Artist Statement

My artistry as a playwright and dramaturg is foregrounded in challenging existing structures, disrupting tradition, and building liberated futures. My political, creative, and intellectual commitment to black feminism alongside my social and political position as a black femme demands that I invest in the critical and crucial work of imagination; that is, I dream up futures and struggle and fight for those futures through my creative practices. Specializing in new play development, I find that generating new creative pieces continues to push theatre and performance forward. My playwriting and dramaturgy emanate from my interest in employing performance as a vital modality for black feminist worldmaking. 

I write plays for a rehearsal for the future in which people can be liberated from oppressive structures and dystopian nightmares. My plays are an avenue where I probe readers and audiences alike to question the world around them, inspiring them to create a better one. I am not satisfied with comfort, as comfort breeds complicity. This ethos undergirds my playwriting: I use my plays to confront oppressive structures with care. I center the interior and multifaceted histories and worlds of black girls, women, and nonbinary people, generating a space where our stories are heard. 

As a dramaturg, I encourage practitioners to be brave in their works,  take chances and to imagine beyond limitations - be it from society or even themselves. In my work, this looks like encouraging multidisciplinarity and genre-blurring. As a dramaturg, I have worked on a variety of performance work in theatre, dance, museum installations, and performance art. I am most intrigued by work that does not easily fit into existing categories or labels. A play does not have to be a play; a dance does not have to only be dance. I cultivate a place for curiosity within my artistic collaborators and use their art to dream up new worlds. I know another world is possible and I fully believe, as an artist, it is my responsibility to reflect that world in all of the art I make either individually or collaboratively.