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Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois storyteller Steven Antoine Willis uses his poetic and theatrical background to embark on the daunting task of creatively articulating African American culture. With art heavily influenced by urban life and religion, Steven mixes elements of hip-hop poetics and theatrical performance with formal teachings of anthropology and political theory to help express his eclectic personal narrative. Willis is a contributing writer to the Breakbeat Poets Anthology, NYU’s National Council for Teachers of English Journalism, is a three time Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist and former Resident Poet of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Willis received his MFA in Acting from the University of Iowa in 2021. He currently attends the Iowa Writers Workshop for Poetry.

stevenwillispoetry.com

Ramin Roshandel’s compositional work is based around incorporating ‘experience’ as a fundamental concept through a non-experimental approach in performance. Considering phenomena such as instability, cultural identity, and communicational language on one hand, and being inspired by Persian music microtones as a setar (a Persian instrument) player on the other, has led him to consider indeterminate, improvisatory, and abstract structures in his music to contrast or converge with post- or non-tonal forms.
Ramin is a SICPP (Summer Institute for Contemporary Music Practice) and New Music On the Point alumnus and his pieces have been performed by Anna Elder, Will Fried, Daniel Schreiner, JACK Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Kamratōn Ensemble, and LIGAMENT duo, as well as in precept.concept.percept Composition Workshop, Dancinema Festival, Opine Dance Film Festival, Charlotte New Music Festival, the Society of Composers' Summer Student Mixtape, and Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project’s Summer Sounds. He was the setār soloist of Jean-François Charles’ opera, Grant Wood in Paris in its premiere.
He is currently a PhD candidate in Music Composition at the University of Iowa, where he studied under Josh Levine and Sivan Cohen-Elias and currently is working with David Gompper.

soundcloud.com/ramin-roshandel

Stephanie Miracle is an interdisciplinary choreographer investigating ordinary and imagined landscapes. Her process is a theory of abundant possibility found within the awareness of and play within everyday settings. Her works manifest as live-cinema performances in public spaces, sound installations, experimental films, and stage productions. Recent projects have been presented nationally and internationally on stages, on streets, and in non-traditional settings across Germany, and in Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Mexico, Russia, New York City, and Washington DC by various venues including Dance Place, Kunstmuseum Reutlingen, the Exchange Festival, Supernova Festival, Open Look Festival, Performatica, ES WIRD SOGAR SCHÖN, Barnes Crossing, WAM!, Fiktiva Festival, kunstOrteleven, Triskelion Arts, The Clarice Smith for Performing Arts Center, and Santa Barbara Dance Theatre. Stephanie holds a MFA in Dance from the University of Maryland and is a certified teacher of Klein Technique™. She is thrilled to be joining the University of Iowa as an Assistant Professor of Dance.

stephaniemiracledances.com