Hometown: Milwaukee, WI

Current City: Brooklyn, NY

Age: 48

College and degree: NYU, Tisch School of the Arts; BFA in Dance

Website: fistandheelperformancegroup.org

How you pay the bills: Choreographing, lecturing, teaching, grants and fellowships

All the dance hats you wear: Choreographer, performer, vocalist, project director, Artistic Director, Executive Director, lecturer, “decider," “schedule-er," coordinator, lay-anthropologist, teacher, bringing folks and ideas together-er, mentor, moderator, panelist, curator, advisor, board member, student

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My life as Choreographer begins in (pre) historic human past

My life as Choreographer begins in African historic accomplishment

My life as Choreographer begins in African historic trauma

My life as Choreographer was transformed by the Middle Passage

My life as Choreographer is fertilized in the Mississippi River Delta

My dancing began with Tina Turner and the Jackson 5

 

September 1985 I moved into Judson on Washington Square South, NYC.

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My 20s begin: 1987

My 20s began in my last year at NYU as a member of the 2^nd Ave Dance Co. I performed works by Mark Morris, David Gordon and Ohad Naharin.

In my 20s the Village continued to be my stomping ground. I was immersed in “Downtown” dance.  Seeing everything at Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Eden’s Expressway, PS 122, La Mama and my pre-Youtube obsession was the Dance Collection at Lincoln Center, the Margaret Mead Film Festival (“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.") and later the African Film Festival.

Received my 1^st professional NY Times review in 1989 for performance of the solo N/UM on Dance Theater Workshop’s Fresh Tracks series.

I was seeing the work of such artists and companies as: Susan Marshall, Bebe Miller, Ralph Lemon, Pina Bausch, Urban Bush Women (Jawole Willa Jo Zollar), Women of the Calabash, Elisa Monte, Pomo Afro Homos, Bill T. Jones, Donald Byrd, Ronald K. Brown, Lady Gourd Sangoma, Keely Garfield, Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Exchanged cleaning studio for morning ballet class with Cindi Green.

I began dancing with Ohad Naharin in 1988 when one of his dancers left just before a performance gig. It was a quick whirlwind of learning rep pieces in a very short period of time. I ended up working with him for years, until I got injured.

1^st evening length show was Kaffir at DTW in 1990.

1^st Tour, Either Side of the Mountain, Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, Israel. Commissioned by Israel Museum-Jerusalem. Collaboration with choreographer Yin Mei; music: traditional Chinese by Chan Yuan Wang.

1^st cultural research trips to Milwaukee, WI; New Orleans, LA, Memphis, TN; multiple sites in Mississippi and Arkansas.

6 evening length shows at DTW, Danspace Project and 651Arts at the BAM Majestic Theater.

Continued and expanded research, teaching and performances in the Caribbean and Africa (Trinidad and Tobago, Curaçao, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique).

Started calling my Company “Fist and Heel Performance Group," liking that it sounds confusing, mysterious, anatomical, possibly political, and that it references a historic/cultural practice.  “Fist and Heel, the Company’s name is derived from enslaved Africans in the Americas who reinvented their spiritual traditions as a soulful art form that white and black authorities dismissed as merely ‘fist and heel worshipping'.”

My 30s begin: 1997

Continued and expanded cultural research, teaching and performances in Africa (Ghana, Senegal, Chad, Mali, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville).

1^st International collaboration was Rum and Salvation – Queen’s Hall, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies. Commissioned collaborative work with Noble Douglas, performed by Fist and Heel and Noble Douglas Dance Company Inc.

Fist and Heel Performance Group incorporates and becomes 501(c)3.

1^st BAM Next Wave performances. The GOOD DANCE-dakar/brooklyn. Full evening work. Collaboration of Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group and Andréya Ouamba/Cie 1^er Temps, resulting from a 5-year exchange and collaboration.

My 40s begin: 2007

2^nd BAM Next Wave performances. Moses(es), a full evening work; multi-year research in Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Mali and Alaska. After having received numerous awards and grants, I was/am humbled being in the inaugural year of awards for the Doris Duke Artist Awards.

Teaching, paneling, guest choreographing at universities and other companies. 

Continued cultural research in new places (Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, Turkey, Israel).

I am approaching 50s and the future

I am terribly excited and very much looking forward!!!

Please pose 3 questions for choreographers to consider:

What are you obsessed with? (For your personal health processing and “inspiration”)

Where would you like to go but never had the opportunity? (For being traumatized—in the best possible way. And unknowable, unseen inspiration)

What are you really trying to do or say with this work? (For editing)

Please describe your most current project and the questions you are asking yourself right now as an artist.

Working on CITIZEN, my new evening-length work. Premiering Fall 2016.

How can isolation that happens often because of our diversities, reflect the quintessential American ideal to be able to co-exist freely and equally? My new work CITIZEN is considering the contradictions embedded in co-existence. 

A 2014 trip to Paris led to thinking about why many famous artists of the Harlem Renaissance made a path to Europe. With migration as an ongoing concentration and source of inspiration for my work, I became obsessed to understand the varied thoughts and reasons of this particular migration. I questioned what were the parallels to other migrations of black folks across the globe? Also, a long held interest in the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston led me to wonder why she chose to remain and base her work here in America. These were the points of “departure” for the creation of CITIZEN. Expanding questions continue to accumulate about what does it mean to belong and to NOT want to belong. In the development of the new work, theoretical and cerebral ideas are being confronted through the development of numerous kinesthetic elements using repetition, rhythm and juxtaposition, layered with filmed studio and site-specific footage using scale, light and shadow. 

With CITIZEN I chose to work on crafting solos layered with ensemble work. This is a significant shift, as my last several performance works have been group works for 8-9 performers. Working one-on-one in the studio with strong kinesthetic focus, experimenting with scale, layering the movement, looking at shadows, using film footage and lighting design; what comes into focus, what's insinuated, what's revealed in and through the layers by this kind of playing and experimenting in the studio, have refreshed my perspectives.

CITIZEN is developing into a work that brings awareness and reflects the personal/internal work we have to do, sorting through our own experiences, psyches, histories, memories, feelings and realities to see the truth of the moment. This new work invites the viewer to actively search for/realize her/his own complexities before "judging" someone else's. To date, the dancers never touch; making the viewer aware of isolation/anonymity and evoking questions of belonging or not belonging (to group/community/country). It seems every single day CITIZEN is more and more timely in America. It’s my hope that this work will help expand the conversations about feeling that one belongs vs. not belonging.

Final thoughts – Hope/belief/love of the profession:

It’s my thought, belief and practice that with travel and ethnographic research, Choreography and the Dance will incorporate performance practices of various cultural Diasporas into current work. This effectively updates the research-to-performance methodologies of such mid-century artists Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus and Maya Daren.

In reference to my work, it has been stated that I “freely borrow movement material and compositional devices from a wide range of sources, blurring the distinction between black dance and modern dance; challenging spectators to recognize the global circulation of American and African cultures.” (Susan Manning, TDR Spring 2015). It is my hope that my work encourages the world to reconsider the transnational circulation of modern dance; noted past experiences of multiple encounters calls for a global dance history in opposition to histories focused on a single nation-state or subculture.

Create door #3…then walk thru…

Merge your creative side with your science/nerd side. 

Avoid making decisions at all costs…Nope, do it anyway

YES I CAN! Know if you care about something or not. Trust!

Something can be the right answer at the moment, but not forever…  It’s not the last time you have to decide

It’s not Either/Or but Both/And

Creative People need to be Creative. What are the cultures that foster that?

Define your own road.

From now to 65 is a party.   

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