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Ellie Kerwin was born and raised in Oakland, California where she grew up surrounded by music and dance. Since the age of three she has danced at Danspace Studio, mainly focused in ballet, modern, and choreography, although she loves to experience all types of dance. She started performing with dNaga Dance Co. in 2014, where she was introduced to intergenerational work with youth as well as dancers with Parkinson’s disease. She is continually driven by creating art as political and social resistance. Currently she is looking forward to majoring in dance at the University of Oregon in the Fall of 2021. Ellie is eternally grateful to have been a part of the communities of creative dancers, teachers, and artists at dNaga and Danspace, who have furthered her passion for dance.

Erin Landers is a Brooklyn based dancer, choreographer, and teacher. In addition to dancing with dNaga, she is a founding member of ECHOensemble, an improvising group of musicians and dancers, and was a co-founder of A-Y/dancers, a Hudson-Valley based repertory company. Erin is influenced by her upbringing in a musical household and study of many dance forms including modern, contemporary, ballet, Zimbabwean, Irish, and Balkan Dance as well as mime. As a professional, Erin has performed works by José Limón, Merce Cunningham, Doug Varone, Bill T. Jones, and Hannah Garner. Erin teaches dance to children, teens, and adults in New York City, Westchester, and online. As a teacher, she supports students in cultivating dance technique in a way that facilitates deepening enjoyment and expressivity

Leila Massoudi is a Bay Area freelance dancer, born in Berkeley, California and is trained in Modern/Contemporary, Ballet, Jazz, and Persian dance. Leila is half Kurdish/Iranian and through the local Iranian community she had her earliest dance experiences in Persian Dance, training with the Shahrzad Dance Academy. She later joined dNaga Dance Company based in Oakland (2018). Leila has since been involved in numerous projects with dNaga including performing at the World Parkinson’s Congress in Portland, Oregon (2016), Kyoto, Japan (2019) and Barcelona, Spain (2023). In training & professionally she has worked with Nicole Duffy & Davis Robertson from the New York Dance Project, Natasha Diamond-Walker, Michael Nickerson-Rossi, Jamila Glass, Clarence Brooks, Meg Madorin, and Stephanie Liapis. Recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a BA in Dance, she is continuing her training in the Bay Area & involved in various freelance dance projects. Leila remains passionate and committed to showing how beneficial movement and dance is for individuals beyond the artistic community.

Pei Yi Tam Peng moved to California when she was 11 years old, following four years of traveling to different countries. She transferred to UC Berkeley as a Public Health major. She is working as a young consultant at Banteay Srei, an anti-sex trafficking and sex-assaulted organization that intends to heal and empower young women at risk of trafficking by providing accessible community resources to meet their needs. The goal of dNaga’s project Mom & Me; The Warrior Heart empowers young women and their mothers by exploring their relationship while building a sense of connection and support to each other; this goal overlapped with the core of Banteay Srei. With the guidance of Claudine and the inspiration of other dancers, Pei Yi had learned to express her winding relationship with her mother via modern art moves. The winding caused by some disparity between her and her mother in the aspects of age, immigration, language, and overall cultural environment often caused a lot of conflicts between them. She is grateful for the learning process of adjusting herself to have the best relationship she could have with her mom before she passed away.