ARC @ Artists Untangling Censorship with UNDOXX

Thursday, 19 March 2026
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM PDT | 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM EST
Free event | Registration required
* Registered attendees will receive the Zoom link 24 hours before the event.

Join ARC – Artists at Risk Connection with UNDOXX and the National Queer Theatre at Bridge Live Arts for a conversation on the growing challenges of artistic censorship and how artists are organizing to respond. The event brings together artists, activists, and advocates to foster dialogue, share resources, build collective power, and equip artists to navigate the evolving impacts of censorship..

The discussion will feature UNDOXX organizers zavé martohardjono and Maya Simone Z., alongside Patrick Bond (Artists at Risk Connection), Adam Odsess-Rubin and Achiro P. Olwoch (National Queer Theater), and Minneapolis-based artist Leila Awadallah.

Bridge Live Arts is a Philadelphia-based performing arts organization that supports artists through residencies, performances, and community programs. The organization creates spaces for artistic experimentation and collaboration while fostering dialogue between artists and audiences across disciplines.

Censorship of artists in the United States is a powerful force today, though it is not unprecedented. UNDOXX is an artist-of-color collective that organizes festivals, conversations, and interventions to build power among BIPOC, global majority, queer and trans, and other marginalized artists experiencing censorship. UNDOXX facilitates knowledge exchange among artists, activists, and advocates; generates community resources; and fosters creative collaboration to support artists in continuing their work and challenging censorship.

National Queer Theater harnesses the power of live performance to imagine a more just and joyful future. Working alongside social justice movements, we uplift queer community through visionary theater productions and education programs that celebrate free expression in the U.S. and around the world. 

Speakers

Maya Simone Z.

Maya Simone Z. (Co-founder of UNDOXX) is a New York City-based interdisciplinary producer, artist, performer and educator from the South. They create performance-based work centering queer, Black kinships, ancestral/emotional memory, and connections between the heart, body and spirit. Maya Simone has developed and performed in works presented at Green Space, Queens Dance Festival, Corkscrew Theater Festival, Theater Mitu, BAAD!, and more. Their work interweaves movement, writing, sound, installation, and performance. They are a constant dreamer. is the Founder and Executive Director of ARC — Artists at Risk Connection, a global organization dedicated to safeguarding artistic freedom and supporting artists and cultural workers under threat. Under her leadership, ARC provides critical resources and support to more than 2,100 artists in more than 60 countries facing persecution from state and non-state actors, empowering them to overcome challenges to their creative expression. Prior to founding ARC, she served as director of public programs at the Museum of the City of New York and the Center for Architecture.

zavé martohardjono

zavé martohardjono (Co-founder of UNDOXX) is an artist and community organizer. Dance, ritual, ecological liberation, and political education are primary languages across their interdisciplinary performance works which have been presented most notably at the 92Y, the Kennedy Center, Storm King Art Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, El Museo del Barrio, and Issue Project Room. Since 2010, zavé has led social justice strategy for arts and liberation movements including creating artists of color networks, fighting censorship in the arts, and advising arts organizations on equity and economic justice models for arts workers. Born in Tiohtià:ke territory (Montréal, CA) in 1984, zavé primarily grew up in and now lives in Lenapehoking (NYC). is the Founder and Executive Director of ARC — Artists at Risk Connection, a global organization dedicated to safeguarding artistic freedom and supporting artists and cultural workers under threat. Under her leadership, ARC provides critical resources and support to more than 2,100 artists in more than 60 countries facing persecution from state and non-state actors, empowering them to overcome challenges to their creative expression. Prior to founding ARC, she served as director of public programs at the Museum of the City of New York and the Center for Architecture.

Patrick Bond

Patrick Bond leads the U.S. Programs for the Artists at Risk Connection, including the recent National Artist Safety Survey, and the development of new safety services that are being shaped by this initiative. He has built a career in social and cultural non-profits, focusing on cultural rights, equity, and democracy. At Open Society Foundations, he managed major grantmaking initiatives on the Narrative and Culture Change team and led the Soros Equality Fellowship, supporting leaders advancing racial justice and democratic renewal. At New York University, he developed approaches to qualitative research, digital security, and data-driven collaboration. Earlier, he worked with cultural institutions to create public programs engaging diverse communities in dialogue on history and justice. He holds a Master’s in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement from New York University and a Bachelor’s in History and Russian & Eastern European Studies from the University of Virginia.

Adam Odsess-Rubin

Adam Odsess-Rubin (He/Him) is the Founding Artistic Director of the Obie Award Winning National Queer Theater (NQT) in Brooklyn, New York. At NQT, Odsess-Rubin has presented work with Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, MCC Theater, and PAC NYC. His work has been featured by NBC News, The New York Times, American Theater, and Time Out New York. He has published writing in Yale’s Theater Magazine and The Gay & Lesbian Review, and was a 2022 PoliticsNY LGBTQ+ Power Player. BA: UC Santa Cruz MA: New York University. NQT is currently a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU against the National Endowment for the Arts to protect government funding for LGBTQ+ artists.

Achiro P. Olwoch

Achiro P. Olwoch is a playwright, scholar, and cultural worker whose work centers African and diasporic women’s voices. Her creative and critical practice explores themes of memory, migration, language, embodiment, and resistance, often weaving personal narrative with political inquiry. Through theatre, essays, and pedagogy, she examines how gender, race, and history shape lived experience across local and global contexts. Achiro is committed to building spaces where storytelling becomes a site of healing, complexity, and transformation.

Leila Awadallah

Leila Awadallah is a dancer, choreographer, and community collaborator in Minneapolis and sometimes Beirut. She is the Artistic Director of Body Watani Dance project alongside her sister Noelle Awadallah. Her artistry holds Palestine at the center —rooting her embodiment in practices of resisting settler colonial occupation while invoking / conjuring / demanding Right of Return and cultural INTIFADA. Leila has received multiple fellowships: DanceUSA, McKnight, Jerome Hill, and Daring Dances. Her artistry is meaningfully impacted by her years working with Ananya Dance Theatre, Theater of Women of the Camp (Lebanon) and El-Funoun (Palestine). She is a recurring artist-in-residence at the Arab American National Museum (MI), Red Eye Theater (MN), and holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota.