Infinity Loop - Dress Rehearsal

Divina (Sammy Briseno Jimenez) and Icon (Sabree Gilkes) invite you to enter the Infinity Loop. Infinity Loop is an experimental dance and musical work that highlights the multiplicity of our trans identity and the expansiveness of selves we have experienced through centralizing transness. This visceral integration of our ideas, stories, choreography, gestures and approaches to community building will blend visuals, live music, and dance performances, inside of a community event. With original lyrics, choreography and new movies/shorts/scenes we will take the audience through a journey of endless migration, identity and self discovery. 

Dates: April 23, 2026 

Time: 3:30 PM

Free & Open to All who support and respect queer and trans lives

Explicit language and mature themes. 

Bring it in a look that exudes your essence! Bring the glitter, the chrome, and don’t be afraid to shine! Arrive ready to transcend. 

This work is made with and for our communities. It's all for you. 

In Collaboratoration with: 

Natasha Backwards

Josh Burgess

Nohely “Nene” Gomez

Elevisi “Lucky” Matafahi

Perry Neveah Piasshoe

Darinka “Diosa” Ramirez

Parking Information

Step 1: Link coming soon!

Step 2: Enter your license plate in the “License Plate Number”

Step 3: If the plate is non-California, select the appropriate state for the plate.

Step 4: Press ‘Park’

Collaborator Bios: 

Natasha Backwards: Emerging from the queer nightlife scene of Palm Springs, DJ AHSATAN brings pure heat to the dancefloor. From Underground warehouses to iconic SoCal venues, her high-energy, genre-blending sound has earned her spots alongside sickening artists like Water Spirit, VNSSA, Casska, and Bella Hue. Get ready to lose yourself in a hypnotic ride of fierce, empowering beats that will keep you moving all night long.

Josh Burgess: It didn’t take long after being born for Josh to fall in love with the performing and creative arts. It was easy to notice him as he grew admiring, singing along, or dancing to the work of imaginative artists that had inspiration woven into their work. When the opportunity came to join choirs and dance crews, Josh discovered a fulfilling passion to entertain others and share in the love of being expressive with fellow creative people. Learning and partaking in these art forms while also being in community continues to be an exciting privilege with every chance to honor someone’s vision. Whether personally highlighting his immense pride in his Black American and Queer heritages or being a vessel for another’s message, Josh is always honored to create.

Nohely Gomez: Nohely Gomez (they/all pronouns) is a queer, first generation, Méxicana Americana dance (for) camera, movement & performance artist. Rooted in Tongva Land also known as Los Angéles. Educator, nopal, brujé con romero. Nohely submerges in the art of dance corporeally moving, remembering, and queering what it means to be of relation and connection. Their recent works study the connections between the internal, the external, the visibility, and the tangibility of materiality. Learning, unlearning, and redefining what notions and ideologies of movement and the body connote. With words and existing sounds, Nohely finds accessible ways to spiral and play, (re)Earthing multiplicity in the art of storytelling. Elle con fuerza (they with strength) trust to reveal and grounds to dismantle and heal, co-create and equilibrate. 

Elevisi Matafahi: I am Elevisi “Lucky” Matafahi, a runway model and multifaceted artist currently based in downtown Los Angeles, originally from Gila River, Arizona. My creative foundation is rooted in my background in gallery management and organization, which I studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Before establishing myself in Los Angeles, my first home in California was the Inland Empire, where I formed a deep connection with the ballroom scene. It was within this community that I found support during a pivotal transition from Arizona. Through my involvement, especially with Infinitea, I was encouraged to explore and expand my trans identity, my dance practice, and my presence in vogue to new heights.

Perry Piasschoe: Perry Neveah Picasshoe (She/He/They) is a first-generation Mexican-American artist and designer based in Southern California, with an art degree from UCLA. They fundamentally believe that art should be something you live in. Perry’s work often explores their Queer Latinx identity and experiences with bipolar disorder. 

Darinka Ramirez: Holis, my name is Darinka and I'm a 4th year dance making student at UCR. I was born and raised in the vibrant, culturally rich, and historical city of Mexico. Raised by my mother born and raised in Puebla and my father from Oaxacan Mixteca descent. My research is based on ritual dance as world making, world replacing, and world destroying. Ritual is one of the earliest forms of dance recorded and it is used to create and manifest realities. I also know that ritual dance emerged from native cultures such as my own. I see ritual as the closest proximity to the dance of Mother Earth, and I think that's why I feel a special calling towards it. I feel that if my dance comes from a place where the earth is cared for and kept in mind it can help me create pieces that feel genuine, combat imperialism norms, and be uplifting and powerful to me and like-minded people, and anyone who becomes inspired and/or called upon by my choreography. I’m beyond happy to be collaborating with like minded artists such as Divina and Icon.

Sabree Gilkes: Sabree Gilkes aka Icon is a multidisciplinary artist. Their art explores the intersections of identity, observations of the Black Queer and Trans experience and Blackness along with Black aesthetics as a whole. From fashion, music production and dance, Icon blends the binary and creates worlds for observers to explore experiences and themselves within. While Sabree has had history in dance and performance, experimental choreography is a new path they have had the gracious opportunity to explore with Sammy. Icon hopes to bring their skills of Hip-hop, Vogue, commercial choreography and essence to every floor they have the pleasure to perform on while leaving their chrome glow  upon the space and those within it.

Sammy Briseno Jimenez: Sammy (Divina) Briseno Jimenez is a queer transformer who enchants the space with their magic. Their work focuses on dance making, community building and collective care, specifically for BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ communities. A descendant of immigrant land laborers who sprouted new life in the twin-border cities Mexicali-Calexico, Sammy queerly disrupts any confining configuration or binding binary. Sammy’s work is sensational, dreamy, imaginative, reflective, and weaves together a collective tapestry of their identities, to pull the threads to a tighter tension, not only adorn but also to address our many intersections and how these intersectionalities are widely contested inside of our current political regime.

This work is presented by the University of California, Riverside, Department of Dance and created in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Experimental Choreography.