Tara Bellardini trained with East Coast Movement under the direction of Billy Larson. She is a graduate of The Ailey School Certificate Program and trained in summer intensives at Abraham.In.Motion and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. As an Ailey II company member, she performed R-Evolution, Dream by Hope Boykin for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2017 and 2018. She was awarded the Glorya Kaufman Dance Foundation Scholarship. She toured internationally with Parsons Dance in China, a guest artist with Owen/Cox Dance Group and Earl Mosley Diversity of Dance, and a member of Jennifer Muller/ The Works. She performed in the first run of The Other Side at the Kennedy Center with Hope Boykin. Last fall, she was in residency with Hope Boykin "Works and Process" in Chautauqua, NY and performed in a showing at the Guggenheim. She has also worked with Alison Cook Beatly Dance as a guest artist and performed with AThomas Project, Earl Mosley Diversity of Dance, Adrienne Hurd, and Amar Smalls. 

Destinee Bouldin was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. Bouldin attended Douglas Anderson School of the Arts High School and trained at Britney Boyd Dance

Company. During her time in grade school, she worked and traveled with artists such as Fransisco Gella, Stephanie Powell, Talia Favia, Eddy Toussaint, Levi Marsman, and Frank Musso. In 2020, Bouldin was accepted to Towson University in Maryland where she will receive a BFA in dance performance and choreography in the Spring of 2024. 

During her time in college, she has had the pleasure of working with Francisco Gella, Yusha Sorzano, and Lauren Edon for Zeitgeist Dance Theater’s 2022 Summer Company; Ephrat Asherie, Vincent Thomas, Alison Seidenstricker, and Runqiao Du in Towson University’s Fall 2022 Dance Company; as well as artistic directors and company members of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in the Summer of 2023.

Daisy Denicore began dancing at age two and never stopped. She danced through high school locally at the Loudoun School of Ballet, then as a trainee for BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio. She also completed summer intensives with the Kennedy Center Dance Lab with Hope Boykin, San Francisco Ballet, and ABT. Currently, Denicore is dancing, acting, and training in NYC, where she recently portrayed the lead role of Lola in a short film titled “Knots,” danced in a music video for singer Laura Lizcano, and performed a contemporary ballet solo titled “Ne me quitte pas” by choreographer Seth Gertsacov for Ballet Vérité. Denicore is honored to have this second opportunity to help bring Jacqueline Woodson’s The Other Side to life. Dance, like other art forms, tears down fences, and Denicore is certain that Boykin’s amazing story-telling choreography will touch the lives of the audience and inspire every one of us to tear down fences in our lives.

Kendall Dennis started dancing with several dance studios within LA, CA at just four years old. Through her dance journey, she received cash prizes, honorable mentions, and opportunities to travel throughout the US and two countries. For twelve years, Dennis trained with the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in the advanced level and ensemble company. Dennis has performed with celebrities including Misty Copeland, Mariah Carey, Common, Jill Scott, and more. She has performed at award presentations including the 62nd Grammy Awards, Kennedy Center shows, and for Michelle Obama at the White House. Dennis has been a part of a few Hope Boykin dance projects including the on-stage production The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson and Leonard Bernstein's 50th anniversary of Mass. Currently a senior dance major at Howard University, Dennis looks forward to pursuing her dance career, growing as an individual performer, exploring new choreographic experiences, earning her masters, and traveling.

Cameron Harris is a graduating senior dance major from Richmond, Virginia studying to receive her BFA at Howard University. In 2017 and 2018, Harris attended Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Summer Intensive. In 2019, Harris was a member of the inaugural class at the Kennedy Center Dance Lab led by Hope Boykin. In the summers of 2021 and 2022, she trained at Earl Moseley Institute of the Arts Summer Intensive. Harris performed under the direction of Hope Boykin and Jaqueline Woodson in The Other Side, presented at the Kennedy Center, Spring of 2022. Additionally in 2022, Harris attended the Kyle Abraham A.I.M. Summer Intensive, and performed with Hope Boykin Dance in Moments at the Chelsea Factory. In September of 2022, Harris performed in the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Center for Leornard Bernstein’s Mass under the direction of Alison Moritz and choreographer Hope Boykin. In 2023, Harris made her debut at the Joyce Theater in the Complexions Contemporary Ballet Gala performing in Black Is Beautiful.

Riché Williams, a native of Savannah, Georgia, is a dance major at Howard University. As an alumna of Savannah Arts Academy, she has performed in works by esteemed choreographers such as Tommie Waheed Evans, Maleek Washington, and Janice Rosario. She has also honed her skills at intensives hosted by Deeply Rooted and Steps on Broadway. 

During the Spring of 2022, Williams was given the incredible opportunity to work with HopeBoykinDance as a part of the premier of The Other Side, a story by Jacqueline Woodson. Since then, she has continued to work with HopeBoykinDance in numerous projects like Mass for the Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary. She is overjoyed to return to the stage and help bring this story to life!

