Arts Leadership Award Program

amara tabor-smith is a choreographer, performance maker, cultural worker and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater. Her interdisciplinary, site responsive and community-specific, performance-making practice utilizes Yorubá spiritual technologies to address issues of social and environmental justice, race, gender identity, homefullness and belonging. amara creates performance experiences in collaboration with her Oakland communities with the intention of cultivating mutual understanding, building deeper relationships and inspiring collective healing. This process has included holding intergenerational dialogues, story circles, grief and rest rituals, and movement-based practices in spaces throughout Oakland such as BLove’s Guest House, West Oakland Mural Project, Eastside Arts Alliance in Oakland’s San Antonio District, and Bandaloop Studios in West Oakland. She currently holds a monthly community gathering at Bandaloop Studios known as “The Call IN: Community Conversations on What Matters to Us.” amara tabor-smith is a resident of Oakland.