Magnolia Yang Sao Yia, dance artist and scholar, is a daughter of HMoob refugees and former undocumented immigrant living on Tongva and Kizh lands (Los Angeles, CA). As a choreographer, Magnolia works to activate dancers’ bodily histories and knowledges to craft performative sociopolitical conversations, critiques, and inquiries on stage. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Critical Dance Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Southeast Asian Studies from University of California, Riverside. She holds a BFA in Dance and Minor in Asian American Studies from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her dissertation examines Hmong dance as a site of HMoob identity formation in the U.S. diaspora. Working from a transnational feminist and decolonial praxis, she imagines and works to activate a cultural politic of HMoob belonging and self-determination that is critical of colonial and imperial value systems, especially those that subjugate difference. magnoliayangsaoyia.com