R.E.A.P. 2026
AZ ESPINOZA & VYETTE TIYA
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Saturday, March 7th, 2026
6pm
The Art Room Studio
2329 s 3rd st
Suggested Donation: $15-$35 dollars
Residency for Emerging Artists Project (REAP) is an artist-led residency typically spanning 1-2 years for 2-3 local artists in Philadelphia working across dance, music, theater, and performance. Artists are offered unlimited FREE studio space at The Art Room Studio, a stipend, and administrative support for a culminating event.
Studio Accessibility:
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The Art Room Studio is in a building with a 4-step stoop.
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The Art Room Studio is up 3 flights of stairs. There is no elevator.
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There is a single stall gender neutral bathroom in the basement of the building.
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If you are taking public transportation, the studio is close to the 57 bus route, and about a 20 minute walk from the BSL Snyder stop.
Subcircle Photos: credit Nikki Cousineau
AZ Espinoza left, Lu Donovan center, Severin Blake right
AZ Espinoza is an afro-futurist-trans-masculine-feminist making magic through theatre. As a playwright, director, mover and maker, his praxis is grounded in community building, embodiments of queer joy, and decolonial ritual practice. AZ’s solo performance work has been supported by Subcircle Residency, Leah Stein Dance Company, and the Longshot comedy series at Vox Populi Gallery. Recent collaborations include a staged reading of his play Caribbean King (voted “most promising” in Philly Inquirer Fringe Picks 2025), co-adapting an ecstatically queer and contemporary intervention on Mae West’s 1927 melodrama The Drag (nominated for the Philadelphia Award for Social Insight), and appearing as a featured dancer and performer in Forehand Down the Line (Philly Fringe 2024, lead artist Thomas Choinacky), and Dream Sweet, Rough Man (Philly Fringe 2023, lead artists Lu Donavan and Micah Lockman-Fine). AZ is proud to be a theater educator for all ages, most recently at Ursinus College and Haverford College, and they are a student of liberation everywhere, and for everyone. Visit AZinMovement.com for more!
About the piece
A duet for one body, Mar-Z: A Menstrual Musical is part stand-up, part-experimental dance, and always a reckoning between AZ and the maps he has made when defending against the discomforts of dysphoria. The question is, can he read them? A piece written for a body in transition, AZ is testing out some new material before another bout of puberty renders it all prematurely outdate d. (*includes discussions of nudity, male menstruation, body dysmorphia, gender dysphoria, and time travel).
Things to share
The piece’s ingredients include homemade songs, bad jokes, good haiku, and tarot pulls that remind me that neither good nor bad truly exist. This is a solo performance that is perennially helped by friends along the way. Some photographic evidence of said help include residency time with Lu Donovan and Severin Blake at SubCircle Residency and studio time with members of Kinda Dirty (Savannah Reich, Severin Blake, and Annie Wilson photo credit).
Vyette Tiya (she/her) is a Kenyan-American dancer, performer, choreographer, teacher, and arts administrator based in Philadelphia. Vyette’s artistry is rooted in her heritage, diverse training, and desire to create community through creativity.
Vyette has collaborated with and performed in works by Davalois Fearon, Britta Joy Peterson, Meredith Rainey, Omari Wiles, Keila Cordova, and Carne Viva Dance Theatre, among others. She has performed in site-specific and staged productions at the Smithsonian National Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center, Icebox Project Space, Esperanza Arts Center, AS220, and the McCarter Theatre. In the spring 2025, Vyette completed an artist-in-residence program at the Earth Dance Collective in Western Massachusetts, where she developed a new solo project titled “belly up.” She teaches weekly open level movement classes with Dance Church and intermediate/advanced classes. Vyette is also the co-owner of Philly Dance Share: an artist-led organization offering affordable dance classes and programs. Vyette holds a Bachelor’s from American University and a Master’s degree from Princeton University. Connect with her at vyettetiya.com, @vyettetiya on socials, and vyettetiya.com
