Rita Liu, 柳璇 (spelled Liu Hsuan and pronounced Lee-o Shu-en), is a Taiwanese interdisciplinary artist, theater maker, creative mover, and facilitator. Her work interweaves movement, language, and playfulness, often exploring the space between structure and spontaneity. As a teaching artist, Rita has collaborated with Community-Word Project, Waterwell Drama Program, APEX for Youth, and Pink Fang, creating spaces for youth to amplify their voices and explore culture and identity.

C Meranda Flachs-Surmanek (they/them) is a performance artist, memory worker, cultural organizer, and facilitator. With the Monuments Across Appalachian Places project, they support community leaders to use participatory arts and commemoration as tools for organizing, storytelling, and social change. Meranda collaborates with Wemanity Coaching and is a 2026 NYSCA Support for Artists grantee, working on a devised theatre project with people who have a relationship to psychiatric facilities, exploring the theme of freedom.

Rita and Meranda work with groups to produce documentary and investigative theatre, where people perform their own stories in community settings. Their work history includes collaborations with Pink Fang (formerly Ping Chong + Company) and The Clinic Performance. They have created documentary and storytelling performances with Boro Park YM-YWHA, CCNS Woodhaven Senior Center, Cypress Hills-Fulton Street Center, Educational Alliance, Elmhurst-J.H. Senior Center, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Maspeth Older Adult Center, Mencius Society for the Arts, and the Queens Center for Gay Seniors. Their plays and workshops have been created with and for healthcare workers and caregivers with Actors Theatre Louisville and the Kentucky Nurses Association, Carilion Clinic, Children’s Hospital Colorado, The Creative Center at University Settlement, Denver Health, Kaiser Permanente, Northwell, the Oncology Nursing Foundation, Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children, and Staten Island University Hospital.