Production Projects
Perspectivas Negras: Puerto Rican Artivism
Perspectivas Negras: Puerto Rican Artivism is a collaboration between the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena (Puerto Rican Cultural Institute aka ICP), the Universidad de Sagrado Corazon, The Woolly Mammoth Theater, Flamboyan Foundation, and The Woodshed Center for Art, Thought, and Culture. The ICP approached The Woodshed with a request to collaboratively develop ways of addressing racial inequality in Puerto Rico using arts methodologies. The ICP and Universidad de Sagrado Corazon are supporting three Puerto Rican artists in developing new works that provoke interactive audience events addressing the impacts of racial inequities on the economic and social lives of Black people in Puerto Rico. The Woodshed worked with Georgetown faculty and Washington DC-based scholars to virtually mentor the selected artists (via Zoom) and integrate a curriculum exploring global and intersectional Blackness as they develop their work during the 2023-2024 academic year. In Summer 2024, the three artists will come to Washington DC to present their work to public audiences and the Georgetown community at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre. As a co-producer of this work, I played an integral role in crafting the residency from conception through implementation. Currently, I work as an active liaison between the artists, Georgetown, and our collaborating partners.
Black Performance as Social Protest Massive Open Online Course and Extended Reality Film
Black performance and social activism have been models for protest globally. It has enriched and activated cries for justice in multiple contexts. The University of Michigan launched a Massive Open Online Course in 2021 on Future Learn to expand our understanding of Black performance as social protest and its active effects on performance and protest today. In 2022, Georgetown University and the University of Michigan began to collaborate on enhancing Week 3 of the course on "Civil Rights Struggles for Justice (Equality) and Black Nationalism" which explores music and theatre of the Civil Rights movement and Black Revolutionary Arts forms using virtual performance. As a co-producer and assistant director on this project, I created and maintained storyboards, and collaborated with costume, hair and makeup, and production teams to dream up the aesthetic and map out the arch of the story. As an active architect behind the Massive Open Online Course, I had the unique experience of working on this project through many different transformations and was able to leave my creative stamp on the work.
Woodshed Collective
The Woodshed Collective is a multi-generational group of creatives who gather to develop new performance research methodologies for storytelling and experiment together with interdisciplinary creative forms.
We convene researchers, and creatives who are actively making new written or devised work (which may include sound, choreography, or visual designs). We are working with an international collective of established artists/scholars to develop methodologies through creative 3-day immersions.
The Collective plans to publish a zine or brochure about the collective's work that will include reflections, responses, images, text, and sound links–whatever emerges from the immersion and is meaningful to the collective members. We will publish two zines each year. As a member and co-producer for the Woodshed Collective, I manage communication with our community partners, coordinate transportation and accommodation logistics for all Woodshed Collective members, and schedule our three-day intensives based on institutional and collective needs.