Cherie Hill (choreographer) is a choreographer, dancer, teacher and scholar, whose art explores human expression and how it is conveyed through the body in collaboration with nature, music and visual imagery. Her IrieDance works have been showcased at the Live Oak Theatre, the African American Cultural Center, the Black Choreographer’s Festival, Anschultz Theatre, Bao Bao Festival, P.L.A.C.E Performance, the San Francisco Cathedral, Omni Oakland Commons, SF Moving Arts Festival, Kinetech Arts, Alena Museum, the Milk Bar, SAFEhouse Arts, and the Dance A World of Hope Festival in Holland, MI.
Lashon A. Daley (dancer) is a PhD Candidate in Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. As a scholar, dancer, storyteller, and choreographer, Lashon thrives on bridging communities together through movement and storytelling. She holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MA in Folklore from UC Berkeley. In the past 15 years, Lashon has danced professionally with D’Project, N’Fungola Sibo African Dance and Drum Company, and Ballet Hysell. In recent years, she has trained with Joe Goode Performance Group, Kyle Abraham, Urban Bush Women, and at the Katherine Dunham Annual Technique Intensive in St. Louis.
Andreína Maldonado (dancer) is a Venezuelan performing artist, language interpreter, educator and social justice advocate based in San Francisco, California. She is the current recipient of the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission and the National Association for Latino Arts & Culture (NALAC) “artists in communities” grants for her work with day laborers and domestic workers in creating spaces self reflection, collaboration, and artistic expression through music and dance. Andreína collaborates with various Bay Area dance companies and choreographers as well as performing her own work.
Rose Rothfeder (dancer) is a student of Life, originally hailing from the Rocky Mountains. She is a lover of the Wild, and a devotee of Water. Dance has been food for her body and spirit since a young age. Rose has had the opportunity to work with young folks over the past 10 years – weaving the realms of nature connection, mindfulness, yoga, arts, and music. She is currently studying herbalism at the California School of Herbal Studies in Forestville, California. Rose looks forward to integrating herbalism, embodiment, healing arts, regenerative culture, earth-based skills, and more into her unfolding service path.
Imani Karpowich-Smith is an interdisciplinary artist and videographer from the East Bay. Earning her BFA from Mills College, Smith cultivates work inspired by her life experiences; exploring Multiraciality, Blackness, ancestry, and memory. This includes her ongoing series collecting interviews of the American Multiracial experience. In 2016 her student film, “Nappy” Makes me Happy, was featured in the fifth annual Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival. Smith’s work continually evolves across mediums from 2-D, sculpture, to the dance projections featured in Cherie Hill’s performances.
Brizion (music artist) and DubStrand Studio first established in 2004 in San Diego, California, with the vision to create original meditative dubwise soundscapes and bass-heavy riddims that could inspire positive lyrical creation and serve as a dynamic foundation for deeper meditation, uplifting spiritual messages and reflection. At age 17, Brizion began creating original reggae riddims on a 4-track recorder. Since that time, has built up a production studio, live performance dub station and had the opportunity to connect and collaborate with singers, record labels and sound systems across Europe, Jamaica, North and South America. With a growing catalog of credits on 16+ vinyl singles and over 50 digital and CD albums, Brizion’s musical productions have been recognized and played by the world’s most respected roots sound-systems including Jah Shaka, Channel One, Aba Shanti I, Jah Tubbys and many more.
About this Project
She-Verse is a multi-media piece inspired by drifting water, land, ancestors, bravery, and eco-feminism. A meditation on dance, time, the body, femininity, and oneness with nature, She-verse choreography investigates intersections between traditional and contemporary dance, the earth and the female body, and the treatment of women to the treatment of land. The choreography looks at two traditional African Diaspora dances, one from Guinea, and one from Jamaica, and analyzes their movement qualities referred to as “movement essences”. These essences are used to create improvisational structures and contemporary dance phrases that derive from the traditional to expand into contemporary dance contexts. Dancers’ stories include movement related to #metoo, the colonization of the Caribbean Islands, and the survival tactics we need to exist in a world afflicted by oppression and the adverse effects of climate change.
She-verse embraces tenants of eco-feminism that speak to the parallels between oppression and domination of subordinate groups to the oppression and dominance of nature. How women are treated in misogynistic cultures relates to the abuse and rape of land experienced throughout the history of colonization and to the continued subordination of women and persons of color. Through meditative and dream-like states, dancers draw from the powers of nature and ancestry to communicate via the body the healing needed to restore balance to self and earth. Video filmed in nature reminds us that “She-verse” is always there, watching over, patiently awaiting the time for humanity to make amends to restore what is necessary for the sake of all beings and our planet.
Cover photo by Imani Karpowich-Smith