Film: Iximche media
When We were Queens…
A NC State LIVE-commissioned work, co-produced by Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community College and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, UNC Greensboro, by Murielle Elizéon in collaboration with Shana Tucker
When We were Queens… is a collaboration between dancer/choreographer Murielle Elizéon and composer/musician Shana Tucker exploring a shared ancestry of diaspora and violence. Presented as a diptych, two solos in conversation, the work illuminates both singularity of experience and resonance embedded in the bodies of women of color from different African diasporic communities. When We were Queens… considers the body as a repository of history and the complexities of ancestral heritage and seeks to identify the themes and threads that tell a story beyond words.
In 2023-24, When We were Queens… will be in-residence with NC State LIVE (Raleigh), Wilson Center (Wilmington), La Pratique, Artistic Factory Studio (Vatan, France), Compagnie Marie Lenfant (Le Mans, France), and the Culture Mill Lab (Saxapahaw). It will make its world premiere at the NC Museum of Art (Raleigh) followed by a presentation at Cameron Art Museum (Wilmington) in February 2024. In April 2024, it will be presented as part of Barn Church at Kindred Seedlings Farm (Graham).
WWwQ at CAM Program
Artists, Collaborators, and Contributors
When We were Queens… is a Culture Mill production, commissioned by NC State LIVE and co-produced by the Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community College and Weatherspoon Art Museum, UNC Greensboro. Culture Mill is a 2023 NDP Finalist Grant Award recipient. Support is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation in support of When We were Queens.. and to address continued sustainability needs. American Sign Language at When We were Queens… Performances are funded in part by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council.
photo: Sarah Marguier
How To Be A Visitor
A new work in development by Tommy Noonan and Hector Thami Manekehla
How To Be a Visitor is a new collaboration by dancers/choreographers Tommy Noonan and Hector Thami Manekehla (South Africa). Manekehla and Noonan feel their bodies change as the landscape changes, whether that landscape is a natural, social, cultural or even a relational one. They also feel their bodies’ ability to change according to their own imaginations. They sense their bodies as visitors in the landscapes they traverse, and they wonder: is there value in practicing how to be a visitor? The creative process moves between South Africa, the US, and Central Europe.
In 2023-24, Camouleana began with a residency at Cie. La Ribot (Geneva, Switzerland) and will continue to generate material, plan residencies, and gather partners for a premiere in 2025.
Barn Church
A creative placemaking initiative facilitated by Culture Mill and Kindred Seedlings Farm
Barn Church, a creative placemaking initiative facilitated by Culture Mill and Kindred Seedlings Farm, is a liberatory and anti-racist project which combines original performance, the sharing of food, and work on the land as a social practice of community care that centers BIPOC voices and embodied imagination. Barn Church, taking place at one of few Black-owned farms in rural Alamance County, addresses racism of the individual and communal bodies, explores intentional relationship with the land, reclaims church, and activates socially-engaged art as a vehicle for human connection. Performances will feature Crystal Cavalier-Keck and Jason Crazy Bear Keck, Jeghetto, Murielle Elizéon and Shana Tucker, the Barn Church Chaplain CJ Suitt, and more. A winter workshop series with Jasmine Powell and workdays at the farm sustain embodied communal practice. Barn Church is catered by baker and chef Malik Walker.
Barn Church is a Culture Mill and Kindred Seedlings Farm collaboration. This project was supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The arts are back in North Carolina. The Spark the Arts grant promotes audience inclusion and reengagement in the arts. Additional support is provided by the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation.
Photo by IxImche Media
Parkinson’s Performance Project
A trans-disciplinary project linking contemporary dance and performance with new approaches to Parkinson’s disease.
The Parkinson's Performance Project cultivates a multigenerational creative community with and around people living with Parkinson's disease (PD) through exploration of music and dance and multidisciplinary performance-making in collaboration with professional artists. It fosters embodied practices and dialogues with occupational therapists and neuroscientists to advocate for a creative and holistic approach to PD that centers individuals living with PD as self-agent experts. The 2023-24 project will offer workshops and two open studio showings, all of which works towards the creation of a future original performance.
Film: Iximche Media
PAST PROJECTS
