IRL + LIVE BROADCAST 21 DECEMBER 2025 @ 4P (EST)

WAACK BAZAAR, MADHURA STUDIOS & MIDHEAVEN NETWORK proudly present DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL 2025: SOLARPUNK

Returning to cosmic alignment for our sixth annual installment, Dark Night of the Soul is MIDHEAVEN.Network’s annual Solstice Festival of art, music and crucial conversations to explore and understand the shadow — where all possibility (including rebirth) originates.

For DNOTS2025, our program is a three-part feature:

4p — VOL. I

Embodied Astrology Weather Report for 2026 with j. bouey & Renee Sills

5p —VOL. II

Broadcast premiere of SATURN: A Tale of Fire & Flight

6p — VOL. III

The Intermission: A space to sharpen your choreographic and performance skills while contributing to the evolution of W*acking/Punking...

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J. is a 2023 Bessie Award Outstanding Performer recipient, the founder of The Dance Union Podcast, initiator of the NYC Dancers COVID-19 Relief Fund and The Dance Union Town Hall For Collective Action to support the dance community through numerous world-changing events.

As a creator, J. is a recent 2021-2022 Jerome Fellow and is a 2022/2023 Movement Research Artist in Residence. J. Bouey was also recently a Gibney 2021 Spotlight Artist, Artist-In-Residence at CPR – Center for Performance Research, and 2021 Bogliasco Fellow. J. was also a 2018 Movement Research Van Lier Fellow, and 2018 Dancing While Black Fellow. 

J. is currently a collaborator with nia love. They were also a former performer with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, danced with Germaul Barnes’ Viewsic Dance, Maria Bauman’s MB Dance, Dante Brown, Antonio Brown Dance, Christal Brown’s INspirit Dance, and apprenticed with Emerge 125 (formerly Elisa Monte Dance) under the artistic direction of Tiffany Rea-Fisher. 

Born 1976 in New York City and raised with the global immigrant community of Queens, George Del Barrio is the Founding Creative Director × Executive Producer of The Vanderbilt Republic (est. 2008), MIDHEAVEN Network + Studio (est. 2020), & Madhura Studios (2024-present).

As an all-media Director/ Producer deeply versed in photographic physics, immersive curatorial/ theatrical design and all phases of the creative process, Del Barrio's practice is concentrated on archetype expansion. Every site response is engineered by a resolute humanism; every invention, design, & transformation is in search of duende — meaning is not a discovery, it is a creation. Clients include NYC Department of Education, The Keith Haring Foundation, Rutgers University, Textile Arts Center, MADERA, On The Revel, PALISSIMO, Green-Wood Cemetery & the dawning sunlight of an awakened mind. 

Nubian Néné (Co-Producer) is a Montreal native and a New York-based dancer/choreographer who weaves Street & Club dances to create her unique captivating style. Her resilience and hard work stem from her Haitian roots, enabling her to expand into a producer, creative director, curator, visual artist, teacher, and a reliable asset to the innovative Montreal-based multidisciplinary collective: FRGMNT. Nubian Néné performs with Bboyizm Dance Company's In My Body, Passion Fruit Dance Company's Trapped (2021), and Dimensions (in progress). Signature Verses Liberation (2022), an ode to architecture, dance, and drawing, is her first visual art installation, and proof of harmony. A hybrid context, with an amalgam of texture, layers, and patterns examined and imagined by the artist.  She's the creator of Waack Bazaar, The Essence Experience, Glasses & Laces, and choreographer and artistic director of A Lady in The House Dance Company. Her mentors, some of the pioneers of the Street & Club dance cultures, support, encourage, and inspire her to identify cultural references, to be involved and engaged in the community, and through pedagogy help carry the weight of her legacy.

Stephy Styles (host)

Rose Gelfand aka Rosewater is an interdisciplinary artist and organizer, originally from Richmond, California, now living in Brooklyn, NY. They are a wh/acker, writer, photographer, and facilitator, a cofounder of the Fat Liberation Archive, currently organizing with Punk Something and Crown Heights Care Collective. Across forms, Rose’s work seeks to reclaim our collective memory & relational norms from systems of violence, towards play, pleasure, & presence! Rose has been wh/acking for over seven years and battling for a little less than two, including making Top 40 All Styles at Queen of Disco in Guangzhou China, Top 2 at Punk Something Vol 1, Top 16 at Waack to the Future and more. They are currently developing a wh/acking as disability justice curriculum which they will be running as a 4 part series every Wednesday in January! You can find their work @foreverosie and @rosieoncam on instagram.

