Bessie and Herb Alpert Award-winning dancer, choreographer, and Harlem Stage WaterWorks Established Artist, nia love, and her collaborators present UNDERcurrents. We are grateful that you could join us for this powerful project.
UNDERcurrents is both a continuation and a fresh departure within nia love’s long-term project, g1(host):lostatsea. A serial, multi-media performance and research platform, g1(host):lostatsea marks the continuous engagement with the memory and “afterlives” of transatlantic slavery. It pivots on this query: what remains of the Middle Passage as force, gesture, and affect?
Taking off from these initiatives, these questions are explored through two primary thematic elements: water and doors. The point of departure for captive Africans into the Middle Passage is described as “the door of no return.” Conjuring the continual resonance of this world-making and breaking threshold, UNDERcurrents is an immersive audience experience with an installation that is activated by performance.
Our aim here is an experience of immersion that is, most crucially, felt; where the audience participates in a speculative process in which the submerged gestural and elemental traces of transatlantic slavery are made palpable. This is the core of the new departure of UNDERcurrents: we want to bring the audience fully into this world, we want to reduce the distance between the audience and the performance, taking the audience out to sea, or bringing the sea forth, and from this altered perspective we shift our embodied habits of sensing these foundational conditions of our lived environments and histories.
UNDERcurrents photos courtesy of Nic Petry | Dancing Camera
Choreographer/Director/ nia love
Performer
Movement Collaborators j. bouey, Cyan Hunter, Lela Aisha Jones, Makeda-Lily Love-Roney, marco farroni leopoldo, Jesse Phillips-Fein, Diana
Composer
Uribe, Jessica Ziegler
Antoine Roney (G Mezzo Soprano
Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Roland AE30)
Musical Collaborators
Kojo Melché Roney (Drums)
Emanuel Ruffler (Keyboards)
Jeremiah Kal’ab (Bass)
Additional Sound Conch Shell Invocation by Coni Lewis Lopez
Quotes from Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Poem by Kamau Braithwaite
The End of a Love Affair by Billie Holiday
Petal of a Rose by Duke Ellington
Video
Projection Design
Costume Design
Technical Design
Lighting Design
Conceptual Design/Writer
Stage Manager
Rhonda Haynes, Aidan Un
Laura Sofía Pérez
Zinda Williams and Islah Abdul
Rahim (mythical beast)
Anthony Fernandez
Amanda K. Ringger
Benin Ford
Buffy
Commissioned by Harlem Stage through its WaterWorks Established Artists Program and supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Thompson Family Foundation, and the Leonard & Robert Weintraub Family Fund. Supported by a development residency at Chelsea Factory. The development of UNDERcurrents was made possible, in part, by the Maggie Allesee
National Center for Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University.
You Know - God and Goddess first, and - I bow! My deepest love and respect to my Ancestors, known and known in other ways. Deep profound love and gratitude to my entire family - my momma-da Goosie-Winada A. Love, my husband Antoine, our children and grands: Torkwase- Khem, Makeda-Lily, Ziporah, Kojo, the lil ones, Mia-Isis, Kaya, and Ali, for always showing unconditional love and being the present and future of me. Unconditional love to my brother Scott and his wife Marshanne Love. BIG LOVE to my UNDERcurrents family - Islah Abdul-Rahim, j. bouey, marco farroni leonardo, Anthony Fernandez, Jeremiah Kal’ab, Kayla Hamilton, Rhonda Haynes, Cyan Hunter, Lela Aisha Jones, Coni Lewis-Lopez, Laura Sofia Pérez, Jesse Phillips-Fein, Mandy Ringger, Makeda-Lily Love-Roney, Antoine Roney, Kojo Roney, Emanuel Ruffler, Buffy Sierra, Aidan Un, Diana Uribe, Zinda Williams, and Jessica “JZ” Ziegler. g1(host):lostatsea cast, you continue to be the anchor for this work, love and gratitude to Veleda Roehl, Orion Gordon & Iquo Essien. My deep ass soul-to-soul love to Nzingha Tyehemba and the entire Mama Nonkululeko Tribe, Benin Ford, and Fred Moten. Profound love and appreciation for Dionne Brand, Yvonne Connike (UK producer, 2026)
Yvonne Daniel, Saidiya Hartman, Stephanie Rolland, Christina Sharpe, Smitha Vishveshwara - we are sisters! My deep respect and love to
