Headshot: Tim Avery | Cover photo: Olivia Moon Photography
Headshot: Tim Avery | Cover photo: Olivia Moon PhotographyACTivate Residency Artist 2025
While pole dance has become most of her identity, Olivia Moon (she/he/they) is also a photographer, sock-lover, boy, martini enthusiast, princess, and simp. Based in Boston, Olivia is curious about pushing boundaries and buttons of all sorts; WBUR named her as one of 15 artists of color making an impact in Boston. A recent recipient of the Next Steps for Boston Dance award, Olivia experiments with fusing the fluidity of contemporary dance with the sensuality and athleticism of pole dance. Their home is within the dynamism of performance and visual artistry; the possibility for range and contradiction of character and gender excite her.
You can find her grooving at @mooningeveryone and snapping pix at @halfasianlens on Instagram.
Project Statement
For her ACTivate residency, Olivia, along with the expertise and assistance of Jaina Cipriano, plans to decorate the Cyclorama with portable poles, pole dancers, projection, and other sculptural components. Throughout the week, the dancers will pull from experimental practices of contemporary dance to create improvisational structures within pole dance. The residency will culminate in an informal showing of this interdisciplinary pole dance investigation.
Collaborators
Rajita Menon: Dancer
Rajita Menon is a performer, scientist, and lover of sunshine from New Delhi, India. Her work is rooted in the playful and emotive, and expressed mainly through dance-theater and the spoken word. She is drawn to honest and visceral portrayals of inner life, in seeing and being seen, and finding connection through improvisational composition. Rajita has made some beautiful messes with musicians, poets, and playwrights around Boston, most recently in घर”, a multidisciplinary dance theater solo about nostalgia and rootedness; “Lost & Found”, a celebration of thrift, dance and clothing under the direction of Eliza Malecki; and “a dance for me for you” presented at Jacob’s Pillow community day with Eventual Dance Company. Sometime in 2022, Rajita began hanging precariously from a metal rod for fun, and she is thrilled to be making her debut as a pole performer!”
Photo by Christopher Huang
Ali Wong: Dancer
Ali is a Boston-based dancer who is redefining her relationship with dance. At a young age, she started her dance journey with ballet and Chinese dance but felt constricted by conventional methods. The discovery of pole two years ago captured her heart and opened her eyes to possibilities and its art form. Expression and freedom through movement has always been Ali’s first love as well as inspiring the audience when she dances. Vowing to never stop doing what she loves ever again, she is excited to dance along like-minded artists after a decade-long hiatus and can’t wait to share her passion of movement with you! When she’s not dancing, you can find her causing chaos in the kitchen baking little sweet treats, exploring tea flavors, and practicing her discipline by not buying another plant.
Angela Yam: Lead Sound Artist
Hailed as “a sweetly poisonous, scene-stealing schemer with a sultry sparkle in her voice” by the Boston Globe, Angela Yam is a performer, composer, and director renowned for her impeccable musicianship and fierce stage presence. Her 2024-25 season included debuts with Boston Lyric Opera, Heartbeat Opera, and Asia Society Texas/Houston Grand Opera, and returns to Boston Baroque, Opera Parallèle, and Opera Memphis. Her compositions can be heard with her band DREAMGLOW, Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, Robert Moses’ Kin’s New Legacies, and SFMA at Tufts. She uses at least one exclamation point in every email she writes. Find out more at angelayamsoprano.com!
Andrea Sofia Sala: Lighting Designer
Andrea Sofia Sala (she/her) is a Latine Lighting Designer, Production Manager, and Mover currently based in Boston, MA. Originally from Northern Mexico, Andrea grew up in San Antonio, TX enveloped in the arts and dance communities. She has a BFA in Lighting Design and minor in Engineering Sciences, specializing in Electrical Engineering from Boston University. Andrea is currently the Lighting Supervisor for Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Production Manager for Fresh Ink Theatre, as well as freelancing as a Lighting Designer/Production Manager around the East Coast. She has had the privilege to work with incredible companies and institutions, including Dance Theater of Harlem, Urban Bush Women, Jacob’s Pillow, The Yard, Central Square Theater, Fresh Ink Theater Company, Boston Opera Collaborative, and local dance artists in Boston and New York City. Some of her standout credits include: Carmen by Boston Opera Collaborative, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s 50th Anniversary Performance at New York City Center, ZACHOR by Rachel Linskey, Galileo’s Daughter by WAM Theatre and Central Square Theatre.
Aggie Ng: Dancer
Mover, groover, mischief-doer.
Though pole dancing has been Aggie’s first love and foundation for over a decade, her desire to deepen her understanding of the body’s spatial language has led her to explore more horizontal pathways—and everything in between.
Visual diary — @snaglikeanag | Studios — @incredipole @soflysocial
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ACTivate Residency Filmmaker 2023
Be/Longing
(as part of Soyoung L Kim’s 2023 ACTivate Residency)
Throughout the week of February 6-12, 2023, Olivia documented Soyoung L. Kim’s time in the BCA’s Cyclorama during her ACTivate Residency. Olivia produced a short film that communicates Kim’s artistic process through another lens: Watch it here.
Artist Soyoung L Kim‘s 2023 ACTivate Residency documented in “Be/Longing” — a film by Olivia Moon Photography/halfasianlens.
