Tara Aisha Willis
Tara Aisha Willis, PhD, is a dancer, scholar, and dramaturg. She is Curator of Performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and a Lecturer in dance at the University of Chicago.
In Conversation
RESIDUE AND REORDERING
RAKIYA A. ORANGE with Tara Aisha Willis"It sort of seems like blackness is taking up space in an affirming way."
In Conversation
URGENT TOMORROWS
By Tara Aisha WillisPerformer, choreographer, and scholar Thomas F. DeFrantz and dance artist niv Acosta have co-curated a weekend of performances, screenings, discussions, a dance party, and even a brunch, around the themes of “Afrofuturism and utopian/dystopian visions of a queer Black tomorrow” at JACK in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The series, titled “afroFUTUREqu##r”and produced by Shireen Dickson, includes performances by Grisha Coleman, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Niall Jones, Eto Otitigbe, Brother(hood) Dance!, Christina Blue & Adam Boothman, and others—including the curators themselves. Before the festival, Tara Aisha Willis spent some time chatting with DeFrantz and Acosta about their curatorial process, their take on queer Afrofuturism, and the potency of performance.
In Conversation
URGENT TOMORROWS
NIV ACOSTA & THOMAS F. DEFRANTZ with Tara Aisha Willis
Performer, choreographer, and scholar Thomas F. DeFrantz and dance artist niv Acosta have co-curated a weekend of performances, screenings, discussions, a dance party, and even a brunch, around the themes of “Afrofuturism and utopian/dystopian visions of a queer Black tomorrow” at JACK in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.
In Conversation
OKWUI OKPOKWASILI with Tara Aisha Willis
People [involved in the Platform] have been looking back as well as forward, not afraid to imagine new structures grounded in research around the past. The ideas of “kin and care” and “voice and body” all come from previous Platforms. There is a lineage being followed, as well as transformed—I don’t want to say it’s indirect, but it’s an evolution.
Steffani Jemison’s A Rock, A River, A Street
By Tara Aisha WillisReading A Rock, A River, A Street is like finding a way through an enigmatic moment of performance: the body is the thing that connects feelings and experiences, moves us through them. It is a train of thought, a largely unvoiced internal monologue to which we are given partial access.