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and the entire UBW family and CCI/CCI 2.0 cohorts and mentors. Liz Lerman and the Wicked Bodies cast - love y’all. Diving deep with love and gratitude to Paloma McGregor and the Dancing While Black family. Body-mind-soul love to Dr. Shante Hinson and Dr. Candice Fraser, Jerome Haferd, Abou Farman and Tavia Nyong’o. To my Bryn Mawr family: Justin McDaniel, Amy M. Radbill, & Kat Larson, I love you all. To my FSU & MANCC family: Carla Peterson, Ansje Burdick, Chris Cameron, Dr. James Frazer (Dean of Florida State University) Scott Lindenberg, Meredith Lyn, Clarence & Dr. Geri Seay, Olusegun Williams, Duzzie White and interns Ashlee Hubert and Chloe Mueller, I appreciate you all so much! WOW, we love you at Petronio Residency Center: Gino Grenek, Stephen Petronio, Cassandra Stern! Much appreciation to Barbara Bryan and Movement Research staff; Marya Warshaw and Jane-Cole Raftery, Kara
Gilmour, Vanessa Adato, Marlène Ramirez-Cancio, Lucia Scheckner, Abby Browde, and the entire BAX family. Gratitude to the LMCC staff and 2022-23 cohorts. Big hugs to my Wesleyan crew: Nicole Stanton, Ariana Molokwu, Rani Arbo, Jennifer Diglio, Jennifer Calienes, Jesse Nasta and Jumoke McDuffie-Thurmond, and loving shout out to my Embodying Anti-Racism Initiative cohorts. My profound thanks to Indira Goodwine-Josias, Cheri Opperman, Kristen Gregory, Ebony Noelle Golden and Germaine Ingram at NEFA; and Maya Quetzali Gonzalez Grace at the MAP Fund. Kiss ups to the sky and long held hugs to my Skeleton Architecture family. Always grateful to my sister-colleague Edisa Weeks, and my second home Queens College
CUNY Dept. of Drama, Theatre and Dance (also thanks for the acting blocks!). Thank you to Jamie Dowd and The Floor for your generative rehearsal space, and thank you to Amy Smith for your administrative support. For helping me to grow and be honest, respect and gratitude to my students at Queens College and The Eugene Lang College | The New School, and my mentees at New York Live Arts and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. To Patricia Cruz, Carl Hancock-Rux, Eric Oberstein, Rodney Bissessar, Shamar Hill, Maurice Ivy, Deirdre May, Eddy Perez, Shanté Skyers, and the Harlem Stage staff - without your support, generosity, and belief in my vision, this iteration of UNDERcurrents would not be possible. Alexis Pauline Gumbs - truly grateful for the ways you continue to teach us how to love and breathe through it all.
Gratitude for allowing me to speak your words from UNDROWNED: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. Last and certainly not least, this work could not be imagined or realized without the continual sign posts from his loving direction to listen alongside and with the wake...here is to my father, sculptor, educator—Ed Love
—nia love• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route by Sadiya Hartman
• A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand
• In The Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe
• Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
• Specters of the Atlantic by Ian Baucom
• Zong! by NorbeSe Philip
• The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies by Tiffany Lethabo King
• Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic LIfe in the African Diaspora by Kevin Dawson
• Undercommons by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney
• Astonishment and Power: The Eyes of Understanding Kongo Minkisi/The Art of Renee Stoud by Wyatt MacGaffey, Michael D. Harris, and Sylvia H. Williams
• Nomenclature by Dionne Brand
• Art, Dialogue, Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture by Wole Soyinka
• Monuments to the Future: The Art of Ed Love by Robert Farris Thompson
Water was often present during key moments in the Black experience. People rarely consider how black folks engaged during enslavement with water for purposes of labor and recreation. Atlantic African societies resided near oceans, lakes, and rivers that allowed them to weave terrestrial and aquatic experiences into amphibious lives. Black folks of African descent taken during enslavement periods were intimately familiar with water and their maritime skills allowed them to command moving water. They were and were used as divers, swimmers, fishermen, and sailors in various parts of the Americas.
