92nd Street Y Presents

Performing Justice: Dancing While Black

Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Maria Bauman, Jaimé Yawa Dzandu and Paloma McGregor

In celebration of DWB’s fifth anniversary year, choreographers Jaimé Yawa Dzandu and Maria Bauman perform and discuss issues concerning equality and leadership in dance with Eva Yaa Asantewaa (Infinite Body) and DWB founder Paloma McGregor.

Dancing While Black is “an artist-led initiative that supports the diverse work of Black dance artists by cultivating platforms for process, performance, dialogue and documentation.” DWB centers the vision, creative work and community activism of dance artists of the Black diaspora. Live performance, video of DWB fellows and discussion.

$15 in advance / $25, 2-hours prior to performance

On this special evening, Skeleton Architecture will share a performance that emphasizes the collaborative process and highlights the power of Black womyn within community. This sharing imagines and activates a site of InterSections – a crossroads, a place of high-stakes, risks and magic — through improvisation, dance, song, text, and spirit. Open to all.

The Skeleton Architecture collective, the 2017 Bessie recipients for “Outstanding Performance,” originated through Eva Yaa Asantewaa’s curated evening during Danspace Project’s Platform 2016: Lost & Found. The collective is a vessel of Black womyn and gender non-conforming artists rooted in the rigor and power of the collective in practice. They commit to engaging embodied research to support the African Diasporic experiences. Join Skeleton Architecture for the culmination of their year-long Danspace Project Research Residency. There will be three offerings that include improvisation, movement, fellowship, music, and discussion.

Skeleton Architecture members are: Maria Bauman, Davalois Fearon, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Melanie Greene, Kayla Hamilton, Jasmine Hearn, Marguerite Hemmings, Nia Love, Paloma McGregor, Sydnie L. Mosley, Grace Osborne, Leslie Parker, Angie Pittman, Samantha Speis, Charmaine Warren, Edisa Weeks, Marýa Wethers, and Tara Aisha Willis.

Paloma McGregor, Movement Research Artist in Residence, will be joined by Jasmine Hearn (2017-18 Dancing While Black Fellow & 2018 Movement Research AIR), Nile Harris and Maya Lee-Parritz for an evening of performance at Judson Memorial Church