HER Table Returns to Celebrate the Art, Stories and Power of Women of Color

Seven performing artists and seven visual artists gathered in South Phoenix for an afternoon exploring belonging, matriarchy and cultural identity.

On May 16, 2026, Black River Life and The Black Girl Brown Girl Collective presented the 2nd Annual HER Table, bringing artists and community members together at the Nina Mason Pulliam Rio Salado Audubon Center in South Phoenix for an afternoon of performance, visual art, storytelling and connection.

Surrounded by the Sonoran Desert landscape, HER Table centered the creative voices of Black and Brown women and invited artists to respond to one question:

If belonging were a story passed down by matriarchal hands, what would it say?

The result was an intimate journey through dance, poetry, music and storytelling that explored culture, memory, motherhood, ancestry, migration and the many ways we find and create belonging.

Seven Artists, Seven Offerings

Hosted by Chanel Bragg, the afternoon opened by honoring the original caretakers of the land and inviting guests to settle into the space before experiencing original work from seven Valley-based performing artists.

The Pachanga Collective opened the showcase with Liquid Grave, a movement work rooted in the collective's practice of using dance and the ancestral technology of the “pachanga,” or party, to cultivate life-affirming spaces.

Poet Ashanti Files, a former Urbana Poet Laureate and Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow, shared Belonging and Flowers.

Singer-songwriter Amara the Muse brought neo-soul and R&B to the HER Table stage with Scatter In My Mind, while multidisciplinary creator and storyteller Eboni Key offered an original storytelling performance.

Phoenix singer-songwriter AJ Odneal performed Vultures, bringing her tender approach to songwriting and storytelling to the gathering.

Poet, educator and culture worker Ayling Zulema Dominguez shared First-Gen’s First Motherhood Mend and My Daughter’s Name, drawing from a creative practice rooted in rematriation, water memory, kinship and liberation.

The performance portion closed with Desirée Yamada Curtis, also known as Neiyofisch. The Saipan-born, Refaluwasch and Pohnpeian artist shared a spoken reflection followed by hula, honoring culture, motherhood and the strength carried through generations.

A Gallery of Women Artists

HER Table extended beyond the stage.

Throughout the Audubon Center, guests encountered work from seven visual artists:

Isis Seneris, Dena Cervantes (Magic Mama), Kelvonnah of Fly Girl Prints, Theresa KM Gee (The Mura-cle Worker), Jalila Jones, Myja Lark and Natalie Parra Miguel.

Several artists also vended their work, giving guests an opportunity to meet the creators, learn more about their practices and directly support their art.

Together, the performing and visual artists transformed HER Table into a multidisciplinary celebration of the ways women of color create, remember, resist and imagine.

From Audience to Community

After the performances, the room shifted into a social hour with sounds curated by DJ Panic.

But the audience wasn't invited to simply watch.

Guests turned to one another and reflected on two questions: What struck you most about this day? What are you taking with you?

That exchange reflected an important part of the vision behind HER Table. The gathering is not only about presenting art, but creating the conditions for connection around it.

People talked. They shopped from artists. They reflected together. They embraced.

For a few hours, the distinction between artist and audience softened, and everyone in the room became part of the story.

Making Room at the Table

HER Table was created as an intentional gathering centered on matriarchy, storytelling, connection, reflection and community.

Its second year continued a collaboration between Black River Life and The Black Girl Brown Girl Collective, with organizers Jes, Asia and Roc of The Black Girl Brown Girl Collective alongside Lindsay Bernardez and Collette Watson of Black River Life.

We are deeply grateful to the Nina Mason Pulliam Rio Salado Audubon Center and its team for welcoming HER Table into a landscape that so beautifully supported the day's invitation to reflect, connect and remember.

Most of all, we are grateful to every artist, family member, friend and neighbor who came to the table.

Because HER Table is ultimately about more than showcasing art.

It is about making room for Black and Brown women to tell their own stories, honor the hands that shaped them, and encounter one another through creativity and care.

And then making the table a little bigger.