Bella Stenvall (she/her) is a queer, mixed Filipino-American choreographer, arts and culture researcher, and movement artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from San Luis Obispo, California, she received her B.A. in Dance and Arabic with a Global Studies minor from the World Arts and Cultures/Dance Department (WACD) at the University of California, Los Angeles (2021). At UCLA, she founded and directed the performance group known as Outspoken. A coalition of femmes and nonbinary movement artists, filmmakers, and spoken word poets, Outspoken’s interdisciplinary collaborations explored the intersections of gender, race, and power and won multiple awards at UCLA’s signature arts showcase, Spring Sing.

Bella has organized community performance spaces and interdisciplinary collaborations all over the world, most recently as an Artist-in-Residence at the IDEA Festival in Amman, Jordan where she was commissioned to create a new participatory work for the festival. As a performer, she has collaborated with and danced for artists such as The Marias, KAYE, Kyle Abraham, Nia Love, Drew Silvaggio, Ryuji Yamaguchi, and Enya Kalia Creations—all of whom she is indebted to and admires greatly.

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Bella is invested in dance as a critical tool for cultural placemaking and has written articles about dance and international policy, and curated and moderated performance panels about dance as a critical placemaking both nationally and internationally. She is currently leading a dance and disability field study for the National Endowment for the Arts.

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