Aftermath

Matthew Roberts is an Ohio native and professional dancer and choreographer. He trained at the University of Akron and earned his BFA in Dance and Choreography from Marymount Manhattan College in 2013. In the past decade, Matthew has performed with over fifteen companies, including Bruce Wood Dance, Oakland Ballet Company, Neos Dance Theatre, and Moore-Dunson Co. He is currently preparing to tour as a collaborator and dancer with The Remember Balloons Live! His choreographic footprint includes works for the Ohio Contemporary Ballet’s Emerging Artist Showcase, a fellowship with the Akron Dance Concert Series, and leadership of his own company, Frtrss Dance Theatre, which first presented work alongside Ballet Legato. Beyond the stage, Matthew shares his faith through two new newsletters—one written and one movement-based—that translate personal experiences into 'ebenezers,' encouraging spiritual travelers with reminders of God's faithfulness.

LARRY DARNELL WHITE, JR began studying dance at a young age participating in various techniques like jazz, hip-hop, contemporary, and the Cecchetti technique in ballet. His fondness for movement developed into a passion. After 11 years of training his technique with Donna Crean's D.C. Dancers, he continued his studies with higher education at The University of Akron, where he graduated in December 2024 with a BFA in dance. Throughout his college career he had worked with variegated Artists. casted by Monica Bill Barnes in “The Running Show” in 2021, then Kimberly Bartosik in “The Encounter:Akron," and local ones such as Dominic Moore-Dunson.

Veronique Kolibe-Gnamikou (She/Her, Spring '27) is a Psychology major with a double minor in Entrepreneurship and ASL. Throughout her life, she has been very involved in the creative arts. She paints, writes, draws, sings, dances and many more. She got her first involvement in the performing arts in elementary through choir and musicals. She continued on by participating in musicals in middle and high school, gaining more experience and more confidence on the stage. She's also done speech in the categories drama, extemporaneous reading and discussion for a short while. She also loves to do photography, graphic design and video editing when she has time. In University, she continued on by joining the university choir and theater club and actually played the lead in She Kills Monsters her freshman year. She's also a very involved student on campus through other things like BASU (Black Student Union), Cru and the Honors Society. Now, she continues on her creative endeavors through side projects and through this project The Aftermath. This has been something she'd never done before and has learned a lot throughout the process. She's happy she had the opportunity to work with so many creative people and grow as a creative.

Zola Dee, a playwright, screenwriter, and performer, weaves stories that delve deep into the complexities of home & displacement, Black Americana, African diasporic religions, queerness, and imagining freer worlds for the Black collective body. Her most notable work GUNSHOT MEDLEY: Part 1 was Ovation Award recommended and published in Routledge’s Contemporary Plays by Women of Color. Her plays have been seen and/or developed with The National Black Theatre of Harlem, Skylight Theater, East West Players, Red Eye Theater, Rogue Machine Theater, Collaborative Artists Bloc, Hi-Arts, CalArts Center for New Performance, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Playwrights’ Center, and Antaeus Theatre Company. Her plays include: [Home]going, Smile, Goddamnit, Smile; Rain, River, Ocean; On Freeing Fire and Father, Father. Beyond the stage, Dee's creative vision extends to the screen, where she is developing works for film & television. Among her works in development are Lola, Lowlands, and an untitled film inspired by the eclectic personalities and raw energy of her time in Berlin.
Inspired by her transformative experiences in Berlin, Zola has shifted her focus to what it means to be a global citizen artist in these times. Her creative and producerial work is now aimed at fostering cross-cultural discourse, challenging conventional boundaries, and seeking innovative ways to cultivate solidarity among marginalized peoples worldwide. In an era defined by both digital connection and political fracture, she is passionate about amplifying underrepresented voices to bridge our deepest divides.
She is currently a 2025 - 2028 Jerome Hill Fellow in Theater, Performance, and Spoken Word and one of the I AM Soul National Black Theater of Harlem resident playwrights. Other accomplishments include: Playwrights’ Center’s Jerome Fellow 2022-2023 & Many Voices Fellow 2021-2022, CTG Writer’s Workshop 2019-2020 , 2017-2018 Core Apprentice at The Playwrights’ Center, 2018 Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights Diversity Fellow and the Calarts R&P Black American Dialects Fellow. In addition to her writing endeavors, she has provided writing consultation services to Meow Wolf and other companies based in Hollywood. Currently, she serves as a Program Officer at the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council in the Twin Cities.
Zola Dee holds a BFA in Acting and a minor in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. She is currently represented by Lizzy Weingold at WME and managed by Stefan Rich.
For more information go to www.zoladee.com

Ahaiwe Sowinski is an artist and archivist whose research investigates the intersections between (self-)archiving, curatorial practice, and artistic production. Grounded in Black feminisms and DIY queer cultures, her work explores how archives can function as spaces of resistance, care, and cultural memory. In spring 2025, Sowinski received both Association for Art History Curatorial Prizes—for Exhibitions and for Curatorial Writing/Publications for Ronald Moody: Sculpting Life (Thames & Hudson, 2024), a project developed from her doctoral research. Her writing and photography have been featured in Feminist Review, British Art Studies, Tate Etc., Hyperallergic, and MN Artists. In recent years, Ahaiwe Sowinski has been in active dialogue and collaboration with Memorialize the Movement, co-developing educational and community-centered initiatives that preserve, digitize, and interpret historical objects, sustaining the legacies of Black creativity, resilience, and cultural memory.