Beverly Botsford is a cross-cultural percussionist and educator, blending music, movement, and spoken word in solo and ensemble presentations.  Embracing drumming traditions and inspirations of Africa, Cuba, South America and her native North Carolina, she weaves colorful rhythmic tapestries with her infinite array of collected and homemade instruments.

Beverly celebrates more than 30 years of full-time, professional experience, performing and teaching in an infinite variety of situations. Highlights include 13 years of touring with Chuck Davis and the African American Dance Ensemble as well as more than a decade on the faculty of the American Dance Festival. Over the years, she has shared her passion for rhythm and culture in hundreds of school and community residencies, workshops and performances, in solo and ensemble presentations. Since 1998, Beverly has toured internationally with Grammy nominated jazz vocalist, Nnenna Freelon in such venues as the Kennedy Center, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Umbria Jazz Festival. Television credits include appearances on CBS “Good Morning,” BET Jazz, UNC-TV’s “Our State” and WRAL’s award winning, “Smart Start Kids.”

Recent highlights include work with the Urban Bush Women Dance Company as well as performances with Nnenna Freelon in London, Greece, Brazil, Angola and in Hawaii for President Obama and 200 world heads of state.

Beverly offers a variety of solo and ensemble performances as well as workshops and residencies. She tailors presentations to the needs of the presenter, the audience and in educational settings, to the curriculum. She is on the touring and education roster for the NC Arts Council and is a member of Alternate ROOTS, www.alternateroots.org, intersecting  arts and activism to build a better world.

Joan Francisco Valdés Santos is equally an artist and a scholar. While his formal education is in sports/recreation, science and psychology, he is also a prolific writer, composer and journalist with a wide range of knowledge and experience in Cuban music, art, literature and culture. In 2005 he received his Doctorate from the Instituto Superior de Cultura Física Manual Fajardo in Cuba, where he was one of the 46 members of the Science Council of INDER, National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation. Valdés Santos founded Arte Yoruba: The Center for On-Line Studies, a virtual resources and on-line study center for African Diaspora Art and Culture especially reflecting the spiritual Yoruba/Orisha Diaspora. His most recent poetry publications includef Donde riena el amor y la esperanza/Where Love and Hope Reign (Souloworks Press 2012), Medicina del alma/Medicine for the Soul (2014) and Quijotesco Y Cervantino.

Aubrey Roze (she/her+) is a dance artist, percussionist, multi-instrumentalist, and facilitator based in Durham, NC, on Turtle Island. Her relationship with rhythm began in childhood through tap dance and early music studies with the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble and her lifelong mentor and teacher, Annie Dwyer. She has also studied both in the United States and internationally with a wide range of teachers, including Eddie Torres, Shaka Brown, Juan “Pachanga” Mayos, Magna Gopal, Ana Masacote, Giselle Ponce, among others.

As a lifelong dance artist, student, and educator, Aubrey has engaged a wide range of movement traditions, with a focus on social and partner dance practices rooted in Afro-Latin and Afro-diasporic lineages. She approaches this work with respect for the cultural contexts from which these forms emerge, honoring the traditions, teachers, and communities that carry them.

Her work includes a practice-based, cross-cultural inquiry into social dance forms, exploring shared structures such as rhythm and relationship alongside culturally specific movement expressions. She has taught, performed, and supported dance communities across the United States and internationally, and has contributed to the production and facilitation of large-scale social dance festivals, congresses, and dancesport championships.

Aubrey is the founder of Living Arts Collective and the Durham Salt Cave, where she co-creates spaces for embodied practice, creative expression, and community connection. She also builds handcrafted cajóns and drums through Ritmo+Roots, a family-based instrument-making project, and is a producer and host of the Third Sunday Rhythm & Roots program—stewarding an intergenerational space for live music, dance, and cultural exchange.

Her work centers intergenerational spaces and community connection, supporting attunement, embodied resilience, and shared creative expression.