THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELLED.
W(Righting) Your Truth with Orlando Hunter of Brother(hood) Dance! is a creative writing incubator for dancers and writers (poets, songwriters, and scholars) to investigate ideas in which they may not have had the space to explore or are dreaming about how to actively and effectively use their gifts to write their truth.
We are dancers who write and are interested in the translation of words to bodies, bodies to words. We live in a world where myths and narratives are constantly being created around the body. How do we rewrite and recreate ourselves from quasi-narrative notions of self and wholeness? If words and actions negatively impact our emotional bodies, how can we heal using these same modes to rebuild and secure our inner strength. Write, right, your truth.
August 24 & 25, 3:00-5:30pm
Students should wear clothing that they feel comfortable moving in (no jeans) and bring a notebook and something to write with. This workshop is open to all who can dance and write.
Cost: $45.00 for the two-day workshop, payable online or at TUDC by cash, check or debit/credit card. Online pre-registration recommended.
Brother(hood) Dance! is an interdisciplinary duo that seeks to inform its audiences on the socio-political and environmental injustices from a global perspective, bringing clarity to the same-gender-loving African-American experience in the 21st century. Brother(hood) Dance! was formed in April 2014 as a duo that research, create and perform dances of freedom by Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine. We have performed our works at FiveMyles, Center for Performance Research, B.A.A.D! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance), VCU-The Grace Street Theater, DraftWork at St. Marks Church, JACK, Movement Research at Judson Church, Colby College, Denmark Arts Center and other venues. As a collective, our work demonstrates how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of global cultural interaction over the latter half of the twentieth century. It challenges the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other, between our own ‘cannibal’ and ‘civilized’ selves. By rejecting an objective truth and global cultural narratives, we find that movement reveals an inherent awkwardness, a humor that echoes our own vulnerabilities. Brother(hood) Dance! considers movement as a metaphor for the ever-seeking man who experiences a continuous loss. Brother(hood) Dance!’s work urge us to renegotiate performance as being part of a reactive or – at times – autistic medium, commenting on oppressing themes in our contemporary society.
Orlando Hunter is a choreographer who researches, illustrates and creates from an African-American male perspective. In his work he tackles issues resulting from a capitalistic imperialist patriarchal white supremacist system. Hunter grew up dancing hip-hop and graduated with a BFA in Dance from Univ. of Minnesota, where he performed works by Donald Byrd, Bill T. Jones, Carl Flink, Louis Falco, Colleen Thomas, Uri Sands, Stephen Petronio and Nora Chipaumire. His solo “Mutiny” was selected to represent the University of Minnesota at the 2011 ACDFA gala in Madison, Wisconsin. Orlando studied LGBT activism and history in Amsterdam and Berlin. He has performed with Christal Brown/INspirit Dance Company, Contempo Physical Dance, Forces of Nature, Makeda Thomas, Threads Dance Project, TU Dance and Ananya Dance Theater, an all women’s company where he was the first male member and toured with them to Trinidad & Tobago and Zimbabwe. Hunter is a co-founder of the collective Brother(hood) Dance!
Photo by Jaimé Dzandu.
Location & Parking Information: TU Dance Center is located at 2121 University Avenue West, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55114. Find us on the north side of University Avenue, one block east of Vandalia, located directly behind Subway on the building’s east side. Limited parking is available in the lot in front of TU Dance Center. Additional parking is available in the north side lot accessible by taking Vandalia and Charles.