(dancer/choreographer)

Dawn “Cricket” Desmarais is a multi-genre artist who uses and fuses together movement, language, sound, and the visual to create art on pages, stages, walls & bases. She has performed theatrical & dance-based performances & shown work in multiple venues in Key West & New York, & is a company member of Dance Key West, & especially loves the outreach elements of the company’s repertoire. She is a prequalified for Art in Public Places artist with a mission to effect change by engaging viewers through their sense of pleasure and an invitation to reflect, dialogue, and move towards action. She has shown her work across the island with exhibitions that include the solo show “poetic just is: a tribute to the Cuban spirit” (2008) and “Blind Spots, (2019)” an installation about human trafficking, at The Studios of Key West,“ She was a New York Times Fellow (1997), Mission: Iconic Reef Fellow (2022), a Vermont Studio Center (1997) and a resident studio artist at The Studios of Key West from 2018-2020. She received an MFA from New York University, a Bachelor of Arts from University of New Hampshire, and a Bachelor of Science from the College of the Florida Keys in Marine Resource Management, & is an AAUS Scientific Diver, & a certified Yoga Instructor. She lives with her two teen daughters, two cats, & her dog in Key West, Florida & works at Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary & teaches writing, encaustics, & creative movement classes at The Studios of Key West. Special thanks to Kyla and Susan for inviting her into this important project to help give voice & movement to women who need their stories to be told to a culture that needs to better build empathy & understanding & huge shoutout to Darla & all the project’s authors for their courage & the honor of working with their stories.