6:00 pm Open studio with Dyllan Nguyen & Eden Attar
7:00 pm Proximity performance
Join us for a work-in-progress premiere of Proximity, a site-specific dance performance choreographed by Grisha Coleman and curated by Joseph Zeal-Henry. The performance was developed at ArtLab and will feature dancers Jennifer Roberts, Marissa Molinar and Aiden Marshall.
Before the performance, you will have a chance to meet and see projects in progress from Dyllan Nguyen and Eden Attar, two artists who are part of ArtLab’s ongoing collaboration with the Harvard Ed Portal Artist Pipeline program.
This event is part of ArtsThursdays, a university-wide initiative for free, public art events every Thursday evening. It is supported by the Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA).
Curator’s statement:
“Proximity,” choreographed by Grisha Coleman and curated by Joseph Zeal-Henry, questions our proximity to our diverted shared origins and their reconciliation as an opportunity for liberation through collective imagination.
Soundtracked by Ruff Sqwad, Giggs and Reek0, “Proximity” utilises Black British music as a catalyst for connection between disparate geographies and forms of practice. In this context, sound works to mediate the world of movement and spatial design, creating a common ground for the formation of new narratives within the conception of the Black Atlantic. Celebrating the intricate ties between diasporic communities in Britain, the United States, and beyond, the choreography offers a translation of gesture that connects unacknowledged histories through the movement of synchronized bodies.
“Proximity” is the culmination of Zeal-Henry’s ArtLab residency. Through his SUPA System project, he furthers his research into the praxis of visual and spatial culture and its inception in oral and sonic traditions. The choreography of “Proximity” exists in dialogue with the modular sonic sculpture, transforming throughout the performance.
The performance will be presented as a rehearsal continuum, suggesting that the performance, much like the culture it is commemorating, will continue to evolve and innovate and propel our continued collective journey. It is a meditation on the distances we have covered, detours we have traced, and those spaces and systems we will reinvent anew.
About the artists:
Joseph Zeal-Henry (2024 Loeb/ArtLab Fellow) is a designer, urbanist, and curator whose practice advocates for a more equitable built environment through policy and cultural production. Joseph has written for Dezeen, Casabella, and Architectural Review. In 2022, the British Council selected him to co-curate the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 alongside Jayden Ali, Meneesha Kellay, and Sumitra Upham. Their pavilion, Dancing Before the Moon, explores the need for architecture to look beyond buildings and economic structures and toward everyday social practices, customs, and traditions to meaningfully reflect how people use and occupy space.
Joseph co-founded the social enterprise platform Sound Advice alongside Pooja Agrawal to explore new forms of spatial practice through music. Joseph is a trustee of UD Music, a charity that empowers and harnesses opportunities for young people through Black music culture. Photo: Malakhai Pearson.
Grisha Coleman (visiting artist ’22) works in choreography,performance, experiential technology, and sound composition. Coleman earned an MFA in music composition and integrated media from the California Institute of the Arts and worked full-time as a dancer with the acclaimed dance company Urban Bush Women. She later created the music performance group Hot Mouth, which toured internationally and was nominated for the NYC Drama Desk Award for ‘Most Unique Theatrical Experience.’
She works in the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University as Professor of Movement, Computation, and Digital Media. Her work has been generously supported by The National Endowment for the Arts in Media grants, the Rockefeller Multi-Arts Project [MAP] Fund, Creative Capital, the Jerome Foundation, the Surdna Foundation Thriving Cultures Grant, the MacDowell Arts Colony, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Carnegie Mellon University’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Pioneer Works, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, and Stanford University’s Mohr Visiting Artist Fellowship and through a Radcliffe Fellowship (’21-22). Photo: Maurice Gunning.
Malakhai Pearson is a director and photographer from Boston. He is the owner and operator of Thunder Road Projects, a creative production company founded in 2022. Malakhai’s work is focused on culture and commercial projects. He has worked with brands like Nike, Converse, Concepts, Puma, and Bodega. He won a Webby Award and a Clio Award for his directing work for Nike: For Every Body. He is a founding member of the creative collective allyoucaneat, where he is the lead experience producer and content director. He is also a contributor to Eater Boston. Malakhai often collaborates with NYC-based film director Adam Jason Cohen. In 2022, Adam, Malakhai, and their crew made Leaned Back, a short film about bike life in Chicago. Photo: Lyndon French.
About the SUPA System:
SUPA System is a sonic sculpture by Joseph Zeal-Henry (2024, Loeb/ArtLab Fellow) with designer Deborah Garcia. As spatial practitioners and designers, they explore music and sound as materials for constructing physical spaces.
The SUPA System was commissioned by ArtLab and the Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA). It was made possible with the Johnson-Kulukundis Family President’s Fund for Arts at Harvard University.
Read about the project in Wallpaper magazine’s article “Joseph Zeal-Henry and Deborah Garcia’s SUPA System is a ‘manifesto made physical.’”
