The Traveling Show: rural Alabama

research | residency one

The Traveling Show long-term project to rural South communities
various public sites and outdoor spaces, Wilcox County, Alabama

We are elated to offer the first of multiple residences to this deeply spiritual community.

processional choreographies along the deepest mixed forests
dirt sidewalk dances on paths of love and compassion
black Belt prairies
washed in and settled to the sea bottom some 70 million years ago

our unique embodied vernacular exists in supple dialogue
with, and in homage to the quilters.
like Gee’s Bend, my practice, glo aesthetic grew out of an ethos
of self-reliance and communal care:
will, of the spirit, what keeps us going
will is power, direct action maps our bodies in action
(you asked us yesterday about our arrows, mine is often will, and that strength is passed down to me and I use it, thank you, and I continue it on)

what does this yield?
in service to Gee’s Bend people
in service to Camden people
in service to Selma people
land
movement
to love places wounded, for regrowth
a return of kindness

The Traveling Show depicts people and more than humans searching, extending, and praying–but also surveying, making life, art, and holding onto each other under the pressure to come apart.

Thank you, NEA, for your support of The Traveling Show 2023.