2005 POINT SCHOLARS

Yve Laris Cohen

University of California, Berkeley

Dance

Multidisciplinary artist Yve Laris Cohen aims to cultivate a richer public understanding of queerness and transgenderism through her creative endeavors.   From multimedia installations and video/performance art pieces to dance choreography projects, Yve’s work draws from her own experiences as a queer survivor of child abuse.  Yve’s presence as a genderqueer-identified person in the contemporary dance community challenges the rigid gender binary system upon which the discipline has traditionally been based.  Yve has coordinated and spoken at countless conferences and summits that aim to empower youth to combat racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other intersecting oppressions in their schools and communities.  Following her own homophobia-motivated sexual assault in her first semester of college, Yve spearheaded a grassroots campaign to expose faulty reporting of rape statistics on campus, and has since been an outspoken activist in the struggle to end violence against women, queer people, and transgender people.  Yve has focused her most recent political organizing efforts on defending affirmative action and immigrants’ rights. 

In Yve's own words: “The notion that we are powerless in the face of insurmountable challenges is an illusion. We have the power. I am committed to cultivating that collective strength to fight injustice.”