The next chapter of The FLY | DROWN Fables opens next week as part of "Portal For(e) the Ephemeral Passage," curated by jaamil olawale kosoko at Wexner Center for Arts.

This chapter goes deeper into the world of fictional characters nyeusi and elder through film and installation. As many of you know, nyeusi is a Sankofa bird from the river, and elder’s child from another lifetime. Through an act of spiritual conjuring (presumably through elder’s prayers or orchestrated by the children of the water), nyeusi visits elder in her subconscious and teaches her how to release the shame from her body in order to fly. 

The film evokes elder’s dreamspace, where she receives messages about nyeusi’s imminent arrival. 

The fable is guided by Archive of Sky in Alexis Pauline Gumbs' "M Archive: After the end of the world," and the installation room is held together by Jasmine Hearn's “Riffs nor River” playing on loop.

This work was made possible by a 2021 Wexner Center for Arts Residency Award, a 9-month residency at Popp's Packing in Detroit, and financial support from our community during our end-of-year giving campaign. Thank you to everyone who has supported this work. 

For ticket information, please visit the Detroit Artists Market website.

FLY | DROWN is a month long installation taking place at the Detroit Artists Market which includes a series of performances, workshops and salon talks conceptualized by dance artist Jennifer Harge and curator Taylor Aldridge.

Fly | Drown platforms the ways in which Black domestic spaces have provided sites for Black womxn to exercise acts of pleasure and self-sovereignty. The exhibition will simulate Harge’s grandparents home in Highland Park, MI where they landed after traveling north during the Great Migration. Fly | Drown uses Black migration routes as a point of departure to invoke lineages belonging to Black domestic spaces in the Midwest and gestures toward practices that honor and queer ancestral legacies. Aldridge and Harge have invited scholars, friends, family members and other artists to  illuminate the personal and communal historic musings of Black vernacular interior space. FLY | DROWN suggests that the embodied memories and artifacts that belong to the architectural renderings of Black domestic spaces have enabled fellowship, grieving, archiving, and the development of queer genealogy.

Performances

The performances, carried out by Harge, will tell an interwoven story of reclamation in Black queer infantilized flesh. Performances will take place on the following dates at 7:30pm:

Friday, September 13th 

Friday, September 20th 

Friday, October 4th 

Friday, October 11th  

Friday, October 18th

Salon Talks + Meals

Salon Talks will engage scholars, writers, dancers and/or relatives of Jennifer Harge, and will illuminate texts, movement forms and lived experiences that have informed the crux of FLY | DROWN. All talks will take place at 2pm followed by a meal.

“The Archaeology of a Family Recipe” Facilitator Crystal Michelle Perkins-- September 14th 

“Devotion as Method” with Jennifer Harge and Taylor Renee Aldridge-- September 21st 

“Homemaking through Activism” with writer, Labor organizer, Marsha Philpot--October 5th

“Otherlogue” with mover and artist Bree Gant-- October 12th 

“Oracle Building Workshop + Discussion” with scholar Alexis Pauline Gumbs-- October 19th  

Workshops

A series of movement and sound workshops will be offered each Tuesday during the duration of the exhibition, facilitated by scholars, artists and the artist’s family members. Workshops will celebrate movement and sonic practices that take place within, and drive the domestic. All workshops will take place at 6pm unless otherwise noted:

“Choreographing Black Space” led by The Gathering Detroit -- October 1st

“Otherlogue” led by Bree Gant -- October 8th 

“Mundane Sonics” led by Sterling Toles --October 15th (4-5:30pm)

EXPLODE queer dance, in a co-curation by Clare Croft and Anna Martine Whitehead, explores queer dance in and of the Midwest. Jennifer Harge will perform an excerpt of FLY | DROWN.

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Performances will take place at Links Hall, Northwestern University, and various Chicago sites TBD.

This festival is sponsored and runs co-currently with the Annual Conference of the Dance Studies Association, where Harge will speak on Plenary 1: “Reservoirs of Movement: Common Flows and Circulation”

Jennifer Harge will perform an excerpt of FLY | DROWN as part of EXPLODE queer dance, in collaboration with the University of California-Riverside Department of Dance and their Indigenous Choreographers Initiative for two days of performances at the University of California-Riverside/ARTSBLOCK.

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Performances will take place at Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts

Jennifer Harge will be an artist in residence at Djerassi Residence Artists Program to continue developing FLY | DROWN.

Jennifer Harge will be a performer in residence to develop FLY | DROWN, an immersive exhibition that invests in the creation of Black space and Black queer liberation practices through mundanity, intimacy, and the home. During the residency Harge plans to develop and experiment with movement scores that prioritize domestic mundanity, Black interiority, and choreographing pleasure.

A performance of Harge’s research will be held on March 22 at MCA.

More info here!

A week long residency collaboration between NY based Skeleton Architecture and The Gathering Detroit that intentionally creates space for black women and gender non-conforming dancers to be in communion with one another.

A public showing will take place March 4, 2018 at Light Box.

The Gathering Detroit artists include:

Nahimana Aponi

Celia Benvenutti

Bree Gant

Penny Godboldo

Jennifer Harge

Miryam Johnson

Oiya Lowe

Ryan Myers-Johnson

Karen Prall

Erika Stowall

This residency is supported by Experiments in Coalition through Daring Dances.

Jennifer Harge will premiere a new work on the University of Michigan Department of Dance students entitled, studio a: will you die with me?, as part of their annual Power Center concert.