Team for Theatrical Jazz Creation Lab 2025
Lexxus Edison- English PhD Student and Graduate Student Organizer
Lexxus Edison is a sixth-year graduate student at UC Santa Barbara in the English PhD program pursuing an emphasis in Black Studies. Lexxus’s research areas include African American Literature and Culture, Black Performance Studies, and Creative Writing. Her research examines 20th-21st century African American autobiographies forms exploring black debt; she reads how the black autobiography ruptures both the form of autobiography and the notion of debt. She is very committed to her community and the work she engages in; she has served as a graduate intern for Office of Black Student Development (OBSD), TA for Black Studies and English, a co-chair for the Committee of Graduate Students (CoGS) in the English Department, The Catalyst Research Assistant, and a Research Assistant for Hemispheric South(s).
Iyatunde Folayan- Performance Artist, Community Builder, lndependent Filmmaker
Iyatunde Folayan is an Afroqueer artist and native of Detroit based in Los Angeles. Iyatunde cut her teeth as an independent filmmaker in New York learning experimental film at Third World Newsreel in the 90s. She was grateful to work on A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde. In LA, she has worked as a performance artist with Great Leap, Teatro Q and at Highways Performance Space. Iyatunde is developing a play called Saviour and is now a caregiver for her mom, Pat. With a firm grounding in African spirituality, reverence for the Black radical tradition and a penchant for Queer rebellion, she believes artists play a key role in the liberation of the oppressed and their work must tell the tale.
Saide Singh- UCSB English PhD student and Graduate Student Organizer
Saide Kamille Singh (she/her) is a third year PhD student in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her doctoral research seeks to understand the convergence that occurs when we consider the criticality of diachronic Caribbean food histories alongside the culinary agencies offered by the African and Indian descendent Caribbean women who have grown, cooked, and narrativized food. In her efforts to support the Caribbean intellectual community at UCSB, she also devotes her time to being the Research Assistant for the Caribbean Studies Research Focus Group and the Hemispheric South/s Research Initiative.
Inyosi Sebenzekhaya (Dr. Nia O. Witherspoon)
Multidisciplinary Artist + Holistic Health Practitioner
Inyosi Sebenzekhaya (Dr. Nia O. Witherspoon) is the daughter of Marcia Ostrow and Anton Witherspoon. Her medicine flows through her as a writer, ritual-performance maker, song channel, womb-tender and bodyworker, dreamer, creative doula, and Kundalini Yoga teacher–a conjuror, a weaver, a shaper, a nurturer, and a creator supporting mental, physical, and spiritual health by way of deep transformation. Ancestrally guided through the Afro-Indigenous teachings of the Ubungoma lineage, and called to be of service since childhood, Inyosi is a deep listener, an empath, and a natural care-giver. A Black queer multidisciplinary artist + healing justice practitioner Inyosi is most inspired while tapping into the metaphysics of love and aesthetics of care in the practice of the radical ecology and imagination that is our birthright as humans. Combining Black feminism and ecocriticism with mediums in writing, technology, ritual-performance, sound, and installation, Witherspoon creates decolonial portals for communion, witnessing, and reconnection with the Divine, the Plant and Animal Family, and the Ancestral. Recent works include: Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Star Temple + Wisdom School (HERE Arts Center, 2024), Chronicle X: The Dark Girl Chronicles (The Shed, 2021), and MESSIAH (La Mama, 2019). She is a recipient of the Tow Fellowship, NEFA/NTP, NPN Creation + Touring Fund, NYSCA, Creative Capital, Jerome New Artist Fellowship, HARP, and residencies at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Marble House, Jacob’s Pillow, Musical Theatre Factory, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and New York Theatre Workshop. Her work has been featured by Irondale, Theatre MITU, Mercury Store, The Bushwick Starr, BRIC, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Joe’s Pub, JACK, La Mama ETC, Playwright’s Realm, Links Hall, National Black Theatre, Brava Theatre, BAAD, Movement Research, Painted Bride, and elsewhere. Her writing is published in the Journal of Popular Culture, Imagined Theatres, Women and Collective Creation, and IMANIMAN: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands. She has held creative and academic appointments at BerkleeNYC, Williams College, Fordham University, University of Massachusetts, Florida State University, and Arizona State University. She is currently building the foundation to Oshun’s Palace, a full-spectrum menu of ceremonial services for holistic health, birthkeeping, womb-tending, and Ayurvedic + Afro-feminine beauty. Her first book, THE DARK GIRL CHRONICLES: A Trilogy will be released in Fall 2025. www.niawitherspoon.com.
Sara Sotelo- UCSB Theater, Dance and Performance MA Candidate and Graduate Student Organizer
Sara Sotelo (she/her/ella) is a first year MA candidate in the Theater, Dance and Performance Studies Department at UC Santa Barbara. Her research encompasses cultural studies through monsters in performance. Sara has been a dramaturg for about 4 years now working on productions such as classics like Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Simon Stephans and new works such as Smoked Out: Watching Them Scrape Our Homes Away by Carl Erez and Unibeauty and Her Wicked Daughters by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig. She received her BA in History and her BA in Education from the UC Santa Cruz in 2023 (Go Slugs!). While there she worked with many incredible artists who drove her love of theater to new heights and ultimately helped her get here. A Los Angeles county native, her community is what she strives to make proud and continue to help in her own unique way.
Rhaechyl Walker- Actor/Dancer
Rhaechyl Iyhlne Walker was born in Los Angeles California. She first graced the stage at age seven as a dancer in the popular musical Alice in Wonderland at a local theater. She has performed in countless plays, dance shows/groups, and musicals throughout her entire grade school and college career. After graduating from UC Riverside with a
BA in Theater and English Rhaechyl went on to perform in about a dozen music videos and became the lead actress in a hit play called Dreamscape, where she developed and established the role of Myeisha. Dreamscape toured around the US and in parts of Eastern Europe over the course of five years. Rhaechyl’s first film debut was the lead role of Myeisha in the independent film “My Name Is Myeisha”. You can also spot her in the feature film “Looks that Kill” in the role of Valencia.