amara tabor-smith

amara tabor-smith is an Oakland, CA-based choreographer/performance maker and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater. She describes her dance and performance-making practice as Conjure Art. Her interdisciplinary site-responsive and community-specific performance experiences utilize Yoruba Lukumí spiritual technologies to address issues of social and environmental justice, race, gender identity, and belonging. Their work is rooted in Black, queer, feminist principles that insist on liberation, joy, home fullness and well-being. Her work has been performed in theaters and public sites nationally and internationally.  They are a 2023 recipient of the Religion in the Arts Award from the American Academy of Religion; a 2021 inaugural recipient of the Rainin Fellowship for Artists; a 2019 Dance/USA Fellow; and a 2018 United States Artist Fellow. amara is currently an artist in residence at Stanford University.