 Rich James (Judge) is a Panama native that grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn where his eclectic dance style had been deeply influenced by his culture and the people that surrounded him. James, got his first real taste of the entertainment industry as a teen, where he was discovered and hired to model for various national commercial print ads. During his years of exploring and developing his dance identity, he met Princess Lockeroo and Tyrone Proctor who later became his mentors. Currently, James is represented by United Talent Agency and can be spotted teaching around New York City or touring alongside legendary house music artist Crystal Waters. In the Future, he hopes to open his very own dance studio where he can share his love for the arts.

L'KA, a proud representative of East Coast NYC. 15+ years in the game with extensive vocabulary of breaking, hip hop, house and waacking. Trained by the very OGs of each style. No front - just rawness and soul.

Aché & Even are two all around performers based in Philadelphia, PA. This duo first met back in 2015 where they trained consistently in every street style of dance. They have since gone on to do amazing things in the battle, theater & commercial scenes such as Waack to Future, Soul Train The Musical, WaackLanta, Ciara, Keke Palmer and more.  Aché & Even are continuing to inspire and create a name for themselves in the entertainment world. 

Brando Hermoso/ (artist name) Monroe (waacking name) is a freestyle dancer of hip-hop and street style disciplines with over 14 years' experience in Waacking, a dance full of strength, elegance and expression. Throughout his career, he has participated in several competitions, obtaining important recognition as one of the greatest influences in the Waacking scene of Venezuela, always demonstrating his talent and passion at every stage. His experience and discipline make him a key figure in the dance community, inspiring newer generations to follow their dreams and express themselves through movement.   

Dez “the Joy” is a competitive freestyle dancer, cultural practitioner, and community organizer born and raised in New York City. In their short time of becoming a dancing artist, they have made strides in the underground dance competitive circuit, making top brackets in NYC, Atlanta, San Jose CA, Chicago, and Philadelphia within 1-on-1 waacking battles. They are also credited with work from Princess Lockerooo, Keep Rising to the Top Dance Company (KR3Ts), and ANKOLE Circus Company.

They had founded a waacking dance collective called Punk Something in 2024, a hub where new-generation waack dancers and movement artists can build community, sharpen their skills, and gain visibility in this art style by competing together in street dance battles and partaking in the club scene in New York City. 

They were most recently an Activist-in-Residence fellow at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, initiating a cultural empowerment project focused on promoting self-confidence within queer young people of color through the language of punking, posing, and waacking disco/classic competitions and events.

Renee Sills is the founder of Embodied Astrology, a podcast and community learning platform that prioritizes co-learning and co-leadership, and accessible, experiential approaches to astrology through a wide application and synthesis of astrological intelligence in combination with arts, healing, activism, and social design thinking. A second generation astrologer, intuitive, and somatic educator, and a devoted student of embodied spiritual practices for over 30 years, Renee’s work integrates mysticism, bodywork, ritual, and participatory art. She seeks to proliferate individual and communal practices that reawaken enchantment, empathy and environmental interrelatedness.

Constance, aka Conn Alana (DJ), is a Bronx-born and raised artist, spiritual worker, and educator. They use their various gifts to support the learning, healing and expression of others - whether that’s as a DJ, photographer, yoga instructor, energy healing practitioner or teacher. Their focus on deep self-care work inspires them to empower others of all ages to embrace the responsibility and pleasure of self-love.

MIDHEAVEN NETWORK is a brave, generative space of healing and for the building — not “rebuilding” — of a fully inclusive society. MIDHEAVEN exists in paradox: FROM many, one.

THROUGH live arts programming from A GLOBAL phalanx OF performance, visual art, social justice, human development and cinema/ digital/ VR voyagers, MIDHEAVEN will ADVANCE COURAGEOUS, loving & possibility-driven VISIONS to the world.

FOUNDING CREATIVE/ TECHNICAL DIRECTOR × EXECUTIVE PRODUCER GEORGE DEL BARRIO

A-CAMERA, KEY GRIP + PRODUCER IAN CHEN

DIRECTOR OF AUDIO ADRIAN M. MARTINEZ

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN C. GONZALEZ

ART DIRECTOR AL-KHABIR RICHMAN

©2025 THE VANDERBILT REPUBLIC

“Remember the Power of the Pause”