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At this year’s FRESH festival of experimental dance, music and performance, artists are fostering healing from trauma such as domestic violence and sex trafficking through creative expression. Co-curator José Navarrete and exchange artist Regina Y. Evans discuss their interpretations of the festival’s theme, “tender,” and how they’re bringing this work to the stage.

Evans’ collaboration with two other artists on an installation and a poetic rendering of the commodification of the Black female womb will be presented at Brava Theater Center on 24th Street at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 8. Navarrete’s company NAKA Dance Theater and Mujeres Unidas y Activas will hold a conversation and talent showcase telling stories of survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence at Brava on Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m.

FRESH festival runs January 6 – 26.

“The main thing I keep thinking about in 2020 is joy… We have so many things that we have built that are on a bed of trauma. And so I wonder, what if we built it on our joy?” — Regina Y. Evans

I host and report for “Civic,” a San Francisco public affairs radio show and podcast from the Public Press. I've been a multimedia reporter and producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I've reported on housing, health, immigration and homelessness for local news site Mission Local and produced conversations about local, regional and national current affairs for “Your Call,” a live call-in program on KALW-FM public radio.