Venue: On the Boards & More
THIS IS A LIVE, IN-PERSON PERFORMANCE AT ON THE BOARDS IN SEATTLE.
Proof of vaccination* or negative Covid test within 24 hours will be required for entry. Patrons are required to wear masks during the entire event.
*Photo of vaccination card is acceptable. If you do not have your card, you can access your vaccination record remotely by creating an account on the WA Dept of Health Immunization Information System, WA.MyIR.net.
Let ‘im Move You: This Is a Formation
Let ‘im Move You: This Is a Formation
Photo by by Michael Valiquette
Image Description: There are 10 hanging fabric panels with projected images of blue and yellow on them in a theater space. A series of dancers are in the middle, standing in formation while audience members are scattered on the periphery. There is a lighting table to the right, a sound DJ table in the back, behind the hanging panels, and theatrical white lights illuminate the frame a bit. The dancing bodies are slightly blurry and some appear in motion while others are standing still. The audience watches as the formation unfolds.
Friday, September 24 & Saturday, September 25 at 7:00 pm (Merrill Theater, On the Boards)
This Is a Formation, the Final Work in jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham’s Let ‘im Move You Series of Performance and Visual Works Informed by Black Queer and Black Femme Innovations, Centered Around the Artists’ Explorations with the J-Sette Form, September 23-25
Through jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham’s This Is a Formation, culminating ten years of collaboration in J-Sette dance through their Let ‘im Move You series, audience members will, in the Merrill Theater and the streets outside the building, share space with dancers (including seven local performers) whose call-and-response movement forges and affirms community around Black queer esistance and delight; in conjunction with these performances, poe and Beacham’s work will kick off with a procession across a mile at sunset in the historically Black Rainier Beach neighborhood.
In 2009, jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham began an artistic relationship, initiated by jumatatu’s interest in Donte’s sharply rhythmic approach to J-Sette. J-Sette is a call-and-response dance form originating in the early 80’s by Black southern U.S. majorette lines at various historically Black colleges. Leagues of Black queer men, prohibited from trying out as majorettes, would create competitive teams to practice the form in gay clubs and pride parades. Choreographic phrases are extremely set, confidential until they publicly premiere, and strategically “called” by a captain to be “responded” to by their squad.
Donte’s experience at a pride parade in Atlanta was formative for him. He has said, “That was the first time that I saw guys in uniform, in full costume....It was like six teams, so that was actually my first time seeing that many teams compete. And after that I crunk it up, I turnt it up, and that’s what I’ve been doing since. And then jumatatu and I started working together.”
The Let ‘im Move You series houses Donte and jumatatu’s ongoing collaboration, in which they search for satisfaction and subversion within J-Sette’s team-oriented call-and-response structure. Primarily duet structures, previous works in the series have been performed in black box theaters, white box gallery spaces, and outdoors in predominantly Black neighborhoods with significant foot traffic (small marketplace districts, public transportation hubs, areas proximal to block parties). The Let ‘im Move You series also includes visual installation work that is thought of in partnership with the performance work.
Explaining the titling of the series, jumatatu has said “There were various kinds of intersections that I was interested in, between this style and these Black club styles and religion, specifically Christianity. There is that saying “Let Him move you,” where the “Him” has a capital “H,” and it’s God. I think that there is a reference to that in this title and the kind of transformation that happens on the club dance floor, this ascension, this rise that happens. So there’s that kind of surrender, I wouldn't say to God but...to the Spirit.”
This Is a Formation, the latest dance performance project in the series, brings together seven Black dancers, a DJ, and a lighting designer. Audiences travel within the space with relative freedom, sharing space with the artists. Live-captured video, focusing on close-ups of the performers, appears on hanging panels throughout, referencing both hyper-surveillance of Black people’s bodies and pop-star scale megalomania.
Juan “Co-eL” Rodriguez (he/him/his)
BFA in Dance from Arizona State University, Artist, educator, performer and researcher. Co-eL began his artistic venture at the age of 12 in urban dance, his primary form of study being Breaking or B-Boying. Through a variety of programs and training he began to study other forms including postmodern dance, house, and locking, as well as train as a lighting designer and theatre technician. Currently, Co-eL’s work entails the academic and embodied research of both history and aesthetics of urban based dance forms, primarily breaking, as well as researching his own integrative contemporary practice.