Black folks for lineages have engaged with water spirits that are known to connect the living with the dead. Some practitioners through song and dance cross the kalunga,…an entire cosmological system that understood bodies of water to be bridges connecting the lands of the living and the realm of the dead.
We are always crossing and synthesizing and fertilizing our next moves. Water was a practical part of escaping enslavement to villages and locations of our own. We braved rivers, lakes and rainfall to evade the sensory power of the bloodhounds. The most effectual means in evading the dogs was to saturate footprints in water, or diving into swamps or streams to conceal their scent. We are potent and vibrant and only the water can embrace us and engulf us. Submerging into what can hold their full humanity and embodiment… floating vibrantly no being owns we are all with in exchange with what is alive, dead, and what is in between and all around seen unseen heard unheard tasted untasted touched untouched sensed felt infinitely
Wisdom Credits: ancestors, laj, M. Jaqui Alexander, grand/mothers, Oyelola Elebuibon, elders, Nzinga Metzger, iyas, Tyler Parry, seasoned folks, Sobonfu Somé, Ras Michael Brown, Dr. Kariamu Welsh, priestesses, T.J. Desch-Obi, grandfathers, uncles, oshun/ochun/osun, olokun
What I want to say to you requires a more nuanced field of receptive language. It requires me to reshape my head, my entire body, the very capacity to breathe deeper than I have ever breathed [before]. Sonic systems are more needed than visual information. So I will close my eyes and ask for you to do the same if you feel comfortable, as I recite these words: Here is all of me, and here we are. Here.
Here in this blinding presence. A constantly moving world. Here.
Humanity listening towards home. An offered presencing here. This poem is for you. Here, right here. A turbid life. Yes. And here. All here. Here we go.
Sourced from the Cultura América Latina y el Caribe archive on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDFQOGSgSPw
Until it come to the time
for the great myriad bird, the mystery, to begin its ascent, its challenge against the earth, the paradoxical oracle of wind, wings beating, unchaining, outboarding as seaman might say, the great breast ruffled and rising as in all the great legends. But this happening here, before me, under me now, wonderfully surrounding me, the white silver louvered feather shift and chevron, stretching out across the sunlight, the great terrible beauty and beating we have always heard about, beating, beating upward and forward, the planks of its shape shivering at first like a ship, like a dowel then settling down into smooth as we move upwards.
Now the first hills at the darker mountains of English, the sea below all silver like our shadow, the beacon topaz eyes unblinking even through all the shudder,
the wings now stretched across all space openly and awesomely so that we are not beating anymore. But, ah, sailing, sailing, something like singing, because at last I have been able to use all the words in the language as long as I lay them out softly and carefully,
like these unfluttering feathers of song, like the sea below turning into a gray ball without fishes, like the darkness no longer lingering above us,
but we moving towards it as part of its fuse and its future,
the Ayesha of sails one last time in our airs, the earth gone a long time now, green spur arrogance of John Crow mountain.
Strange, not even the memory of a carefree river in these places, too far up now for sunsets, through all this rain and silence on our eyes, on our cheeks, on our faces.
