Below are videos of three different projects. My work is often site-specific rather than presented on a proscenium stage; thus, full-length documentation is not the most common way I capture works. I approach documentation as part of the creative process, not simply as a record. For this reason, I often shape documentation into edited films that highlight multiple perspectives, or into exhibits and published texts that extend the life of the work as further reflection. While my archive of unedited films is limited, I am glad to provide several full-length materials for review. I hope these examples demonstrate both the integrity of the original works and my commitment to re-imagining how performance lives on in multiple forms.
Passing 1: I right my own story
The piece is part of a series of four works all called ‘passing:…‘. The series of dances all explore and reference different social-racial-political negotiations of identity, establishing one’s own identity. This work, ‘I right my own story’ was for the young people I worked with in the Ruth Ellis Center, Detroit, the summer before one member, particularly known as Honey.
Music – Lou Reed, Olafur Arnalds, & Beyonce
Students at Wayne State University
Act 2 : arrival
My ballet Sycorox’s Tempest retells Shakespeare’s Tempest from the perspective of Sycorox, drawing on Sylvia Wynters’ framing of Sycorox. This clip is toward the end of Act 2: Arrival, when the shipwrecked individuals are finding links with the island and also plotting against each other. The act ends with Sycorax and the island beings making a cipher to start righting the imbalance being caused.
Last 10 minutes of Act 2: Arrival
Orginal music created in collaboration with composer Danny Clarke
Students at the University of Utah
We are still who we once were
This was a site-specific dance made for a part of the campus that was overgrown and had a rain run-off stream. The work was created to be danced as the sun set, so that it was primarily danced in the dark. Here it was performed in an outdoor festival.
Music – Erin Genia [soundtrack created as a guided walk along the Mystic River, MA]
Students at Texas Woman’s University