Legacies in Action: 2026 DWB Fellowship Show
Description
You don’t want to miss witnessing the new works in development by our 2026 Dancing While Black (DWB) Fellows. These six artists have been gathering monthly since March to build community with one another and master teachers in the field. This showing of new works is intended to support the ongoing innovation of their creative practice and process. Each show will be followed by a Q & A with the artists.
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In celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the DWB Fellowship, we will have an evening of Story Circles and a day of masterclasses in September. Join us as we amplify Dancing While Black's Legacies in Action all season!
Thursday, September 3, 2026 6:00pm
Dancing While Black Story Circles at 651Arts
featuring Co-Facilitators Wendi Moore-O'Neal and Paloma McGregor and Storytellers Aimee Cox, Dyane Harvey-Salaam, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Jason Samuels Smith, Jonathan Gonzalez, and Nigel Campbell.
Saturday, September 19, 2026
11:00am, 1:00pm & 3:00pm
Dancing While Black Master Classes for the Masses at BAAD!
featuring Adia Whitaker, Rashida Bumbray, Tyrone Bevans and J.Bouey. Book tickets here
Lineup
Friday, October 2, 2026 featuring Quaba Ernest, Elinor Kleber Diggs, Aryanna Allen
Quaba Ernest (he/him) "Radio Renmen (Actuator)" is an interdisciplinary dance-theatre work conceived as a three-part performance series inspired by the mechanics of machines: Actuator, Transmission, and Operator. The work uses the radio as both a physical object and metaphor for communication, transmission, and distortion. Radio Renmen asks what happens when our relationships begin to function the same way as radio waves that carry invisible signals across great distances, yet every transmission risks interference, delay, or loss. As technology promises greater connection, we increasingly communicate through devices rather than with one another, relying on algorithms and computers to interpret our emotions, memories, and decisions. Messages become fragmented, mixed signals replace understanding, and genuine human presence slowly slips away. Elinor Kleber Diggs (they/them) "Coast" A series of encounters with a house Aryanna Allen (she/they) “Crush to Black” explores secrecy, obscuration, and the complexities of self-disclosure. Inspired by the photographic editing term "crush the blacks," which deepens shadows until details disappear, the piece examines what is protectively hidden or rendered invisible within Black and queer experiences.
Saturday, October 3, 2026 featuring Indigo Sparks, Imogene Williams, and Aryanna Allen
Indigo Sparks (she/her) "Linen Hz" an interdisciplinary performance piece exploring the many forms of remembrance. A call to action for collectivism shaped like a love letter to a family far far away. Imogene Williams (she/her) "The Tender Return " a dance work exploring the complexities of intimate love, relational harm, longing, and self-reclamation. Rooted in lived experience, the piece traces the journey of searching for love, validation, and belonging outside of oneself, and the gradual recognition that these qualities must also be cultivated within. At its heart, A Tender Return is an exploration of what it means to come back to oneself—to listen to the body, reclaim agency, and cultivate the tenderness once sought from another. The piece transforms a deeply personal experience into an embodied meditation on love, self-worth, and the possibility of beginning again. Aryanna Allen (she/they) “Crush to Black” explores secrecy, obscuration, and the complexities of self-disclosure. Inspired by the photographic editing term "crush the blacks," which deepens shadows until details disappear, the piece examines what is protectively hidden or rendered invisible within Black and queer experiences.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