The metaphor at last a float, Almost a light in the darkness, a light in the darkness, a light in the darkness
nia love (she/her) is a choreographer and somatic practitioner driven by the social force and weight of blackness. Aiming to breach the propriety of “dance,” she redresses it as gesture - the memory of movement, geographies, and scales and ruptures of time held in our flesh. As a teenager, love apprenticed with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in Havana, Cuba. She is a Graduate of Howard University (BA) and Florida State University (MFA), and she is a Fulbright Fellow for research in Ghana, Mali and Togo, Urban Bush Women Choreographic Initiative 2.0 Fellow, and an Embodying Anti-Racism Fellow at Wesleyan University. She has received two Bessie’s Awards for performance and music composition, and is a recipient of the the Herb Alpert Award and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award. Her work has been funded by NYLA’s Suitcase Fund, the MAP Fund, and NEFA’s National Dance Project Production Grant, and she has received LMCC’s Workspace Residency, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) Residency, and the Movement Research Rosin Fund Residency. In addition to her own work, she has toured internationally with Butoh master Min Tinaka’s Poe Project and nationally with Liz Lerman’s Wicked Bodies. Love has taught across the U.S. and abroad, and currently she is an adjunct professor at Queens College and the New School, and the artistic advisor to NYLA’s Fresh Tracks program, and BAX’s Artist-in-Residence program.
Islah Abdul-Rahim (she/her) is a performance based visual artist who studied theater at Bennington College and received a B.A. in Studio Art from Hunter College. A former long term resident of Brooklyn, she currently resides in Buffalo, NY. She generates her art practice as prescriptive, intended to present a path which integrates spirit with vision, especially as it pertains to the origins of transformative magic and healing both in performance and in place. Her work with paper, textiles, wood, metal, concrete and mixed media has been utilized as set pieces, props, masks, puppets and accessories for repertory theater, film, television, dance and music for over forty five years. Various static pieces can be found in private collections while additional work has been intentionally created for ceremonial/ritual use. Islah has worked professionally in wardrobe and theatrical crafts on Broadway for over twenty five years.
j. bouey (they/them) was born in Los Angeles, California, started their dance training at Camelback High School on the Ice Cold Souljahs Step Team, continued training at South Mountain High School, and received their BFA in Dance from Arizona State University before moving to New York City in 2015. They are a current collaborator with nia love have performed with The Fabulous Waack Dancers (under the direction of Princess Lockerooo), Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Germaul Barnes’ Viewsic Dance, Maria Bauman’s MB Dance, Dante Brown, Antonio Brown Dance, Christal Brown’s INspirit Dance, and apprenticed with Emerge 125 (formerly Elisa Monte Dance) under the artistic direction of Tiffany Rea-Fisher. As a creator, j. was a 2021-2022 Jerome Fellow, is a 2022/2023 Movement Research Artist in Residence, a 2023 CUNY Dance Initiative Recipient, and 2023 BRIClab Performance Arts Residency Artist with George Del Barrio and Tyrone Bevans. j. bouey was also recently a Gibney 2021 Spotlight Artist, Artist-In-Residence at CPR – Center for Performance Research, and 2021 Bogliasco Fellow. j. was also a 2018 Movement Research Van Lier Fellow, and 2018 Dancing While Black Fellow.
Anthony Fernandez (he/him), based in New York City, collaborates with material and performance artists to manipulate design elements. His hope is to help create an atmosphere that opens up the possibilities of a space to best suit our intentions. It has been a pleasure working with nia and the UNDERcurrents team.
Benin Ford (he/him) Originally from Memphis, TN, Benin received his BA from Davidson College where he was a Romare H. Bearden Scholar. He received an MFA/MS in Painting and Art History from Pratt Institute. He was awarded the 2013 Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters and Sculptors Grant, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Cyan Hunter (he/they) was born in North Carolina and became a dancer at a very young age. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Dance at the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts In Manhattan. Cyan has worked with nia love, Stacy Spence, David Thompson, Correen Longbine, Rebecca Stenn, Vicky Shick and Larissa Velez-Jackson. He also has performed alongside the Keely Garfield Dance Company with works at Danspace Project and New York Live Arts. His most recent work is the 2021 Park Avenue Armory Production of DEEP BLUE SEA curated by Bill T. Jones and the Bill T.Jones/ Arnie Zane Company, Brackish Arts Extravaganza (2022). & Arts On Site 3R performances.
