Safos Dance Theatre is a small emerging non-profit dance company founded in Tucson, AZ in 2009.
We collaborate with other Latinx serving and/or AZ-based organizations to offer programs that fulfill our mission. 

Ruby Morales is committed to equity, facilitating life-affirming spaces, and cultivating community relationships that are rooted in reciprocity, trust, and love. She does this through the life she leads and her artmaking. She is a dance artivist so she is always investigating culturally-informed teaching methods and her relationship with movement as a bgirl and Mexican-influenced cumbia Sonidera. After receiving a BFA from Arizona State University she completed Urban Bush Women's Summer Leadership Institute,The People’s Institute for Survival, and Beyond's Undoing Racism Training, and is continuously training in breaking and learning about hip hop philosophy/theory. She is currently working with internationally-renowned creative Liz Lerman, CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater, and Tucson, Arizona based choreographer Yvonne Montoya. Ruby recently toured her own grant-funded evening length show, Breaking Pachanga locally in Arizona. She is a 2021 National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Advocacy Leadership Fellow, and a 2021 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellow.

Esteban Rosales graduated from Arizona State University in the Spring of 2021 with a BFA in Dance and has been weaponizing it ever since. Although shortly after graduation Esteban lost his home and had to start working at less-than desirable jobs to make ends meet due to familial discrepancies regarding his identity, he now works tooth and nail in the fields of Dance and Stage Production to live lavishly with his two cats. Apart from his long-time commitment to Stories From Home since 2018, he is also proud to work regularly with The Ladies, Weird & Wonderful, and has a new gig down at the local haunted house. On stage performing his own choreography, you will likely find him disrobing, crying, convulsing, and/or programming a thousand lighting cues behind a light board.

Lauren Jimenez is originally from Brentwood, California. In May 2022, she graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts She minored in Film and Media Studies and received a certificate in Homeland Security. Lauren has been a part of the choreographic work of guest artists and professors: Adam McKinney, Nicole Klaymoon, Michael Sakamoto, Joan Rodriguez, Taimy Miranda, Alicia Nascimento Castro, and Nicole Bradley-Browning. In 2019, she attended the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina where she attended on full scholarship and was selected to be part of the HOT SUMMER POP UP’s company under the direction of Mark Dendy and Jodee Nimerichter. During the intensive, she trained under Maayan Sheinfield, Charles O. Anderson, Rosanna Tavarez, Charlie Slender-White, Ohad Fishof, and Noa Zuk. Her creative work was selected to perform at ASU’s Spring Dance Fest, ASU’s Herberger Alumni Event, Gammage Auditorium, and Tempe Center for the Arts. Most recently, she was chosen for the Herberger Institute Constellation Grant from the University that funded and supported her senior capstone, “Anticipating Mourning.”Lauren spent a year as Class Representative/Social Media Coordinator before she served two years as the president of the student organization Dance Undergraduate Organizational Support (DUOS). She recently completed an Arts Administration internship with SALT Contemporary Dance and LED Boise, where she worked closely in the choreographic process with Lauren Edson and Cameron McKinney.

Zarina Mendoza Orduño is a passionate artist with a forward-looking, diversified and inclusive vision. Born and raised on the border of Mexico and the United States, Zarina identifies as full Latinx, full Mexicana and has a BFA in Dance. She is the founder, choreographer and director of Tranze Danza Contemporánea, a dance company that has been invited to remarkable international festivals in South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Costa Rica, the United States, Taiwan and Mexico. Her work has won critical acclaim and overwhelming responses from audiences and critics. Along with her desire to find interconnections woven in various forms of expression, she has traveled to Europe, Asia and South America to submerge herself into different movement currents: flying low, Piso Movil, Dynamic floor work, dance theatre,Capoeira,Tai Chi. Zarina works to co-create a space that triggers exercises of introspection and reflection regardless of anyone's culture. The key elements of her creations involve tension and conflict, body/mind dichotomy, risks physicality, instinct and passion. Her inspirations are based on personal experiences, political and social climate, supported and explored through scientific research and academic points of view.

