Meet the GEM Ensemble

GEM STAFF

Ifasina Clear, Artistic Director & Dance Chaplin

Master Trainer, Leadership Consultant, and Wellness Artist

I create dynamic and compassionate team based group coaching containers for professionals, organizers, artist, healers, and community based organizations. I have worked with lawyers, policy makers, program managers, elders and youth in intergenerational teams and community roles.

Administration, Operations GEM Organizer

Roni Nicole (they/them/ella) is a professional wrestler, author, activist, model, actress, dancer, and choreographer. Her passion for the arts began at a very early age and has since blossomed into a successful and fulfilling international entertainment career. Born in Houston, Texas, Roni refers to herself as ‘Houston born but Carolina bred’ and her love for the South is only matched by her endeavors to improve its conditions through her arts, poetry, prose, and activism.

Administration & Finance

Tina Pennington (she/her)

I’m the Finance Manager at Get Embodied Soul Movement, where I support a mission that merges mindfulness with purpose. I originally joined the team to help the founder bring her vision to life—what began as a supportive role has grown into a personal commitment to the work we’re doing. I bring financial strategy and heart to the table, helping this passion-fueled movement scale and sustain its impact. Outside the numbers, I’m a big fan of music, fantasy novels, and legal dramas—stories with soul and stakes draw me in every time. I believe in aligning passion with purpose, and I’m proud to help shape a venture that empowers others to live fully embodied lives.

 

GEM Advisory Board

Not Pictured: Dalys Carranza, Dr. Parker T. Hurley, Malik Kimiata

Advisory Board

Demetria Blooms (she/they) is a Black, Fat, Queer, healer and artist born and raised in the South. They support people with remembering their power through ancestral practices and spiritual tools.

GEM Organizer, Advisory Board

Sanzari Aranyak (he/they) is a disabled and desi southern organizer and artist who's been burnt out for years. After organizing in college and working at a nonprofit, he's currently focused on disrupting urgency culture by resting, drawing outside, and spending time with their friends. You can find them online @diasphoriaart for his digital art and tiger balm candles, and find him in the world on a picnic blanket by the trees.

GEM Healer, Advisory Board

Maisha Najuma Aza (she/they)

When Maisha was a child, she taught her mother how to hug. Her mother would tell her this later in life. Little Maisha would innocently skip and cartwheel around as she offered hugs and massages to everyone in her family. That love was taken for granted and taken advantage of. This was a time when not many people knew how sacred a child’s love truly was. Today, Maisha still centers intentional touch in her life. Maisha honors the sacredness of touch, eros, breath, and the heart-centered marriage of sensuality and spirituality, along with boundaries and consent practices. Maisha sees the erotic as life-force-energy, which lives at the center of her purpose. Maisha centers the stories and bodies of Black, fat, disabled, women, trans and queer, bipoc community in her offerings. Their ultimate vision, is that all bodies will come together and weave the sacredness of the erotic into our personal and collective lives for healing, intimacy, resistance, collaboration, harmony and justice. Maisha founded Black Girl Tantra to breathe life into her erotically embodied, world-community vision. Maisha Najuma Aza is proud to call themselves a member of the GEM advisory board and a GEM practitioner.

 

Meet the GEM Practitioners

  • Harshini Saravanan (she/her) has been trained in Bharatanatyam, a classical South Indian dance form, since the age of five. She completed her formal training under Guru Shoba Raman at Kalalaya School of the Performing Arts and performed her Arangetram in August 2022, marking the culmination of her dance education. Harshini has since expanded her passion for dance into teaching, serving as an instructor in Bharatanatyam, Hip-Hop, and Bharatanatyam-Hip-Hop fusion for the past year. Bieyond her involvement in the arts, Harshini is pursuing a double major in Biology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her free time, she enjoys practicing taekwondo, spending time with family and friends, and discovering new places around Chapel Hill.

  • Description text goes hereHello everyone! I'm Sammi Quiboloy (she/her), a dancer and dance teacher from High Point, NC. I'm also a current UNC student majoring in Biology. Most of my dance career was spent at On Stage School of Dance, where I trained and competed in various styles such as ballet, tap, jazz, pointe, and contemporary. Some of my instructors include studio owner Lori Fields, Dr. Tamia Cofield, and Julianna Luchau. During high school, I became a dance major at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts and studied under Amelia Renee Byrd. While expanding my knowledge of familiar dance genres, I was also introduced to other modern techniques and cultural styles. Surprisingly, my experience with traditional Filipino dance isn't as extensive as my other areas of training, but it's easily the most empowering. Guided by JOV church members, I learned and performed my first Filipino dance during my senior year of high school. Continuing into my freshman year of college, I joined UNC Kasama (UNC's Filipinx-American Organization) and its dance team. From beloved Tinikling to crowd-pleasing Pinoy Pop, I attribute most of my Filipino dance knowledge to Asia Ar. Now, I continue my love for dance as a teacher/choreographer for On Stage and Kasama.

  • Hello! I’m KJ (they/them) :) A fat, black, queer, and neuro-expansive dancer. Im a Raleigh-native and both my mother and father’s eldest child. I am passionate about black diasphoric storytelling through movement and dance! Using my lived experience, my passion for dance, and love for community to create access-centered dance experiences. I work to create intentional spaces where all bodies are able to access their divinity through dance. I believe that all bodies deserve to dance and explore movement in a space that accepts their body as holy and infinite.