Àṣẹ Dance Theatre Collective
What ancestral promises are Black bodies/lives fulfilling in these moments of converging crisis? How do we continue to shape hope-filled futures whilst battling daily for life, for breath, for dignity? In what ways do we infuse critical joy into horrific space and place, and plant dignity and wholeness into the present?
Gardening has blossomed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Just as Americans planted “victory” gardens during wars and depressions before, now many are planting seeds to grow their own food. Doing so comes with real benefits, like stress relief, exercise and risk reductions for many diseases as a result of eating more vegetables. In a recent episode…
How Growing Food Can Change Your Life, According to Gardener Ron Finley — TIME
Okui Okpokwasili
These young dancers are bring deep critical thought and joy to this moment of intersecting pandemics. I pray they are being well cared for, kept safe, and nurtured. Thank you Norah, Yayra and Rose, you are writing the future into being with your dancing bodies!
“We as dancers really need to own our own stories and begin to tell our own stories” Halifu Osumare, August 3, 2020. Camille A. Brown & Dancers’ “Social Dance for Social Distance”
“My friends were all misfits; a huge gang of commercially unattractive beautiful misfits.”
What does it mean to access your own Black body as a methodological and analytical tool for examinations of religious performance as well as historical and contemporary issues?
“Edisa Weeks is a choreographer, educator, videographer, and director of DELIRIOUS DANCES, which merges theater with dance to explore the beauty and complexity of life. In her work she seeks to create intimate environments in which to experience and interact with contemporary dance. The New York Times described Weeks’ work as having “A lot of imagination and a gift for simple but striking visual effects.””
What questions are Black Dancers/Dance-Makers asking? How do Black Dancer/Dance-Makers articulate their lives and experiences of Being Black in the twenty-first century? What is essential/important to bring into public conversation? Which publics are imagined? What is the role of history, future imagining, and/or present experimentation?
“Community engagement: I love and despise that language as a way of describing something that I do as my work and the way that I walk and live in the world. There is no way for me to compartmentalize art-making and my family-hood, my womanhood and my motherhood; I not only refuse to compartmentalize that but I demand that they impact one another….” Marjani Forté-Saunders 2018.
