2022 ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE -MARGUERITE HEMMINGS & ALI ROSA-SALAS - "PRACTICE"

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The Dance & Performance Institute looks forward to welcoming Jonathan González, Marguerite Hemmings, and Ali Rosa-Salas to Trinidad & Tobago in April 2022. Together, these artists will develop an in-process project, "PRACTICE" – premiering at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s River to River Festival in June 2022. They write:

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"In this choreographic work, the dance formations of Jonkonnu, the New York Latin Hustle, and Black Eccentric Jazz Dances, and their constitutive sonic elements the Drum, Electronic Dance Music, Speech Acts and sonic capturing devices (microphones, audio looping, auto-tune) are employed to reveal intersecting lineages of emancipatory Black Diasporic literacies as revolutionary counterpoints to the acceleration of media displaying Black dispossession and death."

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Marguerite Angelica Monique Hemmings is a Jamaican born, Jersey-raised, NYC-made performance artist/educator currently based in Philadelphia, USA.  They focus on one's own body, one's own way of moving, adapting, healing, releasing, protecting, changing, and connecting to the unseen. They are a master of body ceremonies and a curator of vibes. As a choreographer they specialize in emergent, improvisational and social dance movement styles and technologies, rooted in the story of the African Diaspora. They are researching the ancestral and subversive role of dance, and the dancer, throughout the African Diaspora and look to conjure these technologies through all of their (present) work. Marguerite uses body, text, media, and moving images in their work. Hemmings’ work centers itself in liberation. They have been subverting, working, and creating with youth as a teaching artist for over 10 years. They currently work as a lecturer at University of the Arts and are a resident artist with Abrons Arts Center. They have received grants from the Jerome Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, Harlem Stage, University Settlement, Dancing While Black, Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Center Initiative, Arizona State University’s Projecting All Voices Fellowship, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts to further their work. They've received a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer in Eva Yaa Asantewaa’s Skeleton Architecture. They currently work inside of a self/spirit directed practice called we free. we free looks at the millennial and gen z approach to liberation through its music, social dance and social media.

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Ali Rosa-Salas is a curator of live performance, music, and visual art. Her approach is rooted in the belief that curatorial practice must serve the public good. She finds inspiration from the cultural ecosystems of Lenapehoking (currently called New York City), where she was born and raised. Ali is currently the Artistic Director at Abrons Arts Center/Henry Street Settlement, where she curates the Center’s performance and exhibition programming, as well as supports the Center’s residency programs. Prior to Abrons, Ali organized projects with AFROPUNK, Danspace Project, Discwoman, Knockdown Center, MoCADA, Weeksville Heritage Center, and more. She graduated from Barnard with a B.A. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, with interdisciplinary concentrations in Dance and Race/Ethnic Studies, and has an M.A. from the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University. In addition to her role at Abrons, Ali is the Associate Curator of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. She is also the co-curator of Nuyorican Mag, a digital archive that celebrates the cultural, social, and political innovations of Puerto Ricans from New York City.