THIS BLACK ARTIST, A DIGITAL VISUAL JOURNAL
A TIME BASED MEDIA DANCE FILM
FILM EXHIBITED AT:
1. 8th Annual We Create Festival, Boston MA June 2020
(Danza Organica)
2. Malden Dance Mile Festival, Malden MA, June 2020
(Monkeyhouse)
3. Festival of Us, We & Them, Cambridge MA, September, 2021
(The Dance Complex)
4. Malden Winter Festival,
Malden MA, December 2021
(Monkeyhouse)
Finding liberation and joy
in process/in visual/in my body
1D/2D/3D/BODY
in stillness/in movement/in transition/in observation
of
TIME
Boston
New York
Philadelphia
Hampton
Charlotte
Atlanta
Florida
This Black Artist-A Travel Visual Journal, Cassandre Charles
ARTIST"S STATEMENT
My journey to becoming a working artist was conceived on a hospital bed at Boston Medical Hospital. I told a doctor, "I should have been a dancer, that's what I am going to do." It was never my intention to adult in Boston. Like many young melanated souls I ran to an HBCU, travelled heavily for my "real jobs" during the 90s and eventually settled in Philadelphia. After facing workplace trauma my body reacted negatively, leaving me to make the decision to seek healthcare at home. It's been 10 years years and I am a professional dancer, a real working artist. Now I face the same obstacles, tribulations and uncertainties I feared winding up in as a young adult. However this time I am not sick, I am in gratitude and I know that radical self love comes first. I am not asking Boston, do I belong here. I am here. My question is, will Boston keep me?
Created for the Danza Orgánica, 8th Annual We Create Festival, Boston MA, Cassandre allows the audience into her world while dealing with uncertainty when asked to reflect of the festival's theme: Embodying Liberation. Her film includes actual footage shot on a short trip to Philadelphia, a trip that was the beginning of a calling into advocacy for safe black artist's working and living space.
The black artist is dangerous. Black art controls the 'Negro's' reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.
Sonia Sanchez