Lela Aisha Jones (LAJ) (she/her) is a movement performance artist and embodied researcher. For her elegantly daring offerings, LAJ has earned a New York Dance and Performance | Bessie nomination, Leeway Transformation Award, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Some of her most recent artistic engagements and projects include a feature film and virtual ceremony titled Revivals of Blackness (2021) commissioned by World Cafe Live, Olney Embrace Project Revival Walks (2020/2021) commissioned by Ambrose Liu for Olney Culture Lab, commissioned work titled we all gon’ die into revivals for Red Clay Dance in Chicago, IL (2021). LAJ serves as the Associate /Artistic Director of Brownbody, a St. Paul Minnesota-based Ice/Stage dance company. LAJ earned a BS at University of Florida, an MFA at Florida State University, a PhD at Texas Woman’s University, and is the Director of Dance at Bryn Mawr College. In her performance career, LAJ has been part of nia love’s UNDERcurrents team since 2019 and is a collaborator with The Re-Emancipation of Social Dance, led by Raja Feather, Yolanda Wisher, and Philadelphia Contemporary. LAJ was born and raised in the wonderful Tallahassee (a Muskogee word for old fields), FL and is based in Philadelphia, PA.
Jeremiah Kal’ab (he/him) is a 18 year old bassist born in Detroit Michigan, and raised in the DMV area. He has been playing music all his life, starting on African drums as a baby and bass when he was 8 years old, Mentored by music legends such as Antoine Roney, Rodney Whitakker, John Clayton, Rufus Reid, Buster Willams, Lenny White, Kenny Garret, Donald Harrison and Ralphe Armstrong, he currently resides in Harlem, NYC. On the scene playing and learning from the greats!
marco farroni leonardo (he/they/we) is a movement & performance artist, from Bonao, Dominican Republic & based in Seattle and New York. They hold a BFA in dance from The University of the Arts. Their work engages with themes and ideas around home, the body as archive, the Diaspora and memory. Artistic collaborations include nia love, dani tirrell, David Rue, Aisha Noir, Nia-Amina Minor, Amanda Morgan, and Donald Byrd amongst others. They have presented work in various venues in Seattle, WA including Velocity Dance Center, Wa Na Wari, Base Arts Space, 10 Degrees Arts, The School of Spectrum Dance Theater, and The Aids Memorial Pathway.
Coni Lewis Lopez (she/her), Spiritual Advisory & Licensed Healing Facilitator, Coni’s training began early in life at the feet of her Elders. She has studied extensively with various Masters of Alternative Medicine, from all over the world, and has discovered that all of her offerings are best, when authentic. This discovery led her to the Ultimate Journey Within...Through means of Energy, Massage, and Harmonic Vibrational Therapies, Coni acts as an Inward Tour Guide for groups and/or individuals of all ages, seeking to sustain and maintain wellness and balance for The Spirit, Mind and Body.
Laura Sofía Pérez (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist who works in video, film, sound, and installation. She received her MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts. Her work draws from feminist and avant-garde cinema, phenomenological philosophy, Caribbean Postcolonial theory, and ancestral knowledge. She often works in collaborative settings of experimentation and improvisation with artists of varying disciplines and backgrounds to voice common perspectives on political, cultural, and social issues. Recent artist residencies include The Studios at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2023), BAiR Emerging at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, Canada (2020), and La Práctica at Beta-Local, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2019).
Jesse Phillips-Fein (she/her) grew up dancing at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange/ BAX. Jesse holds a BA in Dance & Cultural Anthropology from Smith College (2001), a MA from the Gallatin School/ NYU (2015) and she participated in the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics’ EMERGENYC program (2012). Her choreography has been performed at venues in New York City, Colorado and the Women’s Works Festival in Maine. Her writing on dance is published in several journals and anthologies and she has presented on the intersections of dance and race at local and national conferences. She currently teaches middle school dance in the New York City Department of Education. She is forever indebted to the visible and invisible labors of Pop B, Grandma C and Grandpa O, Unc G, Auntie Kim & Auntie Shana. Love to Nalo - now and always!
