“Queer Black Dance”: Thirty-Five Years of Choreography and Film with David Roussève

Image credit: Rose Eichenbaum

Featuring co-panelists Julie Tolentino and Kevin Williamson and co-facilitators Gerald Casel and Alessandra Lebea Williams of the Mason Gross Dance Department

What is “Queer Black dance”? How might choreography help us to understand the inseparable, intimate relationship between sexuality, race, and gender? This program explores these questions with David Roussève and former artists of his “REALITY” dance company. Roussève is a choreographer/writer/director/performer, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Bessie awardee, Creative Capital Fellow, three-time Horton awardee, CalArts/Alpert awardee in Dance, recipient of four Best Film awards for his three short films, and grantee of seven consecutive NEA fellowships. Since 1988, his dance/theater company REALITY has performed throughout the UK, Europe, South America, and the United States, including four commissions for the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. In 2018 Roussève premiered the full-evening REALITY work “Halfway to Dawn,” a piece that seeks to uncover the emotional “truths” in the life of gay, immensely private African American jazz composer and Duke Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn.

Sponsored by the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice and the Mason Gross Dance Department.

Free

In-person and virtual options: This event is open to the public with in-person and virtual attendance. Registration is highly recommended for in-person attendance and  is required for virtual attendance. Register at go.rutgers.edu/dr2023.