LaKendrick Davis (he/him/they/them)
LaKendrick Davis was born and raised in Greenville, MS. Chief Choreographic Consultant at ChoreoJazzy Elite Productions, LaKendrick began his journey in the arts at a very young age participating in Chorus and Marching Band. Throughout the years, he began to explore other areas of the arts including music composition, cheerleading, baton twirling, and a host of additional talents. LaKendrick began training others in the style of Majorette Dance in 2004-2005 and has become a nationally acclaimed Majorette Choreographer while also educating in several additional choreographic disciplines. LaKendrick is Founder/CCC of Southern Leadership Academy for Majorettes, Inc. and ChoreoJazzy Elite, as well as lead competitive choreographer for the Sensational Sassettes (Atlanta, GA) and the Atlanta ToXiC All-Stars (Atlanta, GA). LaKendrick has appeared in several television/film productions including “Step Up: Highwater”, Jamal Sims’ “When The Beat Drops”, BET “Boomerang”, and Lifetime’s “Bring It” just to name a few. “The Epitome of Form & Excellence”
Maria Bauman (she/her)
Maria Bauman is a Brooklyn, NY-based multi-disciplinary artist and community organizer from Jacksonville, FL. She creates bold and honest artworks for her company MBDance, based on physical and emotional power, insistence on equity, and fascination with intimacy. In particular, Bauman’s dance work centers the non-linear and linear stories and bodies of queer people of color onstage. She draws on her long study of English literature, capoeira, improvisation, dancing in living rooms and nightclubs, as well as concert dance classes to embody interconnectedness, joy, and tenacity. Bauman was recently recognized with a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance with Skeleton Architecture. Currently, she is an Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellowship Candidate and an Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange. She just finished her tenure as Community Action Artist in Residence at Gibney Dance. Bauman is also a community organizer and co-founder of ACRE (Artists Co-creating Real Equity). Organizing to undo racism informs her artistic work and the two areas are each ropes in a Double-dutch that is her holistic practice. | mbdance.net
Marýa Wethers (she/her)
Marýa Wethers has been working with jumatatu as Managing Producer since 2017. She is an Independent Producer, Creative Strategist, Curator, and dancer based in Lenapehoking (NYC) since 1997, and also works as the Director of the GPS/Global Practice Sharing program at Movement Research. As a Curator she conceived and created the three-week performance series “Gathering Place: Black Queer Land(ing)” at Gibney Dance and curated for the Queer NY International Arts Festival (2016 & 2015) and Out of Space @ BRIC Studio for Danspace Project (2003-2007). Her writing includes Configurations in Motion: Curating and Communities of Color Symposium publications, organized by Thomas DeFrantz at Duke University (2016 & 2015); UnCHARTed Legacies: women of color in post-modern dance in the 25th Anniversary Movement Research Performance Journal #27/28 (2004). Marýa is also a Bessie Award winning dancer (Outstanding Performance with Skeleton Architecture, 2017).
Nikolai McKenzie Ben Rema (he/they)
Born in St. Andrew, Jamaica, and raised in the American South, Nikolai is a movement artist, improvisor, actor, writer, and teacher whose work and research deal with the tectonic plates of race/history/class/ sexuality/ language politics/ patriotism, and how these facets of identity filtered through a queer immigrant experience can physically and emotionally manifest in space and word. A graduate of the BFA in Dance and Choreography Program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, Nikolai’s choreography has been performed in New York, Richmond, VA, and Norfolk, VA, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. Some performance highlights include the works of Arthur Aviles, Banning Bouldin, Aszure Barton, Robert Battle, jumatatu m. poe and Donte Beacham, Vince Johnson, Gunnar Montana, Adam Barruch, Kun-Yang Lin and Christian Von Howard. Nikolai is currently creating dance theater works rooted in storytelling of personal ancestry as a decolonizing reclamation of queer Caribbean birthright, as a rebel yell, as a reimagining the queer future of the Caribbean and the Diaspora. IG: @nikobandra
Sanchel Brown (she/her)
Sanchel Brown is a mother/performer/choreographer/medicine woman originally from Baltimore, MD. She has worked professionally in commercial, concert, and theatre primarily in New York and Philadelphia. She obtained her B.F.A from Virginia Commonwealth University, and since then has continued her studies at L’Ecole De Sable in Senegal West Africa, with Rhapsody James in Los Angeles, and Rhythm One Acting with Ozzie Jones. She began her career as an apprentice with Urban Bush Women. Her performance career continued on with highlights such as World of Dance Philadelphia, The Kimmel Center's 2018 Jazz residency, Davido’s Coming to America Tour, Theatre Horizon's Black Nativity (Barrymore Win!), and Let 'Im Move You: This is a Formation (National Tour). Her choreography highlights include Theatre Horizon's "The Color Purple" Regional PREMIERE ( nominated for Outstanding Movement/Choreography) and Yale University Dramat's "Dreamgirls". Recently, she has shifted her focus into her self produced healing works including her hit dance play "Home To Homeland” and musical titled “Wheelz of Life”. Sanchel currently teaches her original “AfroClub “ dance class fusing Baltimore House and West African Dance Forms.
William Robinson (he/him)
William Robinson is from Washington D.C., son to parents Patricia and Maurice Robinson Jr. He attended college at The University of the Arts, graduating in 2008. He is a current performer with idiosynCrazy productions, Brian Sanders’ Junk, and Cardell Dance Theatre.
Zen Jefferson / dø√∑ Ç@K∑ (they/them)
Zen Jefferson is a Swiss British American dancer/performer, DJ and Bessie nominated sound collage artist based in Berlin. In 2006, they graduated with a BFA in dance from the Juilliard School and have since worked in creative constellations across Europe, Asia & Africa exploring themes of identity, race, home & community. Their collaborations and practice interrogate the intersections of spirit within performance, ritual, and healing that seek to disrupt the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, using the body, sound and healing as a transformative vessel for collective & inter - celestial connection. IG: @zen_dem
Queer Slow Jam Party
A dance party following the Saturday performance of This Is a Formation, featuring a stellar line up of DJ’s, to be announced. More details to follow. More info to come…
Co-Curated by Dani Tirrell
Creative Partnership between On the Boards and Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas (CDForum)
West Coast co-presenters include: Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), Portland and REDCAT, LA