Virtual Vibrance Program
Performance Details
The Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA)
Graduate Researchers in Media and Performing Arts (GRMPA)
and the
Cornell Ambassadors for Media and Performance (CAMP)
present
Virtual Vibrance: Making, Shaking, Breaking Performance
Produced by Jayme Kilburn, Levi Wilson, Kelly Richmond, Abbey Crowley, Carley Robinson, Andy Colpitts, Brian Sengdala, and Sara Pistono
Exhibit Noir, devised by Faith Parris ’24
October 30, 2020, at 7:30 p.m.
October 31, 2020, at 2:00 p.m.
The American Slavery Project’s In the Parlour by Judy Tate, directed by Carley Robinson ’21
October 31, 2020, at 7:30 p.m.
Reserve your free ticket at schwartztickets.com. A link will be emailed to you 30 minutes prior to showtime.
Note from the Chair
Dear community members,
In a more typical year, you would be reading this note in a physical program while gathering in a public space. As you well know, there is nothing typical about this year, and so this note must also depart from the conventions that have tended to govern it in the past. Ordinarily I might describe particular projects with confidence that they would materialize in ways of which we could be basically certain. But not now; the very digital program in which this note appears could change before the end of the semester—and could change even more dramatically for the coming spring.
Indeed, what we were intending as a year’s worth of programming in our immediately prior spring has already been radically reimagined. I am proud of students, staff, and faculty who have responded with inventiveness and imagination to making virtual work in socially distanced ways. I am proud that the majority of this work is centering perspectives on systemic racism and white supremacist ideology, of which the Department of Performing and Media Arts must take urgent stock, for which we must be accountable, and whose dismantling we must actively undertake. I am proud that numerous BIPOC guest artists and scholars will visit classes and make public presentations via Zoom. And I am proud that all of this activity is free to our publics, who now more than ever need access to art and intellection that we hope will sustain us through the anxieties and exhaustions of our current political and historical circumstances.
I look forward to a time when we may all convene again in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts and communally enjoy film, dance, theater, performance art, installation, public lectures, and more. In the meantime, I wish everyone reading this note physical health and emotional and spiritual well-being.
Artist's Statement: 'Exhibit Noir'
My inspiration for creating Exhibit Noir is to explore my blackness and to demonstrate the importance of dance and music when it comes to cultural preservation. Especially in today’s tumultuous political climate, Exhibit Noir is meant to emphasize the overanalyzing and policing of black bodies. This policing extends as far as our whereabouts, our movement, our emotions, our countenance, and our existence. My goal is to give the audience a chance to learn and explore blackness through dance, highlighting freedom, tension, excitement, pain, and all of the above within the African Diaspora. What drives me as a creator is the opportunity to be flexible to share my story, thoughts, and experiences in any combination of literary and creative media.
My main inspiration for selecting Black female dancers came from the strong female characters portrayed in Diaspora literature, mainly from the Harlem Renaissance period. Considering the reinvigorated interest in racial injustice as the BLM movement, this could be a good contribution to the awareness, as well as the enlightenment in the complexity and commonality in the ever-emerging Black Experiences discourse in schools, colleges, and galleries as the Black History Museum, to evoke reactions/responses.
Since I was nurtured in an Afro-Caribbean cultural household by strong female influences, for me, from Zora Neale’s Hurston’s quote "De woman is de mule uh de world so far as Ah can see," in Their Eyes Were Watching God it begs the questions: Is this true? If so, is that a bad or a good thing, considering the circumstances, conditions of the Black Woman's experiences?
—Faith Parris '24
Artist's Statement: 'In the Parlour' by Judy Tate
I'm so excited to work on this project and uplift the voices of Black women in the PMA department.
This script by Judy Tate is phenomenal, and so timely with the election right around the corner.
Showcasing the necessity of Black women on both a national and local stage has been so rewarding.
Make sure to vote!
—Carley Robinson '21
Company Bios: 'Exhibit Noir'
Kelly Richmond
Abbey Crowley
Faith Parris
Cory Koehler
Elissa Palmer
Jasmine Scott
Cole Romero
Company Bios: 'In the Parlour' by Judy Tate
Carley Robinson
Andy Colpitts
Allison Borton
Amaris Henderson
Kayla Bouazouni
Christel Robinson
Virtual Vibrance Producer Bios
Levi Wilson
Jayme Kilburn
Special Thanks
Steven Blasberg, Master Electrician
Lisa Boquist, Costume Shop Manager