Mary Francis “Cissy” Whipp has been working as a performer, choreographer, and dance educator for over 40 years. She received her B.F.A. in Choreographic Design from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and her M.A. in Performing Arts: Dance from the American University in Washington, D.C.  She co-founded Louisiana’s first professional modern dance company, Moving South Dance, Inc., toured for several years with Young Audiences of New Orleans, and performed in France and Belgium with La Compagnie Louisianaise. She has taught for university dance programs at American University, George Washington University, Potsdam State University of New York, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In...

After teaching architecture design and freehand drawing for ten years on the universitylevel, Miguel Lasala began working with mural artist Robert Dafford in 2018. He hasworked on a wide range of projects from restoring the Clarinet mural in New Orleans tomost recently painting a 200’ long Rail Lines Map mural in Paducah KY. Aside from seeking collaborations in visual art, Miguel also has produced severaldocumentary films. Who makes up your art circle? The temptation is to start listing names, but it’s probably best to try and describe thedifferent groups that have made an impact on me. Even before I understood...

Peter Klubek is a Louisiana based artist currently serving as an art research librarianat the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Early in his career he completed an artistresidency at the Hospitalfield House Arts Center and Historic house in ArbroathScotland. Peter was also a featured artist in the Southern Illinois Open Competition andExhibition, and at the Battery Park Outdoor Art Festival in New York, NY. His exhibitedwork has been shown nationally and internationally, and he has been represented bygalleries in New York and Miami. His works are a part of the permanent collections atthe Brooklyn Art Library in Brooklyn, NY, and...

Riley McCallum is a queer, interdisciplinary performance artist originally from rural Texas. He has a broad background of movement experiences, ranging from martial arts, musical theatre, and color guard to concert and street dance forms. In the final year of earning his BFA in Performing Arts from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, he was the artist in residence at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. At this time, he began exploring the integration of dance, technology, and immersive theatre. While earning his MFA at TWU in the dance program, starting in 2019, he furthered his research into immersive theatre...

Alyson Hetzel is a filmmaker, photographer, and dancer originally from Crowley, La. They obtained a BFA in Digital Filmmaking at Loyola University in New Orleans, where they also danced with Ellevate Dance Company, The Radical Buffoons, and in several local artists’ music videos. While at Loyola, they directed several short narratives and documentaries, specifically Mudbugs, which will be shown at the 33rd New Orleans Film Festival in November. Through images, one moving and one still, and dance, they enjoy creating intimate, personal and meaningful stories in collaboration with other incredible humans.  Who makes up your art circle? My art circle...

Sam Wróbel specializes in the Polish papercutting folk art of wycinanki. Born and raised near Chicago, Illinois, Sam learned to make wycinanki as a child from folk artist Doris Sikorsky. As an adult, Sam worked as an in-store sign artist for Trader Joes, and eventually left Chicago to travel. Sam encountered Lafayette and fell in love with the community and culture. Sam moved to Lafayette in 2017, and started Sparrow Papercraft in 2018 to share their wycinanki folk art with the world. With just paper and scissors (and sometimes the traditional tool, sheep shears), Sam creates intricate designs, often full of...

Lily is from Tallahassee, Florida, where she quickly fell in love with dance at a young age. She’s trained in multiple forms of dance, such as ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz, musical theatre, hip hop, and tap. Lily moved to Lafayette in 2017 to major in Dance and Performing Arts at the University of Louisiana, at Lafayette, where she began her serious dance training and professional career. Along with several performances at the university, some of Lily’s most notable works include Gina Aswell’s “Every Place We Ever Lived” and a community performance of Ronald K. Brown’s “Walking Out the Dark”. After...

Lian Cheramie is an army brat originally from Lafayette, Louisiana. Lian received her BFA in Performing Arts at ULL, and she has been involved with Acting Up (in Acadiana) since it began in 2003. As a theatre artist, she enjoys Shakespeare, creating original works, and movement based work. She draws her ideas for her personal work from our Louisiana culture and language. In 2013, Lian collaborated with Sarah Mikayla Brown to create the original two-woman show Cajun Face. From 2013-2016, Lian and Sarah toured the show around the Acadiana area, as well as the New Orleans Fringe and the Chicago...

Sasha Massey was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana She’s also a ULL School of Musicgrad in vocal performance. Her earliest influences were jazz, motown soul, classical andmusical theater. Sasha is a lyric soprano with amazing improvisation and coloratura capabilitywith dramatic flare. As a child she could pick up accents, speaking and singing styles like achameleon. Shawn Roy, Director of Opera Studies, combined techniques and characterizationto fully develop her voice and stage presence. Under Roy she was able harness deep emotional connection in performance of any genre of music. Sasha is Cantor at St. John’s Cathedral, a position she has...

Growing up in Lafayette Louisiana, I was fortunate to be in an area defined by the AtchafalayaBasin, the prairies, the coastal marsh, the Gulf of Mexico, and other small gems scattered about the region. This environment was the stimulus of my beginning to understand how to see. My architect grandfather, Fred Nehrbass, provided me with “How to Draw…” books along with pencils and paper. The mixture of this diverse geographic location and basic drawing skills formed a foundation for my art that is still being built upon today. I participated in summer art instruction during middle school years and continued...