Interview: Shifting Tides. A Multidisciplinary Creative Process Fusing Dance, Somatics and Black Feminist Theory: An Interview with the Choreographer

Abstract

In this article, I discuss my artistic intent and creative process for creating my Master of Fine Arts thesis concert, Shifting Tides, in a transcribed interview done by my friend and teacher, Nii Armah Sowah. As an artist, I am interested in human connection, and I am conceptually interested in exploring the ways connection heightens our self-awareness and understandings of cultural and gender difference. In addition to exploring means of connection, I explain how black feminist standpoint theory can be applied to choreography. The interview depicts how I pushed the performers to discover who they are on a deeper psychosomatic level, to develop self-awareness in their whole bodies, in order to cultivate a higher communal cognizance, while staying aware of their racial and gender biases. The essay displays how a multi-disciplinary performance process can be used to create growth, and to help communities shift into a higher consciousness based on the hypothesis that when we truly know ourselves, we can know each other and accept differences that are based on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality through the application of cultural narratives, holistic dance rituals, and feminist practices.