Transmuting Death: Birthing Queer Futures

Landyn Endo (they/he) is a queer, transmasculine-of-center dancer and aerialist, specializing in lyra and silks. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a double major in Dance and Drama. Since graduating, he has enjoyed dancing professionally in LA and on tour with Multiplex Dance Company, helping to found the West Hollywood Dance Festival. He also had the opportunity to perform in Europe with DTM2 Improvisational Ensemble, Off-Broadway in NYC, and in Japan in “Dreaming Forward,” an artistic collaboration with choreographer Motoko Hirayama, as well as teaching dance for two years in Grenada. He has been an instructor of circus, dance, and gymnastics for 17 years, and since moving to the Bay Area can be found teaching at the San Francisco Circus Center and VRV3. He has most recently had the honor of performing in Dark Side of the Circus and Saturnalia with Bow and Arrow Circus, and premiering his aerial lamp duet in The Longest Night. Landyn has a deep passion for encouraging queer and trans youth to find their voice through movement and art.

Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel (she/her) is a Guatemalan playwright and educator, born in Guatemala City and based in Brooklyn. Her works are spiritual, hyper-theatrical narratives that give Black and Brown Queer+ Trans voices a space to interrogate core wounds and offer them a path towards healing.

Esperanza is the recipient of the Princeton Ward Prize for Fiction and Outstanding Achievement in Theater Prize, the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Scholarship from the Yale School of Drama, the Paul Greene Award from the National Theatre Conference, and is a proud member of the third generation of the Kilroys collective.