Works & Projects
end at the of me attend (2018-19)
with Gyrchel Moore, Veleda Roehl,, EmmaGrace Skove-Epes, Tunu Thom,
and Suleka Thom-Ogugua
How do we care for each other in a world whose brutal histories and social structures fracture the ability to sustain? And how is caring itself a violent process, for at its most intense it undoes us and the notion of a self?
The Work of Imagining: Art in the Age of Apocalypse (2017)
Co-curated with Shanté Paradigm Smalls at JACK Theater as part of their Reparations365 series. With works by Waquia Abdul-Kareem & Robin Marquis, Angela Arrocha, Avram Finkelstein & Ashley Marinaccio
From the the demonization of "impractical" third parties and candidates, the mainstreaming of Donald Trump's white supremacy, and the celebration of centrist Hillary Clinton as a "solution," the 2016 US presidential campaign and election demonstrate a death of creative
discourse about democratic politics and dissent. But this death exists within a larger context and set of preoccupations about the “end of the world.” How do we live, create, and think about the world in the middle of an apocalypse? How might we imagine the end of the world as a possibility and an opening, rather than as the destruction of the Earth?
studies in living otherwise (2017)
with Katrina De Wees, Nia Love, Gyrchel Moore, Alex Pitre, EmmaGrace Skove-Epes & Veleda Roehl
studies in living otherwise is the gestation of five dance/performance works that move through collective practices of presence, memory, storytelling and abstraction. We ask how can we center the Other and other the center? We answer by digging underground pathways to alternative ways of (not) being, remembering, un/doing and dancing.
###notititledblur (2015)
with John Gutierrez, Gyrchel Moore, Refilwe Nkomo, Dasha Chapman, Veleda Roehl & EmmaGrace Skove-Epes
#blur (thisisnotthetitle) traverses the corporeal and technological matrix, excavating the correlation of sight and power through the terms of the choreographer/dancer relationship. By controlled disruptions of visuality, we enter states of connection and disassociation with quiet urgency and subtle danger. The piece challenges us to consider what happens to the acts of witnessing and connection, when we can see everything but much remains obscured.
z o n e (2012-13)
with Dasha Chapman, A. Nia Austin-Edwards, John Gutierrez, Benjamin Lundberg, Gyrchel Moore, EmmaGrace Skove-Epes, Veleda Roehl, Efeya Sampson, & santiago venegas
This piece details mental and physical strategies for living in a “post-crisis” era, where catastrophe is normal and killing is clean. Based in research on drone warfare, positive thinking, and adidas commercials, the movement creates bodies that are dead and deadly, but ultimately cannot escape their tenderness.
From Obama to Occupy: Works of Outrage from 2008-2012
Hosted by Imani Henry with work by #ajmia American Justice Missing-in-Action, Aurin Squire, Betty T. Kao, Chris Tyler, Matt Sheridan, Michael Milligan,
Movement of the People Dance Company, santiago venegas, Sara Lyons & screaMachine.
Curation and production of 12 artists who responded to the political events of Obama’s first presidential term, including ongoing war, gay marriage and homonormativity, immigration and deportation, health care, Trayvon Martin's murder, women’s reproductive rights, and Occupy Wall Street.
own, Owned (2010-12)
with Dasha Chapman, A. Nia Austin-Edwards, Rachel Lane, Gyrchel Moore, EmmaGrace Skove-Epes, & Nadia Tykulsker
This work engages with the twinned concepts of hope and change in the current American landscape. It examines how these ideas become controlled desires, tied to consuming fantasies of racial harmony.
i actually love this (2010)
in collaboration with Square One
with Xavier Cha, EmmaGrace Skove-Epes, Heather Hammond, Danny Johnston, Cassie Mey, Teri Hempfling & Jay Rodriguez
A rooftop dance about falling, getting dirty, birds, soft spots and decay.
What We Can See From Here (2010)
In collaboration with Cassie Mey
A site-specific performance in the intersection of water, sky, concrete and thought at the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge, this work contemplates the relationship of time and space in creating perspective.
NEED (2009)
NEED is an exploration of how what we need to sustain us can also destroy us.
This destructive possibility reveals the terrifying fragility of needing. This dance moves in the space between breathing and suffocation, thirst and drowning, satisfaction and insatiability, beginning life and ending it. Performed with an intergenerational cast spanning 60 years, and 500 plastic bags.
Requiem for O, Overture for O: Works of Conscience 2000-2008
Hosted by Shanté Paradigm Smalls and featuring Alexandra Beller, Tara Betts, Sabrina Chapadjiev, Drastic Measures, Guta Hedewig, Remi Kanazi, Rachel Lane, Sapphire, Paul Singh, Spiritchild
& Gina Young.
Marking the end of the Bush era and nurturing our movement for social justice, this event reflected on the how artists responded to the policies of the Bush Administration and encouraged action for change. The evening included dance, music & spoken word, on themes such as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, gay marriage, Hurricanes Katrina, and consumerism.
Pale (2009-10)
with Rachel Lane, Marina Libel,
& Gillian Vinton
Pale seeks to define the omnipresent but often un-interrogated mentality and experience of being white. In the work, three women negotiate with a fourth who represents whiteness, confronting the underbelly of their racial experience: emptiness, comfort, and fear.
Unbind it! (2007)
with Rachel Lane, Marina Libel,
& Gillian Vinton
This piece is a response to the viral videos of Saddam Hussein's execution in 2006. The work questions the conscience of the American public in acts of violence committed by our government. It draws parallels between Hussein and Bush as war criminls, dubiously elected leaders, and potential lovers. It asks how we face our own death with blood on our hands.
Root & Branch (2007)
A community arts project funded by the Brooklyn Arts Council, this project brought together Jewish & Arab teens in a discussion of identity through contemporary and folk movement.
Color Blind Theories (2006-07)
with Sarah Avery Sibley & Afi Bijou,
Gillian Vinton & Marina Libel,
Rachel Lane & Zoe Klein
Color Blind Theories is a series of three duets, challenging the belief that being color blind erases racism. Exploring fear, fetishization and objectification, the work aims to unpack “why we can’t all get along”.
Wilderness (2005)
with Aisha Domingue, Orion Gordon, Brook Martinez, Cassie Mey, Melinda Lee
Wilderness is a study in four seasons of the effects of living in a human dominated environment, examining the boundaries between wild and tame.
Sea Stories (2005)
A Community Arts Project funded by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Sea Stories is an inter-generational project performed by residents of Sheepshead Bay, inspired by our stories of migration and home.
The Good Enemy (2004)
with Naomi Azar, Aisha Domingue, Orion Gordon, Brook Martinez, Adam Matta,
& Cassie Mey
The Good Enemy distills the energy of occupation and resistance into one, two, then six bodies, who are inter-dependent despite their conflict.
Flesh Box (2003-04)
with Cindy Aikman, Zoe Klein, Rachel Lane, & Kate Lieberman
Flesh Box takes on the body as a claustrophobic environment for the self, focusing on its limitations and the challenges of claiming one’s self underneath the terms ascribed to us.