Amanda K. Ringger has been designing locally, nationally, and internationally for over 20 years with artists such as Faye Driscoll, Cynthia Oliver, Doug Elkins, Leslie Cuyjet, Molly Poerstel, Ivy Baldwin, Laura Peterson, Darrah Carr, Antonio Ramos, Alexandra Beller, Sean Donovan, and cakeface, among many others. She received a BA from Goucher College in Baltimore, MD and an MFA from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She is the recipient of a Bessie award for her collaboration on Faye Driscoll’s 837 Venice Boulevard at HERE Arts Center.
Makeda-Lily Love-Roney (she/her/they) is a fourth-generation artist from unceded Lenape Nation land known as New York. She’s a life, body, & energy alchemist, creative, dance artist, and Body Alignment/Pilates coach. Makeda’s previously performed with BalletNext, Nimbus Dance Works and nia love | Blacksmith’s Daughter, Liz Lerman, and Debbie Allen. She’s currently a freelance dance artist, nia love’s teaching/choreographic assistant and movement collaborator of 10 years, the Producer and Co-Host of Black Dance Stories, and an apprentice of Urban Bush women. Makeda’s features include The New Yorker, Cake and Whiskey Magazine, A Ballerina’s Body Book, KT-LA Debbie Allen’s Hot Chocolate Nutcracker Excerpt, Ritual: Short Film, and more.
Kojo Melché Roney (he/him) Born June 28th, 2004, Kojo loved the drums as a baby. After birth, his mother nia love used to sit him next to the drum ensemble while she taught dance classes. Kojo loved to listen to Miles Davis, Tony Williams, Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones while riding in the back seat of his parents car. His father took notice of his interest and brought him a junior drumset at 1 year old. At this young age he understood how to play the drumset in a jazz setting. By 4 years old, he was able to play with jazz ensembles, and practicing daily helped him match his understanding of rhythm by applying it to the drumset. At 8 years old he did his first tour in Europe, and his travels include France, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Serbia, Germany, Austria, Poland and Israel. Kojo has performed with his uncle Wallace Roney, Ron Carter, Buster Williams, Chick Corea, Hamiet Bluiett, Gary Bartz, Horald Mayburn, Rene Mclean, Darrell Green, Billy Spaceman Paterson, Rashaan Carter, Brandee Younger, Saadi Zain, Emanuel Ruffler, his dad Antoine Roney and his mother’s choreography. A highlight of his young time is when he had the chance to meet and/or sit in with Milford Graves, Jazz legend drummer Roy Haynes, Louis Hayes, Al Forster, Grady Tate, Lenny White, Cindy Blackman and having the chance to friend The Great Jimmy Cobb. Recently he has earned the opportunity to be the drummer on his fathers latest record. His family is proud of his hard work and level he achieved at such a young age. Now he is taking his musical and artistic understanding to the cinematic screen, showcasing the elegance, intelligence and excitement he produces while performing behind the drum kit.
Antoine Roney (he/him) is the top Tenor Man on the scene today. For nearly four decades, he has shared the stage, studio, and space with Jazz Royalty. His musical journey has brought him from his native Philadelphia to tour the world. In addition to playing alongside his late brother, Wallace –recording nine albums with him, Antoine has worked with the Greats: Elvin Jones, Jackie McLean, Donald Byrd, Art Taylor, Freddie Hubbard, Clifford Jordan, Big John Patton, James Spaulding, Ronnie Matthews, Louis Hayes, Rashied Ali and many more. Firmly grounded in the foundations of bebop and hard bop, Antoine has found his voice in the minimalist Sax Trio format: an intimate setting that allows for endless freedom of expression, the flow of ideas, and musical development…all in keeping true to the idiom. With his son Kojo on drums, the group has crafted its own sound, swing, and space. Spiritually driven and keenly attuned to his Native American Indian roots, Antoine has also traveled Ghana absorbing the sights, sounds, and smells of the West African nation’s unique musical buzz: from vibrant local markets to dusty country roads. He is currently a member of “The Electric Miles Band”, co-led by Miles Davis Alum (Vince Wilburn Jr, Darrell Jones, and Robert Babe Irving III. He is also working with Will Calhoun (Living Color) Elvin Jones Project. Some of his recent works using Guitarist William “Spaceman” Patterson, Organist Greg Lewis, and his Prodigy son Kojo Roney. The Collaboration with these guys is very creative and explosive, with many different elements of music!
