MARIA CAMIA (she/her) is a Filipino American Visual Theater Artist, Director, Fashion Designer, and Introspective Hypnosis Practitioner who creates Spiritual / Sci-Fi Theater with the intention to globally inspire liberation through her created world of Aricama, the land of practice, play, and healing. She performed original work at Chicago’s International Puppet Festival, Dixon Place, La MaMa, and Coney Island USA. She has puppeteered for Dan Hurlin, Chris Meyers, and CultureHub and created puppets for Leviathan Lab, Stairwell Theater, and Nana Dakin. Maria received The Jim Henson Workshop Grant ’20 and ’22, The Jim Henson Production Grant ‘23, and The NY Women’s Fund ‘23. The Healing Shipment’s world premiere will be at La Mama’s Puppet Festival November 2-5, 2023.

Project: Aricama Liberation follows the story of Ari and Cama strategizing to take back their homeland from the bees in a body ceremony before returning to the surface of their home planet. Join this puppet ritual story with music exploring manifestation, mission, and compassion.

BENJAMIN CHIN

Míng, aka saxofshaolin, is the confluence between East and West. As a saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, he seeks to merge the musical lineages of his upbringing. He fuses American, South East Asian, and Afro-Caribbean music and creates music that sounds like a dance between the ancestors of the three traditions. This is not only an effort to experiment with music but also to find common ground between far-flung cultures. It’s an approach that has developed, instinctually, from his experience as an immigrant and a Hakka Chinese, a nomad by blood. His music is simultaneously traditional and contemporary. Equally aggressive and tasteful. Always danceable and spiritual.

Project: Long Lost Cousins is an imagination and exploration of the shared history of Hakka Chinese and Jamaican music.

SHU-YING CHUNG

Having grown up in Taipei and now living in New York City, Shu-Ying Chung has worked as a director and editor of TV and web commercials at Albert Lan Creative, as an editor for the PBS television series Live from the Artists Den (including a special film that was released in theaters), and as post-production supervisor for Hearst Magazines. Chung has edited various short films, music videos, and editorial content for fashion websites, and wrote and directed a virtual reality film as well as a short film titled Removable, which won 17 awards throughout its festival run. Her personal projects draw inspiration from the true events of our unique moment in time, focusing on issues surrounding identity, justice, and power dynamics, in a way that challenges prevailing narratives and the tendency to tiptoe around sensitive topics.

Project: 2020 Run Amok welcomes spectators into a mind fried by the tropes and trends of social media, as these tangled synapses try to process the mayhem of 2020 and touchy topics from across the Chinese-speaking world.

NANCY MA

Nancy Ma is an actor, filmmaker, and teaching artist from Chinatown New York. She recently directed her first documentary short, 有一天，你不在 one day you are not here (NYFA Women’s Fund recipient, En Foco Media Arts Awardee) about her relationship with her immigrant dad, and is currently developing a narrative film & stage play, Sweatshop Melody, inspired by her mom’s work in the garment factory. Her solo show “Home,” produced by The Latino Theater Company, premiered at The Los Angeles Theater Center, and has been performed at festivals and schools around the country. Acting credits include Support (On the Verge, Ojai Playwrights), Three Little Girls Down a Well (UTR, The Public), Memorial (Pan Asian Repertory Theater), Barry (HBO), Hacks (HBO). She has facilitated workshops with The Moth, Girls Who Code, The Bramon Garcia Braun Studio, and Young Storytellers. She is thrilled to be part of MOCA’s inaugural Performing Artist-in-Residence Program.

Project: This Body Was Made for Bleeding explores memory and legacy through the mapping of her relationship to her immigrant mom.