SSF @ Ursinus 2024

In the videodance Maracatu vs Passinho we invited a Passinho dancer and a Caboclo de Lança to present some of their expressions in a friendly duel.

Inspired by the whimsical fruit and vegetable portraits of Arcimboldo, Shelf Life is a magical look at what might be dancing in the corners of our homes.

Inspired by the work of Ida Bell Wells, whose writing documented the episodic period of lynchings in the 1890s, What’s Bred in the Blood and Bone is a study of space and place, girded by the collective experiences of brown bodies. “Blood” explores “blood memory” as body memory and the ways in which our collective experiences bind and fortify us as African Americans.

This video leans on the recent recomposition of a Danish medieval ballad fragment “Raven Leads Runes.” The Nordic Raven symbol is an expression of land connectedness and part of a transcultural field of Raven totemism in order to renew modes of community that are less destructive to the world. In Raven I explore my own understanding of this symbol, I strive to give it form and narrate it through movement. Trying to create transcultural bounds through shared symbols like the Raven can be a way of building communities. For me it’s about going back to what I know from my native Central African culture but that I have grown up away from. In order to interpret the figure of the Raven in the Nordic symbolism, I deliberately chose a Wax fabric, a typically African cultural feature, that illustrates nature to establish a transcultural connection, thus emphasizing the fundamental power of Nature. The choreography, which is built both around grounding and upward impulse aims at placing the body firmly rooted into the earth, while reaching for new horizons.

Offering creates a meaningful convergence between the Migration Dance Film Project’s body percussion artists and emerging artists from dance (gigue, contemporary, street) and circus arts. The choreography uses the power of procession in Montreal’s urban borough of Little Burgundy to amplify its storyline of (re)imagined homescape in the era of mid-pandemic. The procession formed by movement artists from across communities weaves its way through urban corridors, neighbourhoods, green spaces — an uncoiled assemblage of nomadic storytellers anchored in the intimate knowledge of individual and shared experiences in unison. Offering imbues movement in stillness within our city and takes refuge in its powerful migratory patterns traced across our urbanscape.

Five people venture to a secret meadow tucked behind snow capped mountains to participate in a ritual of their own making. Together, they delight in dream logic and ceremonial uncanny through their mischievous traditions.

This high energy piece features a fusion of Afro dance, House and Hip-Hop dance styles. Through an exploration of these dance forms, this piece seeks to establish American street dance as a direct extension of West African culture.

Struggling with writer’s block, a woman moves through surreal worlds to discover the ebbs and flows of creativity. Learn more.

Why are our fantasies so far removed from our reality? Regret to inform You follows a difficult day in the life of a Performer on the verge of forced obscurity and retirement. After one too many rejections, he becomes undone, retreating into a black and white dance fantasy to combat the reality of a society that has no place for him.