The Georgia Incarceration Performance Project
Supported in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the Global Georgia Program of the University of Georgia Willson Center for Humanities the Arts, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through the Spelman College Division of the Arts; the Faculty Research Grant in the Humanities and Arts, given by the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Georgia; and the Faculty Development Grant given by the Office of the Provost at Spelman College.
The Georgia Incarceration Performance Project is a cross-institutional endeavor - the first of its kind - between Spelman College, the University of Georgia, librarians, archivists, students, professional artists, incarcerated collaborators, and community partners. We are working together to develop a devised performance out of archival research (material and embodied) on the history of incarceration and convict labor in Georgia.
As past and present collide in this work, we negotiate our relationship to incarceration and labor through reading, watching, talking, moving, mapping embodied memory, and exchanging stories. I am honored to be part of the co-directing team, representing Spelman's Department of Dance Performance & Choreography, along with:
Together we ask:
Timeline: (subject to change)
July-Dec. 2018.... Pre-planning
Jan-April 2019..... Phase I (creative/archival research phase)
April 2019........... Performance & Community Dialogue at Spelman College w/Spelman Dance Theatre
May 2019............ Creative Development Intensive
July 2019............ Performance Installation at MOCA GA by Julie B. Johnson/Moving Our Stories
Aug-Nov 2019..... Production Phase
November 2019.. Performance at University of Georgia (11/8, 11/10, 11/15, 11/16)
February 2020.... Performance at Spelman College (2/8, 2/9, 2/15, 2/16)
March 2020........ Evaluation and Assessment begins
As past and present collide in this work, we negotiate our relationship to incarceration and labor through reading, watching, talking, moving, mapping embodied memory, and exchanging stories. I am honored to be part of the co-directing team, representing Spelman's Department of Dance Performance & Choreography, along with:
- Keith Bolden (Spelman Theatre & Performance)
- Dr. Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin (UGA Theatre & Film Studies; African American Studies)
- Dr. Emily Sahakian (UGA Theatre & Film Studies; Romance Languages)
Together we ask:
- How do we gather a community of Georgia residents to openly look at and discuss the difficult past (and present) of incarceration?
- How do we honestly negotiate our own relationship to incarceration, issues of race, and the impact of forced labor on our everyday experiences as Georgians?
- Encountering the archival material in the exhibit’s display cases, “how exactly do [we] put emotion back into the inanimate” objects of this felt history?
Timeline: (subject to change)
July-Dec. 2018.... Pre-planning
Jan-April 2019..... Phase I (creative/archival research phase)
April 2019........... Performance & Community Dialogue at Spelman College w/Spelman Dance Theatre
May 2019............ Creative Development Intensive
July 2019............ Performance Installation at MOCA GA by Julie B. Johnson/Moving Our Stories
Aug-Nov 2019..... Production Phase
November 2019.. Performance at University of Georgia (11/8, 11/10, 11/15, 11/16)
February 2020.... Performance at Spelman College (2/8, 2/9, 2/15, 2/16)
March 2020........ Evaluation and Assessment begins