Let ‘im Move You: Installation

In conjunction with his interventionist sidewalk performance on August 2nd, jumatatu m. poe will create an installation in our window gallery. 

Let ‘im Move You: Installation is an open-ended collection of installation works that are often presented alongside the Let ‘im Move Youperformance series, created in collaboration with artist Jermone Donte Beacham. Combining video projection, drawing, and sculpture, the work addresses the artists’ explorations of the performance of Black queerness and the J-Sette form. The work “has theoretical links to code switching, especially as it has to do with my Blackness and queerness, experiences of immediate compartmentalization / contextualization as a defense mechanism, as a means of survival.”

Let ‘im Move You is a series of works choreographed by jumatatu m. poe and Jermone “Donte” Beacham that stem from poe’s seven-year research into J-Sette performance. Initial research for the series absorbed the artists’ curiosity about the performance of joy and the conundrum of Black joy. The series began in the summer of 2013 while jumatatu and Donte were at a residency through Tanzrecherche NRW. The series currently consists of three live performance works and an installation. Beginning in Summer 2018, poe will bring together a group of Black dancers – J-Sette artists and “Contemporary” dance artists – for a multimedia work to be alternately performed in black-box/white-box spaces, and on sidewalks and in alleyways in neighborhoods. Compelled by J-Sette’s specific rules around formation and order, the new project will confront meanings, real and imaginary, of black queered bodies in public assembly.

jumatatu m. poe is a choreographer and performer based between Philadelphia and New York City who grew up dancing around the living room and at parties with his siblings and cousins. The artist’s exposure to concert dance was through African dance and capoeira performances on California college campuses where his Pan-Africanist parents studied and worked, but he did not start “formal” dance training until college with Umfundalai, Kariamu Welsh’s contemporary African dance technique. His work continues to be influenced by various sources, including his foundations in those living rooms and parties, early technical training in contemporary African dance, continued study of contemporary dance and performance, movement trainings with dancer and anatomist Irene Dowd around anatomy and proprioception, his sociological research of and technical training in J-sette performance with Donte Beacham. Through his artistic work, poe strives to engage in and further dialogues with Black queer folks, create lovingly agitating performance work that recognizes History as only one option for the contextualization of the present, and continue to imagine options for artists’ economic and emotional sustainability.

Follow jumatatu on Instagram – @jumatatupoe

Photos by Joel Tsui