Emanuel Ruffler (he/him), Composer and Pianist, was born in Munich, Germany in 1975. He became interested in music early on and quickly started playing with some of the biggest names on the German jazz scene. Ruffler worked alongside master percussionists Maurice Dioubate from Guinea and Famadi Sako from Ivory Coast. His project combining West-African drumming with Jazz Compositions earned the cultural scholarship of the City of Munich in 1992. In 1996, he moved to NYC to study with legendary pianists Jaki Byard and Mulgrew Miller. Since then he has composed music for a diverse list of artists, from Meshell Ndegeocello to Blue Note legend Joe Chambers. Ruffler has created soundscapes for designers like Winka Dubbeldam and Emanuel Ungaro, and his works were subsequently shown in international fashion shows and museums, including the Biennale in Venice. As a pianist, Ruffler has performed with internationally acclaimed artists including Don Byron, Cindy Blackman, N’dea Davenport and Antoine Roney. Ruffler won the prestigious Thelonious Monk Composers Competition in 1998 for his composition Lava, which was performed to a full house at the Smithsonian’s Baird Auditorium in Washington DC. In 2009, his album Nightflight received critical acclaim and international airplay. In 2015 his alt- jazz duo Painting released the album Gravity, featuring the unusual instrumentation of acoustic piano and Kassa Overall on drums. Ruffler holds a BFA in Jazz Performance from New School University and he is currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY.
Aidan Un (he/him) is a FrenchKorean-American filmmaker and photographer. Creating images is a way for him to consider questions of culture, identity/ancestry, and place. He regularly collaborates with musicians and movement artists to document their artistic processes and translate their work to video. His first feature documentary, The Ancestors Live: 50 Years of Kùlú Mèlé African Drum & Dance Company, featured at Blackstar 2020 and is a story about the oldest African dance ensemble in the United States. He is currently working on a documentary about Hip Hop dances and culture in Philadelphia, shown through the lens of the legendary Second Sundae party. His work has been featured at BlackStar Film Festival, Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, Mustard Seed Festival, The Outlet Dance Project Festival, New Urban Film Festival, The Philadelphia Film Festival, and The Philadelphia Latino Film Festival.
Diana Uribe (she/her) is a firstgen American, Jersey born dancer, teacher/choreographer, visionary, and believer. She has diverse dance training and holds a BA in Contemporary Dance and Psychology from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School (2020). She has performed at Movement Research, BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, Abrons Arts Center, Barclays Center, CHI Movement Arts Center, Bridge for Dance, United Palace, King’s Theatre, City Center Theatre, and Manhattan Center. She is currently a freelance artist, Company Director at Greenhouse Arts Center, a
dance teacher for elementary through highschool age students in Livingston, New Jersey, and is a company member of the Lori Belilove and the Isadora Duncan Dance Company. Diana develops her own works deeply intrigued with displaying the labor and unseen processes of dance making and she craves collaboration with cross-disciplinary modalities.
Zinda Williams (she/her) has been designing for dance since 1983, starting her career as the in house costume designer for Garth Fagan Dance. After leaving Rochester, NY in 1996, she returned to her hometown of New York City where she toured with Alvin Ailey, while continuing to design for dance with the likes of Carmen de Lavallade, Hope Boykin and Philadanco. She’s also collaborated with Wunmi Olaiya and Geoffrey Holder for works with Ron Brown Evidence and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Ms. Williams was reunited with Garth Fagan to design two of his works, Estrogen Genius 2017 and The North Star which premiered at The Joyce Theatre in November 2018. The critically acclaimed collaboration between TU Dance and Grammy winning band, Bon Iver, Come Through, brought Ms. Williams’ talents out to the Midwest for the first time (pre Covid). Then, (post Covid) Hawai’i was her first stop for Prince Dance Company’s My Empty Body Is Full Of Stars. In the world of theatre, Zinda Williams designed her first play, Infertility, The Musical That’s Hard To Conceive in 2004 and this past summer 2022, followed it up with the Audelco Award winning Ella, First Lady Of Song starring Freda Payne. She has also designed costumes for performance artist Maria Magdalena Campos Pons for her works, Celebrating Carrie Mae Weems, 2014 and Identify: Performance Art as Portraiture, 2016. The costume for “Identify” is being considered for inclusion in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Already a part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture is the cape for The Wiz, which Ms. Williams constructed to replace the original, which had been lost.
