Benae Beamon. Photo by Sarah Annie Navarrete.
Tickets: $0-$25, pay what you can
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2023 Artist-in-Residence Benae Beamon shares an in-progress presentation of Re(verb), a new tap dance work that puts the ring shout – a black Southern cultural tradition tied to spiritual contexts – and Motown movements in conversation. The work considers how elements of black cultural archive and black religious discourse function within ritual and black spiritual expression. Set to music that ranges from gospel to seventies funk, Re(verb) uses the interplay of these two movement styles to subvert the way that we discuss black spirituality as separate from secular black culture. With that in mind, this piece uses tap dance legacies – namely that of Cholly Atkins, a tap dancer and choreographer for Motown – to explore black culture and movement as extensions of the divine and of community.
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After the performance, fellow 2023 Artist-in-Residence and tap artist Orlando Hernández will engage Beamon and the audience in a conversation about the work.
Before the performance, Orlando Hernández will be teaching a workshop from 2:30–4pm – In the Break: Tap Dance and Embodied Rhythm – which is free with RSVP. No tap dance experience required.
Benae Beamon also curates an OPEN STUDIOS on Sunday, November 5 at 6PM with new work-in-progress by Jordan Deal, Michael J. Love, Kaleena Miller, and Adriana Ogle.
Benae Beamon (she/they) was raised in North Carolina, and her work is informed by black Southern culture. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. in Religion from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Social Ethics from Boston University. As a performance artist, Beamon uses movement, rhythm, space, and language as tools to sculpt sound and highlight the rich place where race, gender, sexuality, and class intersect with culture and ritual. Both her artistic work and scholarship examine the extraordinary and spectacular in the everyday, focusing on the way that the mundane can be sacred ritual. She has performed at Joe’s Pub in New York City, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston with Subject:Matter, a Boston-based tap dance company. Independently, she was a 2019 finalist for the Hudgen's Prize and has premiered work at VCU Institute for Contemporary Art and at Arts on Site in New York City.