Dr. L’Antoinette Stines (OD), lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica and is a global force in dance, a cultural historian, and the visionary founder of L’Acadco: A United Caribbean Dance Force. With a PhD in Cultural Studies, she has spent decades translating the ‘natural mystic’ of Jamaica into a world-class movement language. She is the pioneering creator of L’Antech, the first codified and examinable Anglo-Caribbean modern dance technique. Now a cornerstone of the CSEC and CAPE Performing Arts syllabi, L’Antech serves as both an academic pillar and a powerful tribute to ancestral ‘blood memories’. Her journey of bridging classical form with Caribbean soul is documented in her book, Soul Casings. Stines’s extraordinary career has been honored by the Government of Jamaica with the Order of Distinction (Officer Class), alongside the Silver Musgrave Award and the Joe Nash Award from Duke University.Today, she continues to ignite the future of the arts through the L’Antoinette Performing Arts Akadamie (LAPAA) and the upcoming 2026 landmark event, “Daaancing the Ancestral Fyah”.
Foundation’s fellowship in 2021 in Cassis, France. She was curator for performance in public spaces at the Serendipity Festival, Goa in 2024. In India, she was awarded the Bismillah Khan award for her choreographic contribution by the Ministry of Culture, India. Her work has been featured in forums such as the Szene Salzburg, Impulstanz Vienna, the South Bank Centre London, the Esplanade theatre in Singapore and JOMBA, Durban, South Africa, among others.
Dr Mbongeni N. Mtshali is a Fulbright Scholar and holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. He is currently Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies at the University of Cape Town. Mtshali is a multidisciplinary performance practitioner working across choreoscenography, animation and puppetry, and site-specific performance installation. Recent professional recognitions include the Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award and the Fleur du Cap Theatre Award for his achievements in directing and performance-making. His research, both practical and theoretical, centres on black queer/femme performance in South Africa and across Africa and its diaspora. He examines how the unruly aesthetics of black queer/femme performance challenge nationally sanctioned performance repertoires and the frameworks of African respectability, cultural intelligibility, and ethnonational belonging those repertoires uphold. His more recent work traces queer genealogies of African decolonial world-making in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean.
Ondiege Matthew is a dancer, choreographer, and DANCE INTO SPACE founder, a group of contemporary dancers, socially engaged performance artists, and the only mixed ability contemporary dance company in East Africa. Through exploring personal stories and employing participatory methods, the company under Ondiege creates touring productions, teaches dance, empowers people with different abilities, raises awareness on human rights issues, and strengthens self-advocacy. DANCE INTO SPACE works with other civil society members, creatives and government agencies, carries out civic education, constitutional education and human rights awareness among citizens in Kenya through the creative arts. As a leading contemporary dance choreographer as well as an activist, Ondiege has been using the mixed ability dance projects as a creative approach to inclusiveness since 2005. The projects address stigma while tackling punitive cultural practices that promote discrimination and basic human rights violations among people with disability. He continues to produce new and original works with his team.