Lotus
I am a self-taught shibari artist and interdisciplinary performer with four years of dedicated practice. My work centers on shibari — the Japanese art of rope — as both a physical practice and an artistic language, used alongside movement, poetry, music, and visual design to examine vulnerability, connection, resilience, and transformation.
My practice has grown from personal study into a developing body of produced work: three sold-out productions and two ongoing workshop series, including Knotty Nights, now entering its second year. Tethered Thoughts is my most ambitious work yet — a full-length interdisciplinary performance built from the ground up.
Leroy D. Bean
A Dayton-born poet, storyteller, and cultural voice known for blending vivid lyricism with deeply personal narrative. His solo spoken-word work, Baritone Hue, traces a journey to Paris in the footsteps of James Baldwin — moving between honesty and metaphor to explore faith, creative rebirth, and Black identity.
Bean is Lotus’s closest collaborator on Tethered Thoughts — co-producer, writers’ workshop facilitator, and the poetic voice woven through every act of the piece.
Coco & Naturally Cherry
A local poet recently featured at The Yellow Cab poetry slam and host of Smut Slam, an open mic poetry series at MarYSoul Studios. Coco previously collaborated with Lotus on Bound by Strength, a performance centering the resilience and artistic contributions of Black artists, and returns for Tethered Thoughts as an anchored poet.
A Dayton-based poet and author of Lessons Don’t Always Come with Flowers, a fiercely honest debut collection moving through the seasons of death, transition, and rebirth with unflinching vulnerability. She joins Tethered Thoughts as an anchored poet.
Emerging Voices
Two emerging poets, selected through Tethered Thoughts’ paid writers’ workshop, complete the poetic ensemble. Who they are is still being written.