Founder Jes Deville is a dance-theatre-circus choreographer, community health worker, and visual artist using site-specific performance as a radical locus of repair. Inspired by dance anthropologist Katherine Dunham’s public health advocacy across Caribbean landscapes, it is through counter-colonial study, speculative storytelling, and abolitionist dreaming that Jes navigates critical thresholds between behavioral health and spatial justice. As an agent of cultural diplomacy, Jes is interrogating how social determinants inform biological responses at points of dysregulation, epigenetic inheritance, and adaptive community resilience – using creative exchanges across borders to promote social and ecological health between nations.

Their project Openhaus Athletics was established in 2017 to address linkages between ecosystems and social systems, designing novel international experiences uplifting recreation as community care. Social prescriptions for behavioral interventions can be key drivers of health, preventing disease onset and inflammation while strengthening immune system response. Coupling baseline assessments with expressive arts therapies – their events, installations, and public performances uphold a commitment to both living heritage and community wellbeing. Jes’ efforts are scaffolded by a Certificate of Integrative Health and Healing (UCSF), a Certificate of EcoTherapy (EarthBody Institute), and a Permaculture Design Certification (Occidental Arts & Ecology). Jes is an academic researcher for The Humanities Institute, as well as a member of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science, Performing Arts Medicine Association, and the American Circus Alliance. Jes is pursuing a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in Global & Community Health and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies from University of California, Santa Cruz.

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• public sensory installations

• small group coaching & dynamic bodywork

• science communication & participatory performance