange of ideas, movement and acts of resistance. Dr. Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz joined in the dual role of embedded writer and artist. The residency unfolded as a fusion between performance creation and convivios — social gatherings to get to know folks in the community and build relationships.
Some questions we asked ourselves going into the residency were: Who has lost the ability to move freely? Who is forced to flee? How can we respond creatively to xenophobia and the threat of mass deportations? What underground networks are keeping people safe?
While in residence at MANCC, we spent most of our time out in the community. We met Paula Hill Burt through Dr. Hannah Schwadron in FSU’s School of Dance. Paula is co-founder of the Tallahassee Bail Fund, a non-profit organization founded in May 2020 at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Its mission is to pay bail for folks in Leon County, Florida who can not afford to pay it themselves. They understand that even in post-COVID times, getting folks out of pre-trial detention is the best way to keep them employed, housed and safe.
We also collectively danced and wrote poetry with participants at the Big Bend A.F.T.E.R. Re-Entry Coalition, which offers workshops and mentorship for folks returning from incarceration in an effort to end recidivism.
We’ve created a book about our experiences during the residency, Dismantling: dance, space and memory.
In it, you’ll find a constellation of essays and visuals by eight collaborating artists:
Dr. Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz, Editor
Krhistina Giles
Debby Kajiyama
Cristina López Suárez
José Ome Navarrete Mazatl
Marshall Trammell (Music Research Strategies)
Amelia Uzategui Bonilla
Oka Ver
The book includes our collectively authored poem at the Big Bend A.F.T.E.R. Re-Entry Coalition, as well as reflections by Paula Hill Burt; MANCC residency coordinator, Emma E. Morris and MANCC documentarian Chris Cameron.
Dismantling: dance, space and memory asks how dancers collaborate, investigate cities, and challenge institutionalized histories to expose enduring structures of discrimination. Through essays, poetry, photobook-inspired visual narratives, and reclaimed symbols developed through performance workshops, eleven contributors document artistic acts of resistance, rehearse possibilities for social transformation, and generate counter-narratives that refuse erasure in Tallahassee, Florida.
Please join NAKA and Dr. Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz for our book launch celebration as part of NAKA’s 25th anniversary gatherings on Sunday, November 8, 2026, 5:00-6:00 pm at Space 124 at Project Artaud in San Francisco.
NAKA is committed to donating a minimum of $500 to the Tallahassee Bail Fund from book donations.
During our time at MANCC, Marshall Trammell led us in an Insurgent Learning Workshop, thanks to support from Gregg Matthews at the Florida State University Ceramics Lab, who built an outdoor kiln for us to heat metal irons in the fire. Collaborators designed codes to assist people in fleeing, escaping, becoming a fugitive. We burned these codes onto plywood squares and stamped them on wooden debris that we gathered in the wake of hurricane Helene. Some of these fugitive codes are found throughout the book. (More details about Marshall’s process are in the book).
We won’t have any metal irons in a firepit, but for those attending the book release we will have ink pads and rubber stamps available so you can make your own fugitive codes and intervene in your own book. Where can someone take refuge in your neighborhood? What is the safer path? How will your intervention in the book help send creative sparks out into the world?
NAKA’S 25th Anniversary Gatherings
The weekend’s events—November 6-9, 2026—will also include presentations by NAKA’s Collaborative Learning Circles:
*Voces Feministas, a feminist embroidery and poetry circle led by Luciana Rodriguez and Agustina Amiconi.
*Grupo Artista Telar Maya Mam, a group of Indigenous Maya Mam weavers and storytellers who will share some of their folk dances and textiles.
Plus:
*A cumbia dance party with DJ @chicamultiple
*A nightly work-in-progress performance by José Ome and Debby
@nakadancetheater, facebook.com/navarretexkajiyama, nakadancetheater.com
Mil gracias to MANCC’s Carla Peterson and Ansje Burdick for their support of this work.