Jessica Autumn Ziegler (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based artist, Chicago native, and graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she received her BFA in Dance with highest honors. While in college, she was fortunate to extensively study with and perform in works by Abby Zbikowski, Jennifer Monson, and Kaitlin Fox, among many others. More recently, Ziegler has performed in works by Garnet Henderson and Lindsey Jennings. In addition to nia love’s UNDERcurrents, she a collaborator with Jennifer Monson/iLAND’s move thing.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.
Harlem Stage’s Programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Harlem Stage is the performing arts center that bridges Harlem’s cultural legacy to contemporary artists of color and dares to provide the artistic freedom that gives birth to new ideas.
For nearly 40 years our singular mission has been to perpetuate and celebrate the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture. We provide opportunity, commissioning, and support for artists of color, make performances easily accessible to all audiences, and introduce children to the rich diversity, excitement, and inspiration of the performing arts.
We fulfill our mission through commissioning, incubating, and presenting innovative and vital work that responds to the historical and contemporary conditions that shape our lives and the communities we serve.
Courtney F. Lee-Mitchell, President
Jamie Cannon, Vice President
Michael Young, Secretary
Mark Thomas, Treasurer
Angela Glover Blackwell
Jenna Bond
Jamila Ponton Bragg
Patricia Cruz, Artistic Director & CEO
MANAGEMENT
Eric Oberstein, Managing Director
Shamar Hill, Director of Development
Shanté Skyers, Associate Director of Development
Julianna Friedman, Development Manager
PROGRAMMING
Carl Hancock Rux, Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence
Sarah McCaffery, Programming Manager and Associate Curator
Maurice Ivy, Programming Associate
MARKETING
Deirdre May, Senior Director of Digital Content and Marketing
Andre Padayhag, Marketing Manager and Graphic Designer
Jordan Carter, Education & Community Engagement Manager
Amanda K. Ringger, Director of Production
Clarence Taylor, Lighting Operator
Orlando Alvarado, Audio Engineer
Gabriel Fequiere Jr., Video Production Crew
David Barrett, Julio Collado, Saul Ulerio
Deck, Lighting, and Audio Crew
JoAnn K. Chase
Patricia Cruz
Hugh Dancy and Claire Danes
Jenette Kahn
Rebecca Robertson
LaChanze Sapp-Gooding
Tamara Tunie
Rodney Bissessar, Director of Operations
Lamont Askins, Operations Associate
Acey Anderson Sr., Maintenance
ADMINISTRATION & FINANCE
NCheng LLC, Accountants/Advisors
Jake Lee, Partner
Aaron Lam, Supervising
Senior Accountant
Aon/Albert G. Ruben Company (NY)
—Claudia Kaufman, Insurance
DAS Services, IT Consultant
Digital Video Services—BriGuel
Lutz & Carr/Chris Bellando, Accountants
Madison Consulting Group—Matt Laurence
Manchester Benefits—Greg Martin
Marc Millman Photography
Digital Video Services—Jess Medenbach
RL Stein Group—Robyn L. Stein
Snugg Studios—Derrick Saint Pierre
Development Consultant
The Whelan Group Incorporated
—Charles Whelan
Blake Zidell & Associates, Public Relations & Marketing
Nobar De leon, Toma Carthens, Marlon
Moncrieffe, Julian Norales, Andy Garcia, Fabian Franco, Miriam Hernandez, Robert Gibbons
