Upcoming Performances
2024 River Festival
Saturday, June 15, 2pm
Witness Trees at the 2024 River Festival in Cambridge, MA.
Roots & Routes
Saturday, June 15, 7pm
The Dance Complex in Cambridge, MA.
Recent Engagements
2024
Witness Trees
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.
An open rehearsal and Q&A conversation with choreographer Nailah Randall-Bellinger and dancers of RootsUprising, moderated by historian, memorializer, and 2023-24 Hutchins Center Fellow Dr. Alexandria Russell, was presented by the Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA) Dance Program at Harvard Dance Center as part of teaching artist residency and as part of Harvard’s ARTS FIRST festival.
2023
Who We Say We Are
Artist-in-Residence, Cambridge Arts Council
Into the Roots conference: 12-6pm; and Who We Say We Are performance: 7pm
January-August, 2023
Who We Say We Are is a choreographic, multimedia project, created by RootsUprising Dance Company's Artistic Director Nailah Randall-Bellinger. This project aimed to expand the conversation of belonging in the city of Cambridge through dance. RootsUprising will held space for community conversations and presented iterations of the work at the Cambridge Arts River Festival, Cambridge Multicultural Center, and pop-up performances and conversations around the City of Cambridge in the summer of 2023, where audiences engaged in movement, community building activities, and deep conversations around belonging and embracing diverse representation.
Collaborators included RootsUprising dancers, cinematographer, Christina Belinsky, muscian, Sipho Bellinger, poets, Regie Gibson and Janice Lowe and the artistic director of the Cambridge Multicultural Center, Najee Brown. Supported through Art for Social Justice, Cambridge Arts, and Public Art for Spatial Justice, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA)
2022
Reclaiming the Atlantic in Practice
A lecture presentation by Nailah Randall-Bellinger as part of a panel discussion on Ocean Justice and the Engaged Scholarship in Action
Presented at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Seachange Conference
Lecture presentation by Nailah Randall-Bellinger as part of a panel discussion. Bellinger also led a movement workshop on dance as healing for participants of the conference.
Presented at Green Acres Baha’i Center, Eliot, ME
Transcending the Black Effect
Performance of Entangled Gaze and So Noted, choreographed by Nailah Randall-Bellinger.
Presented at Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, NH
Initiation– In Love Solidarity
An evening-length presentation of the full project of Initiation– In Love Solidarity with film, live performance, and dialogue.
Presented at Multicultural Art Center, Cambridge, MA
Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Walking Tour and Interviews with Nailah Randall-Bellinger, conducted by Dr. Alexandria Russell, Research Fellow for Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery.
Based on Initiation– In Love Solidarity, created by Nailah Randall-Bellinger.
Reconsidering
Evening performance of RootsUprising’s full repertoire of works, including films and live performances, followed by dialogue.
Presented at New Repertory Theater, Watertown, MA
2021
Artist-in-Residence at Harvard Dance Center, Harvard University
Creation and premiere of Initiation– In Love Solidarity, created by Nailah Randall-Bellinger
Site-specific live performance of Rememory as part of American Repertory Theater’s The Arboretum Experience, followed by Q&A
Presented at The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Boston, MA
Site-specific live performance of Rememory, followed by dialogue
Presented at Barker Center Courtyard, Cambridge, MA
Film Screening of Initiation– In Love Solidarity, followed by dialogue
Presented at Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center, Cambridge, MA
Full evening film screening and live performance of Initiation– In Love Solidarity, followed by dialogue
Presented at Harvard Dance Center, Cambridge, MA