Artist(s): Tracie Morris, Graham Haynes, Laurie Carlos, David Thomson, and Michelle Halsell
Date: May 15, 2003-May 24, 2003
Tracie Morris's Afrofuturistic premiered at The Kitchen in 2003. The multimedia performance evolved out of the visionary sound poet’s MIST (Movement, Image, Sound, Text) residency at The Kitchen. MIST was a program that offered artists support for experimentatal new work by facilitating cross-disciplinary collaborations. With Afrofuturistic, Morris gathered Bessie Award-winning choreographer David Thomson, composer and musical innovator Graham Haynes, visual artist Michelle Halsell, and director Laurie Carlos as collaborators in the staging of her debut movement-based performance. The performance interweaved visual interior dialogues, experimental movement, electronic soundscapes, and virtual images. Deploying nonlinear and speculative storytelling strategies, Morris chronicled a tale of mortality and futurity that grappled with the intersections of scientific logic, racial discourses, and social paradigms that inform the contemporary and shape possible futures.