Hope Boykin is a two-time Bessie Award winner, was an original member of Complexions, danced with PHILADANCO!, and completed 20 years with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Boykin has choreographed for numerous dance companies including PHILADANCO!, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Minnesota Dance Theatre,BalletX, Eisenhower Dance Detroit, Ballet Black of London, American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, The Philadelphia Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Collage Dance Collective, and has created three works for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Along with many commissions including Vail Dance Festival, Boykin has choreographed and co-directed for Off-Broadway and regional theater, including a Cornelia Street for the Atlantic Theater Company in New York City. Boykin has garnered much acclaim with her virtual work for Carolina Performing Arts, Guggenheim Works & Process Virtual Commissions initiative, and the NationalBlack Theatre. As a motivator, Boykin has been an annual keynote speaker for Lincoln Center Activate, a national education forum, which has included a special “Weekend with Hope”, a series of talks with friends and dance industry professionals discussing crucial topics in our dance world. As a director and dance-maker, Boykin received a grant from the Mellon Foundation for her own “COVID-safe” residency #BoykinBubble, and in the Fall of 2021, premiered a full evening of her choreography, An Evening of Hope at 92nd Street Y, in New York City. In 2022, Boykin choreographed and directed The Other Side, bringing Jacqueline Woodson’s children’s book of the same name to life for the Kennedy Center’s Family Theater. She also was a member of the creative team as choreographer for the Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary Celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. Boykin serves as Artistic Advisor for Dance Education at the Kennedy Center and Artistic Lead for the Kennedy Center Dance Lab. She is Artist-In-Residence at USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and was advisor for the Howard University Department of Dance for their 2021 Spring semester. She is currently a 2022–2023 fellow for The Center for Ballet and the Arts. Boykin continues to build on her work as a writer and filmmaker, blending her words and cadence as the foundation of her developing movement-language. She released “Beauty, Size & Color,” a short film commenting on what has changed in the first 20 years of the 21st century (PBS), which was most recently nominated for a 2023 NY Emmy Award. She presented a weekend of her own work, Moments By Hope… A Concert, in fall of 2022, and is featured on the October 2023 cover of Dance Magazine in recognition of her achievements as an educator, creator, mover, and motivator. Most recently, Boykin premiered States of Hope, a fully scripted evening-length dance work at the Joyce Theater in New York City. Boykin firmly believes there are no limits.

(jacquelinewoodson.com) is the author of more than thirty books for young people and adults including Another Brooklyn, Red At The Bone and The Day You Begin. She received a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2023 E. B. White Award, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award, and was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, and the NAACP Image Award. Her books for young readers include Coretta Scott King Award and NAACP Image Award winner Before the Ever After, New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me, Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster, and Each Kindness. In 2018, she founded BALDWIN FOR THE ARTS (https://baldwinforthearts.org), a residency serving writers, composers, interdisciplinary, and visual artists of the Global Majority. Her most recent novel, Remember Us, is set in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. 

Award-winning musician, composer, arranger, educator, and percussionist Ali Jackson is the son of legendary musician and bassist Ali Jackson Sr., a virtuoso of the drum set, globally acclaimed composer and historian of American music traditions. Some of his accolades include: Fellow of the first annual Thelonius Monk Institute and Jazz Aspen program; the first recipient of the state of Michigan’s prestigious Artserv Emerging Artist award in 1998 and a Grammy win for his contributions with Ted Nash for “Presidential Suite.”  Ali has collaborated with Aretha Franklin, Lionel Hampton, Abbey Lincoln, Buster Williams, Geri Allen, The Spinners, Wynton Marsalis, Willie Nelson, Tony Bennett, Faith Hill, Bobby McFerrin, London Symphony Orchestra, Norah Jones, Eric Clapton and many others. As a bandleader, Ali has recorded eight albums, including Amalgamations, Wheelz Keep Rollin’, Jazz en Tête, Big Brown Getdown and two albums with Yes! Trio, Yes! and Groove du Jour in which he produced and was awarded 2019 Recording of the year of France (Grand Prix Disque Du L’Année). 

His masterworks include the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra-commissioned Living Grooves: A World of Jazz Rhythm, and multiple ballets: for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,  r-Evolution, Dream in 2016 and In the Distance for BalletX with collaborator, Hope Boykin. In 2022 he composed music for The Other Side presented by the HopeBoykinDance and Kennedy Center and is thrilled to work with Hope again.

Amina Lydia Vargas was born in Washington D.C. and began her dance training with Assane Konte at Kankouran West African Dance Company. She then attended The Washington School of Ballet at THEARC, and in 2017, graduated from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts where she studied under Charles Augins, Sandra Fortune-Green, and Katherine Smith. Vargas is an alumna of The Ailey School’s Ailey/Fordham BFA and Scholarship Programs. As a student, she was featured in the Netflix series Hit & Run and represented The Ailey School at the 2019 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. She has danced in works by Kevin Iega Jeff, Kyle Hanagami, Lyrik Cruz, and Brice Mousset. In 2022, Vargas joined HopeBoykinDance as Assistant to the Choreographer for The Other Side. She is now a dancer and Rehearsal Director with HopeBoykinDance. Since working with Boykin, Vargas has performed in the Guggenheim’s Works and Process, was a soloist in the 50th anniversary performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, and in 2023, made her Joyce Theater debut in States of Hope.