Current Work
I am:
TEACHING Play Analysis at Winthrop University, Acting at Johnson C Smith University, and Crush that Call Back at Children's Theatre of Charlotte.
DEVISING new theatre pieces with students at JCSU and CTC.
ITERATING & TOURING FixaPlate.
RESEARCHING & DEVELOPING new work like Swim Cap, Traces, Kudzu, and It Be Like that Sometimes.
Come Thru 22
the year so far
When I graduated with my MFA in December, every faculty member told me that what happens this year is critical. They said it's easy to make when you're in school because there is structure and support, but it can be easy to allow your work to be overtaken by life after school. I hope this process will inspire me to fight that too human impulse and establish my own artistic structure and support. I am coming into this year with the skills I need to create my work and a burgeoning-making process. FixaPlate was successful and brought together an incredible ensemble last year. This year it is critical to follow up that work with this team to make a lasting impact and investment in Charlotte. My work does not exist as a one-off; through continued engagement, what I do finds meaning. 2022 is the perfect time to strike while the iron is hot to ensure that my social practice artistry can live up to its mission. I am ready to emerge as an artist that is a permanent fixture in Charlotte!
I plan to continue researching and developing my social practice. I would like to continue iterating FixaPlate and begin new projects, thereby deepening the relationships with community organizations. Last year, my work foraged connection with the West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition and Nadine Ford. I will continue to research Charlotte's history and hold creative space for Charlotteans to dream of its future. I hope to develop myself as an arts professional by co-creating work with community members and organizations. The creation of this work, when partnered with continued training as a devised theatre maker and facilitator, will allow me to define my approach as a modality. Throughout the year, I hope to study and track my practice to create a teachable system of making that I can share with other Charlotte creatives interested in social practice arts.
I hope to continue to iterate and expand FixaPlate, create new work with Nadine Ford and the Mahogany Mermaids, and research and develop new immersive site-specific work with the Mixed Metaphors Ensemble.
FixaPlate is an artistic investigation of the racialized spatial organization of Charlotte and Charlotteans as it relates to the history of housing, gentrification, and access to healthy foods. The relationship with West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition is essential to the new iterations that will activate the community garden and the neighborhoods along the west boulevard corridor. I would like to create and distribute Fresh Picked boxes in the spring. These boxes would include fresh produce from the garden, community recipes from the FixaPlate archive and arts activities for families to do together. I would also like to activate the garden space through a new immersive experience of FixaPlate's explorations.
I have begun talks with Nadine Ford to create a theatrical piece Swim Cap that explores the relationship between race, Charlotte's history, and swimming. How do modern assumptions around who swims and where stem from our racist past?
I hope to see you this year!