AUDITIONS for #DignityInProcess! Afro-Contemporary Dance, Ritual, & Mixed-Race Storytelling
#DignityInProcess AUDITIONS!!
Tues. Aug.11 (12-2pm) @ Dancing Grounds
3705 Saint Claude Ave, New Orleans, LA 70117
Join Activist/ Artist ChE
for a 3-Week DANCE Intensive
Bringing ritual, Afro-Contemporary dance, & mixed race storytelling
to the New Orleans Loving Festival!
Performance Opportunities with Honorarium!
Rehearsal Schedule:
Aug. 12-27 | Tues-Thurs. 12-3pm
Performances:
Saturday, Aug. 22nd & Sunday, Aug. 30th
**Audition Details:
Seeking performing artists with a dance background in Contemporary, Afro-Modern, and traditional dance forms of the African Diaspora open to sharing their stories through movement, song, and spoken word. Please come prepared with your artist bio and headshot, water, an item to place on our collective altar, and a story to share about your family lineage.
More about the Project:
#DignityInProcess is a platform for Black leadership development that utilizes embodied ritual practices, participatory art, and creative space-making to steward Black leaders as they create new pathways to sustainable living. Disrupting culturally dominant narratives of endurance and sustainability—particularly pertaining to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, this multidisciplinary performance series uses dance, spoken word, ritual, and storytelling for public intervention. MIX'd community workshops and performances examine alternative routes of identity formation, highlighting the multidimensional stories of Mixed Race people of the African Diaspora. Challenging historically held beliefs of what makes a committed activist—artist/ choreographer, ChE examines “burnout” from a Black/Native American cultural lens. They draw upon the practices that have sourced the resilience of their ancestors for generations—movement, song, celebration, and spiritual ceremony to inspire and fortify a community that continues to evolve, resist, and regenerate beyond oppressive circumstances.
North | South, #DignityInProcess Part of #DignityInProcess, this series of interactive installations and performances utilizes ancestral ceremony, connection to the natural elements, and original choreography to examine how exhaustion and endurance shape Afro-diasporic activism. How does trauma manifest in the Black body as we struggle with an innate knowing that our liberation cannot be divorced from the earth? Black evolution emerges as we challenge structures that deplete natural resources even while being pressed against historical wounds that relate land with physical extortion. Recognizing a cultural reference of freedom being found in migration to the industrial North, we ask our collective body to remember it's roots in red ancestral soil. Movement shaped through the writings and storytelling passed down from elder/ wisdom keeper, Margaret Benson Thompson; bodies sweat, feet pound, and tongues pray in this Afro-futurist ritual of rhythm and soul. This performance piece travels to the North (New York) as well as the South (New Orleans) summer of 2015 and evolves through community participation.
About the Artist:
ChE (gender pronoun - "they, them, their") uses the power of ancestral practices, arts-based community engagement, and interdisciplinary collaboration to build collective resiliency and sustainable models of living. As a director/ choreographer, ChE’s work is robust with gospel soul sounds and dances of the Diaspora that leave feet stomping and hands clapping—fusing Contemporary Modern, Afro-house, Congolese, Haitian, and Brazilian movement. A recipient of the 2011 University of California Irwin Award for artistic excellence, ChE creates spaces where the cultural relevance of art practice are deepened. They have directed and performed original work as an Artist in Residence at Big Sur Spirit Garden and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. Co-founder of Black Folks House and The MOVEMENT, they are passionate about integrating arts and healing as a practice of embodied activism. Currently, ChE introduces their platform #DignityInProcess as an opportunity for multi-generational, Black-identified change makers to develop a movement centered on empowerment, healing, and interdependence. #DignityInProcess is made possible with support from the New Orleans Loving Festival, Cafe Istanbul, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Congo Square Preservation Society, Press Street's Antenna Gallery, Gulf Coast Rising, and the New Orleans Musicians Assistance Foundation.
