My work is excellent when it is effective. I have always identified as a contemporary dance maker/ performance maker. My dances are intended to effect transformational changes in the spaces within which they are performed and the people present. My ideas of effect and change are derivative conceptually of a traditionally West African and African diaspora use of dance in ritual-in events that alter the way that a gathered community perceives reality. Like any member of a diaspora the ingredients I have available are not the same as those my ancestors had. Time and experience across generations and multiple narratives has shifted our context, our tools, our languages. So while I have studied many traditional forms I make work that is threaded together by a conceptual framework. The use of identifiable dance languages, performance locations with specific histories and shared significances establishes a “hook” - a common anchor between the work and its audiences. The dance is successful and demonstrates its excellence when in performance that “hook” effectively pulls us collectively into a shared experience that transcends the ordinary and reorders and reimagines our individual and collective state of being within the context of the established conceptual framework. After Project Tool performances, various audience members came back to us with altered ideas around agency, the built environment, Afro-feminism, ancestry and the presence of ancestors. Beyond the performance – audience relationship we are also very proud that through our partnership the Sweet Water Foundation a whole library of hexagonal modular dance floor surfaces are available and being used in southside Chicago right now. And performances beyond our dreams are supported in the fractal, extending rhythms of being and presence that represent in physical and infrastructure the rhythms and patterns of our afro-diasporic existential and spiritual reality. WE are manifest. Iteratively and sustainably HERE.
I represent multiple non-white, non-male identities and when my work is funded it brings those black, female, immigrant, single mother, bi-cultural, trans-national perspectives that I house in my being and in the forms and methodologies in my aesthetics and practices to the field. Beyond that the real value of diversity is the high effect juxtaposition of cultures, values, tools, and existential assumptions that can be brought into the center of this current societal moment. Just as important as giving access to resources to people who have historically been excluded is giving those who have done the exclusion relief from their isolation.
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AuthorFeaturing articles, videos, songs, and material that are in relation to Project Tool. Posted by the ensemble. Archives
February 2021
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