Live Works
Witness Trees (2024)
Witness Trees is inspired by the historic gardens and former plantation of Middleton Place, in Charleston, SC, as a backdrop to a thematic narrative of landscapes, rememory, and healing. The work explores the symbiotic relationship between nature and the enslaved African laborers who lived and worked there, and who dared to listen to the hidden and meaningful stories housed in the roots of the trees and the dirt of the earth.
Performed at The Dance Complex Routes to Roots, 2024, Cambridge, MA
Chaired Memories (2024)
Sitting in solitude conjures up ancestral memories that protect us.
Premiered at the Journey Through Fundraiser, Cambridge Multicultural Center, Cambridge, MA 2024
From Where I Sit (2024)
Though we may walk the same path our journeys are unique. Our experiences and personal beliefs shape our perspective and inform our self consciousness. Thus, it is our compassion for each other’s perspective that we honor humanity in us all.
Premiered at the Journey Through Fundraiser, Cambridge Multicultural center, Cambridge MA, 2024
Who We Say We Are- Pulsation (2023)
Takes into account the symbiotic heartbeat and pulsating energy of a city and its inhabitants. Supported with an Art for Social Justice Grant from Cambridge Arts and an Art for Spatial Justice Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Commissioned by and supported by Cambridge Arts, with additional support from New England Foundation for the Arts, Art for Spatial Justice Grant.
Premiered at the José Mateo Ballet Theatre, Cambridge MA, 2023
Photo credit: Robert A. Bellinger
Photo Credit: Greg Cooke
Packing the Sack (2023)
Inspired and shaped by the book, All That She Carried, by Tiya Miles, the work is a compilation of the autobiographical stories of each RootsUprising dancer. Through their testimonies the question is deepened; “what is in our sack that sustains us and more importantly, what is our sack?”
Supported by Cambridge Arts with additional support from New England Foundation for the Arts, Art for Spatial Justice Grant.
Premiered at the José Mateo Ballet Theatre, Cambridge MA, 2023
Photo Credit: Greg Cooke
Entangled Gaze (2022)
Explores the complexities of hierarchical gazing and the effect the relationship has on the gazed and the gazer.
Produced by Theater for the People
Premiered at Bahai’ Center, Eliot ME, Cambridge, MA, 2022
Photo Credit: Robert A. Bellinger
Rooted We Are (2022)
An ensemble work signifying the spirit of RootsUprising.
Produced by Theater for the People
Premiered at Bahai’ Center, Eliot ME, Cambridge, MA, 2022
Photo Credit: Glenn Scott Egli
So Noted (2022)
From the poem “Where Do Notes Go?” by S. Pearl Sharp, this choreographic text celebrates the sound of Jazz music of the African American musician and its symbolic tie to the black body.
Produced by Theater for the People and the New Repertory Theatre
Premiered at the New Repertory Theatre, Waltham, MA, 2022
Photo Credit: Robert A. Bellinger
Migrated Souls (2021)
Live performance component of Initiation- In Love Solidarity project, exploring the embodiment of the Middle Passage experience.
Commissioned by Harvard University Committee on the Arts
Produced and Premiered at Harvard Dance Center, Cambridge, MA, 2021
Photo Credit: Craig Bailey
Rememory (2021)
Live performance component of Initiation- In Love Solidarity project, focusing on the reflective moment of rememory and reflection. It is an invitation to enter a dialogue on the journey of African diasporic people, as it connects to the whole of humanity, through reflection, reclamation, and regeneration, moving from trauma to resilience in love solidarity.
Commissioned by the Harvard University Committee for the Arts (HUCA)
Produced by and Premiered at Harvard Dance Center, Harvard University, 2021
Photo Credit: Robert A. Bellinger
Zipporah (2017)
A biographical narrative of Zipporah Potter Atkins, a Black woman who became a property-owner in Boston in the 17th century.
Commissioned by Harvard University’s Black In Design Conference, 2017
Live Performance Premiered at Harvard University’s Black In Design Conference, 2017
Photo Credit: Glenn Scott Egli
Film Works
Pathways (2023)
A dance film narrative that explores the ekphrastic journey of the dancers themselves throughout the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Supported with an Art for Social Justice Grant from Cambridge Arts and an Art for Spatial Justice Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Premiered at the José Mateo Ballet Theatre, Cambridge MA, 2023
Photo Credit: Robert A. Bellinger
Zipporah (2022)
A dance film component of the live performance created in 2017, this choreographic narrative tells the story of Zipporah Potter Atkins, a Black woman who became a property-owner in Boston in the 17th century. Filmed on the historical site of Zipporah Potter Atkins’ home in Boston’s North End.
Produced by RootsUprising
Premiered at the New Repertory Theatre, 2022
Photo Credit: Nailah Randall-Bellinger
Initiation–In Love Solidarity (2021)
A dance film component of a multimodal project created at historic sites in New England related to the transatlantic slave trade and emancipation. The choreographic narrative tells a mnemonic remembering of the transatlantic slave trade and Middle Passage experience, honoring the Sea Water spirits. The work connects to the whole of humanity, through reflection, reclamation, and regeneration, moving from trauma to resilience in love solidarity.
Commissioned by the Harvard University Committee for the Arts (HUCA)
Produced and Premiered by Harvard Dance Center, Harvard University, 2021
Photo Credit: Robert A. Bellinger
#shesstillbreathing (2020)
An ode to Breonna Taylor and all of the other black women who have been senselessly murdered by Police forces throughout the nation. This choreographic text was created in the Great Meadows woods of the town of Lexington, during the height of the Pandemic, when dance artist were finding means to still create and share their work.
Produced by RootsUprising
Presented at the Harvard Dance Center Zoom Artist Talk Series, 2021
Photo Credit: Robert A. Bellinger
Women’s Work (2020)
A Zoom choreographic creation set to the poetry of Dr. Thema Bryant as a tribute to all women. The work speaks to the strength and tireless tasks that women perform in order to uphold the whole of humanity. Created in the individual households of each of the 4 dancers with me, using the zoom technological lens.
Produced by RootsUprising
Presented at the Harvard Dance Center Zoom Artist Talk Series, 2021
Photo Credit: Nailah Randall-Bellinger