Dis/Unity: A Service
Dis/Unity: A Service is an eighty-minute interdisciplinary performance in which seven artists unite for an immersive installation of dance, performance and visual art. We invite our audiences to witness as well as participate in collective song, dance, ritual acts of liberation and transcendence.
Current Collaborating Artists: Esther Baker-Tarpaga, Barber, Heidi Wiren Bartlett, Raquel Monroe, Courtney Jones.
Using a corporeal language of contemporary hip-hop, house, vogue, improvisation, West African dance, and performance art Dis/Unity: A Service is an aesthetic pursuit for clarity and healing concerning issues of race, gender, and sexuality. From visceral to disposable, traditional to trendy, sensual to senseless, fleshy to fake our aesthetic discourse is polyglot, allowing audiences to connect and resonate on a range levels.
Dis/Unity addresses issues of race, gender, sexuality and globalization in America, as it is unfolding in our everyday lives. We invite our audiences to witness as well as journey with us as we transform space, bodies and sounds. We ask these questions: How does racism manifest in our families and communities? How do we as artists, people of color, and white people act within and against institutional racism, sexism, and homophobia? How does media and pop culture contribute to the landscape of visual narratives? How does trauma play out in our bodies? How do we heal our bodies? How do we use live art to transgress borders between people? Can the process of making performance be a space for radical transformation?
This project has received funding from the Puffin Foundation.
It has had residencies at The Englert Theatre, Iowa City, Space Place Theatre, and University of Iowa, and University of the Arts, Philadelphia.
Co-Commissioned by The Englert Theatre, Iowa City.
Photos by: Bill Adams, Alexander
Video: Atom Burke