“Brothers’ Keepers: Notes from a Black Dance Dramaturg”
Nadine George-Graves (UC San Diego)

Brother(hood) Dance! is an interdisciplinary duo that seeks to inform its audiences on the socio-political and environmental injustices from a global perspective, bringing clarity to the same-gender-loving African-American experience in the 21st century. Brother(hood) Dance! was formed in April 2014 as a duo that research, create and perform dances of freedom by Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine. Descriptions of recent work below.

how to survive a plague
An interdisciplinary meditation on the artistic generational gap between those lost in the global epidemic, AIDS. Brother(hood) Dance! investigates who survives and whose stories are told during and after life. This work will explore the methods of healing, care-giving, and living testimonies by creating an intentional space with sound, movement, and aroma.

Afro/Solo/Man
A multi-disciplinary mediation exploring the identities of individual Black men relating to provocative themes like origins, nourishment, heritage, nature, sexuality and technology in the 21st century. It is a bio-mythography that uses multi-media, dance and storytelling to engage the audience in the personal journeys of two men who questions and investigates the memory, life, death and connection to their ancestors. This work lies at the nexus of environmental justice, the degradation of the Black family identity, and the government’s role in agricultural and media production.

Black Jones
Through a ritualistic process, we intend to create and dream of a safe space for black men to activate their emotional and spiritual selves that is denied in contemporary religious dogma. Black Jones is an exploration of manhood through the naked lens of two same-gender loving men. This work will investigate the humanistic and emotional connection that is viciously suffocated by the lack of societal images of black male intimacy.