Pieces that Listen (2017)

KT Collective

Black on Black Project V2 | VAE

Raleigh, NC

This was the first program that Proxemic Media and the Black on Black Project worked on together. Weise was presented with the idea to incorporate a dance performance element to the programs kicking off the Black on Black V2 exhibition. Not unlike 2020, the year 2016 and 2017 saw a civil unrest that this country had not seen in decades. The idea was to include dance and performance in the programming as another powerful way to highlight the ways Black artists in the area were responding to then-current events. 

This also marked the first (and not last!) time Weise and Kristin Taylor Duncan / KT Collective worked together on a program although they had known and indirectly known each other since 2011. Proxemic’s role in this collaboration was akin to a production manager, working between the exhibition curator, Mike Williams, the VAE crew and the dancers to coordinate a seamless experience in logistics from the first meeting to the last applause from audience members. 

KT Collective performed two pieces that evening. 

Pieces that Listen was an excerpt from their work Vignette. Based on Odili Donald Odita’s mural at the Downtown Durham YMCA, the work was created with the feeling that the mural was overlooking parts of the downtown. “In a way not only easily seen, but also in a way that it is capturing and listening to the energy of the streets below,” says Taylor.

The second piece was an excerpt of Not Myself. The work was created in response to two visual artworks: Untitled by Purvis Young and Appease, Appear, Applaud by Xaviera Simmons. The poem for this piece was written by Dominique Reed.