Join CounterPulse as we take a voyage through lasting divides and ancestral wisdom
How is tradition alive? How does tradition move across space, time, boundaries and border? Now in it’s eleventh year, CounterPulse’s Performing Diaspora residency supports artists who draw on tradition as a radical way to carry the stories of previous lives in today’s time and space.
This June, 2021, we investigate histories of rebellions and victories, queerness, and the violence of forced migration through two groundbreaking new dance works by pateldanceworks and Byb Chanel Bibene/Kiandanda Dance Theater.
to leave the land, a project of divisions the empire has sown by pateldanceworks is a call to understand past and present colonization through movement and storytelling, informed by the Partition of South Asia in 1947 and the lasting divides it has caused across sexuality, religion, caste, class, and gender.
The evening will include movement, storytelling, sonic landscape, and immersive experience, asking the audience to become part of the performance itself. With to leave the land we open conversations about past and present colonization to empower audiences to dismantle inequitable social structures. The violence endured within our lineages is part of these queer bodies and we seek to hold and heal these stories of lost homelands and lost lives.
Daria Garina, Photo by Kyle Adler
Next, enter a visual voyage in time that paints the tensed stories of the Black bodies resisting slavery and seeking connection with the ancestral wisdom. [Re]member by Byb Chanel Bibene/Kiandanda Dance Theater connects Black bodies via their shared history, fight for liberties, and against slavery.
The work investigates the stories of the resistance and victories of captured Africans in the slave ships and the plantations during the Trans-Atlantic trade and slavery in the Americas, with a particular focus on the prowess of Nganga Nzumbi, a maroon leader who set free an entire community.
Byb Chanel Bibene, Photo by Robbie Sweeny
Please join us for these special performances
Jun 3-5 and 10-12, 2021
Thu & Fri, Jun 3-4 & 10-11, 8pm PDT at CounterPulse
Sat, Jun 5 & 12, 2pm PDT Matinee with Artist Q&A facilitated by Gerald Casel at CounterPulse
Sat, Jun 12, 2pm PDT Livestream and Artist Q&A facilitated by Gerald Casel
Email hannah@counterpulse.org to volunteer and see the works for free!
COVID-19 Message
Our team at CounterPulse is committed to continue providing performance space as we gradually and carefully reopen, while complying with the CDC, OSHA, Federal, State, City and County regulations and recommendations. To prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our facilities we are requiring that all artists, staff, and audiences will remain masked during their time inside CounterPulse.
Audiences for Performing Diaspora 2021 are capped at 25% of our original capacity (20 audiences total) and will be physically distanced throughout the showcase experience.
Additionally, CounterPulse properly cleans and sanitizes frequently touched surfaces. Staff will be equipped with and required to use personal protective equipment (PPE) while working near others.
The Performing Diaspora residency is made possible by support from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the Emmet R Quady foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Photo credits available in Performing Diaspora 2021 Flickr album