Zarina is now the Studio Manager of nueBOX, a nonprofit organization that provides space for BIPOC artists. She also teaches Latin Rhythms and Contemporary dance at Phoenix Center for the Arts and continues performing with Tranze Danza Contemporanea as well as collaborating with various artists in Arizona.

David Bernal-Fuentes is a proud descendant of immigrant parents, a Queer Chicanx with an invisible disability, and was born and raised in the Gabrieleño Tongva lands, otherwise known as Los Angeles County, California. David attended Rio Hondo College and completed their AA degree in Dance, Psychology, and Social Behavior & Human Development in 2019. In addition, David has engaged in community dance events at Segerstrom Center for The Arts with the legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Paul Taylor Dance Company, and Twyla Tharp Dance. David has also choreographed and performed at American College Dance Association Baja Region conferences, where two of their solos, Cocoon (2018) and 49 Pulses (2019), were chosen for the Gala Concert. David recently graduated from Cal State University Long Beach and received their BFA degree in Dance with a minor in Psychology 2022. Currently, David is dancing for Safos Dance Theatre in Stories from Home, directed by Yvonne Montoya. As a dance artist, David is constantly striving to create/embody poetic performances that radically tell the story of an empathetic or unfamiliar kinesthesia. David dreams of one day integrating their knowledge and personal experiences to help facilitate therapeutic dance classes for disadvantaged communities and hopes to create collaborative choreographies with those communities.

Delia Denise Ibañez is a multidisciplinary artist and administrator from and of the Northern Neck of Virginia. Delia’s personal body of work, Process in Place, has four branches - workbooks, residencies, collections, and workshops - which all intertwine to form networks of inquisitive creative action directly impacted by geographical context. Process in Place's Podcast has a special series of interview episodes with cast and designers of Stories from Home. As the child of Alvaro Ibañez, a Colombian-born visual artist and graphic designer, and Denise DeVries, a writer and translator, Delia gained the family value for supporting access to the arts in rural communities. Delia holds a BA in Performance and Movement and received a certification in Socially Engaged Practice in Design and the Arts from Arizona State University which has supported them in their administrative work with Arizona Commission on the Arts, Safos Dance Theatre, and the family business: A-Ibañez Art Design. Delia has been a member of the 2022 Latinxtensions National Cohort by David Herrera Performance Company and the Anti-Oppressive Dialogue for dancers.

Laura Orozco Garrett (she/her) grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is a professional dancer, choreographer, and dance educator based in Albuquerque, NM. She serves multiple roles at Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts, including Company Dancer, Community Education & Pre-Professional Program Manager, and Education Faculty. She is the former Artistic Director of Moving Arts Española. She has taught and choreographed all over New Mexico at wonderful organizations, including Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, En Pointe School of Dance Los Alamos, Millennial Music Makers (Tri-M) Santa Fe, and The Santa Fe Playhouse. Her work, Junto a ti, was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Brooke Pierce Award in the Fine Arts and was selected to be performed in the American College Dance Association’s National Gala in 2020. This work explores her Mexican heritage and the pain caused by policies of the United States to many immigrant families. In early 2020, she directed, produced, and curated an art gallery and performance entitled “Mujeres Fuertes.” For this production, she brought together Latina artists and performers from Baltimore to showcase their work centered on honoring influential Latina women from history.  In 2022, she was selected into the first National Cohort of David Herrera Performance Company’s Mentorship and Networking Program, LatinXtensions. As a performer, she has danced in works by Karole Armitage, Charlotte D’Amboise, Sonia Bologa, Shira Greenberg, Iyun Harrison, Kevin Jenkins, Ann Reinking, and Yin Yue. Follow her work at: www.lauraorozcogarrett.com Instagram: @lauraorozcogarrett