About Me: A Living Manifesto
Caught in the space between dreams and reality, I’ve made it my mission to close the gap between the two -- as a writer, creative producer, educator, and neighbor.
I create in order to practice possibility. Will you join me?
The idea of practicing possibility comes from a long tradition of Mundane Afrofuturists1 like myself who accept “the imaginative challenge… that this is it: Earth is all we have. What will we do with it?”2
1 Mundane Afrofuturism is a form of speculative fiction that uses technologies of the body and Earth as the means to (re)imagine a liberatory Blk present and future.
2 From “The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto” by Martine Syms
2 From “The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto” by Martine Syms
In my writing, I specialize in stories and rituals that celebrate the dreams of Blk communities around the globe. Through this work, I invite audiences and performers alike to exercise their radical imagination and actualize near-futures that begin today. That, to me, is the power of theatre and filmmaking: the (re)imaginings, character journeys, strategies, and spells we cast have the potential to expand our lived experiences of freedom. Experiences that continue to bloom in daily life.
Equally as important to me is facilitating the dreams of others -- the mundane dreams, the fantastical, and the delicious in-between that are just beyond our reach.
As a creative producer/development executive, I cultivate innovative development and distribution strategies for equally ambitious stories. And as an educator, I want to empower the next generation of artists to do the same.
These development strategies want to feel like putting on play. I love building a process that sets up opportunities to get an idea “up on its feet” early and often3, brings out the character-driven heart of a story, and always keeps the audience experience at the forefront. I want to be the dramaturg for an idea and a creator’s practice.
And when it’s time to put those stories out into the world, I’m committed to organizing distribution strategies that feel like planning a block party or a grassroots campaign. Let’s connect a story with its audience directly and on the ground, let’s generate unexpected community partnerships, let’s feed back into the arts and culture ecosystems that feed us!4
3 Ask me about producing staged readings!
4 Check out a recent partnership with AfroSwissters & Schauspielhaus Zürich
for Ta-Nia production of “(What You’ll Find) On the Way to Becoming
4 Check out a recent partnership with AfroSwissters & Schauspielhaus Zürich
for Ta-Nia production of “(What You’ll Find) On the Way to Becoming
e Way to BecomBecause at the end of the day, all these projects and artistic hyphenates come down to my favorite role: neighbor. That’s when I, alongside others, get to live the futures we’ve been dreaming and scheming.
So in an earnest attempt to practice “the art of neighboring,” I’m a part of co-creating hyper-local networks that center community care, justice, and imagination -- one gathering at a time. And it absolutely informs everything I do as an artist.
As I put down roots in the places I call home, I’m grateful to have learned a thing or two about being a neighbor. I hope you’ll share these far and wide. Or better yet, share them with the persons next to you:
I WANT TO LIVE THE REST OF MY LIFE,
HOWEVER LONG OR SHORT,
DEDICATED TO BEING A NEIGHBOR.
WILL YOU JOIN ME?
IN SEARCH OF:
LINCHPINS - connectors who see and weave the invisible ties between us
HEARTHS - around whom we gather and feel at home
VISIONS - a beam from the mind’s eye, igniting “what if” and how
WILL YOU JOIN ME?
Neighboring is the ancient practice of knitting ourselves closer to the people we physically occupy space with, for safety and for joy. I’m aroused by the meaning that bursts from looking at the world of my backyard and the possibilities for who we may become within it. Neighboring is the art of meeting next-door needs.
Neighboring invites us to reach toward the past to reach toward the future to be here. Now.
A moment of gratitude for you, what brought you here, the dreams had, remembered, shared. Part of the distance is knowing how far we’ve come from the start.
I begin to wonder if the first world is just an illusion.
Footsteps. Creaks. Stories. Knocks.
Music and the warmth of sizzling pans.
Water running clear.
What a long week it’s been. You have a long life ahead.
Would I be open to having a conversation about it? Would you? Do we try anyway?
Let us try anyway.
The beauty of another person is that they not only reflect but hold.
I remember you in ways a mirror cannot. I’m the person in front of you saying yes.
There are a lot more doors to open and moons to look at on a cloudless night, even when we’re tired and would rather stay curled up alone -- that is, until we go outside and look at the full moon with your neighbors and realize, “Yes, this is where I’m meant to be.”
May the webs, the circles, the dreams among us grow.
Look to your right, your left. I’m here.
Who knows, we may find our way back to where it all began,
or another place along our life roads. I’m counting on it.
Until then, I have some planning to do.
Come as you are, and just say hi.
Would love to meet you after all this time.
The door is open.
HOWEVER LONG OR SHORT,
DEDICATED TO BEING A NEIGHBOR.
WILL YOU JOIN ME?
IN SEARCH OF:
LINCHPINS - connectors who see and weave the invisible ties between us
HEARTHS - around whom we gather and feel at home
VISIONS - a beam from the mind’s eye, igniting “what if” and how
WILL YOU JOIN ME?
Neighboring is the ancient practice of knitting ourselves closer to the people we physically occupy space with, for safety and for joy. I’m aroused by the meaning that bursts from looking at the world of my backyard and the possibilities for who we may become within it. Neighboring is the art of meeting next-door needs.
Neighboring invites us to reach toward the past to reach toward the future to be here. Now.
A moment of gratitude for you, what brought you here, the dreams had, remembered, shared. Part of the distance is knowing how far we’ve come from the start.
I begin to wonder if the first world is just an illusion.
Footsteps. Creaks. Stories. Knocks.
Music and the warmth of sizzling pans.
Water running clear.
What a long week it’s been. You have a long life ahead.
Would I be open to having a conversation about it? Would you? Do we try anyway?
Let us try anyway.
The beauty of another person is that they not only reflect but hold.
I remember you in ways a mirror cannot. I’m the person in front of you saying yes.
There are a lot more doors to open and moons to look at on a cloudless night, even when we’re tired and would rather stay curled up alone -- that is, until we go outside and look at the full moon with your neighbors and realize, “Yes, this is where I’m meant to be.”
May the webs, the circles, the dreams among us grow.
Look to your right, your left. I’m here.
Who knows, we may find our way back to where it all began,
or another place along our life roads. I’m counting on it.
Until then, I have some planning to do.
Come as you are, and just say hi.
Would love to meet you after all this time.
The door is open.
Around this site, you can explore the dreams that have come to life so far and the collaborations that have made it possible. And after reading all this (truly, thank you for reading this!), if you are:
- curious about the near-futures I’m dreaming and scheming, or
- facing a seemingly impossible dream in front of you and need a collaborator
Send me a message! And check out my trades!
Currently Reading:
- A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand
- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
- The Simp by Roshan Sethi
- A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand
- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
- The Simp by Roshan Sethi
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