Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Sam Aros-Mitchell- Season 18, Episode 182

Sam Aros-Mitchell (he/him) is an enrolled member of the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians and an interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator. His work spans performance, sound, light and scenic design, choreography, and embodied writing. Rooted in Indigenous cosmologies, his practice activates performance spaces as sacred sites of transformation, remembrance, and futurity. Through embodied scholarship, he interrogates colonial histories, uplifts BIPOC artistic excellence, and envisions just futures. Aros-Mitchell holds a Ph.D. in Drama and Theatre from the joint doctoral program at UC San Diego/UC Irvine, an MFA in Dance Theatre from UC San Diego, and a BFA from UC Santa Barbara. He is a 2025 Jerome Fellow and a 2023 McKnight Dance Fellow. Recently, he produced the inaugural Macalester Native Play Festival and will produce a week-long Indigenous arts festival in Mni Sota Makoce in November 2025, supported by the Minnesota State Arts Board. As a choreographer, his works include Ania Bwia Bwia Toochia , performed at Red Eye’s Works in Progress (May 2023), and Finding Sentience , performed by Semaphore Dance Repertory (November 2023). Since 2017, Aros-Mitchell has collaborated with Rosy Simas Danse as a performer, teacher, and community engagement organizer, appearing in Skins (2018), Weave (2019), Simas’ short film yödoishëndahgwa’geh (2021), and she lives on the road to war (2022–2024). He has also performed in Prairie/Concrete with Aniccha Arts (2023), Inner Blades of Grass (Soft), Inner Blades of Grass (Cured), Inner Blades of Grass (Bruised by the Weather) by Alutiiq/Sugpiaq multidisciplinary artist Tanya Lukin Linklater (2024), and Morgan Thorson’s Untitled Night (2024).For more information, visit www.samarosmitchell.com