performance

Ama BE

Littoral Dissonance

2017

19 minutes
video by Karl Cooney

Littoral Dissonance addresses pangs of "longing to know" as relates to the African Diaspora's spiritual connection and disconnections by way of water.

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The performance draws water from the East River and is performed at the site of New York City's first slave market on11.30.17 the 306 year anniversary of its opening. "Initially, the buying, selling, and trading of slaves were conducted privately, according to Columbia University. Some slaves were even sent out on their own to find work. But in 1711, in response to anxieties of white, middle-class New Yorkers who feared that the presence of so many black slaves looking for work on the streets might raise the risks of an insurrection, the market was erected." (link to article here)

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The performance incorporates rock sea salt from Ghana in its ritual cleansing of the stained space and insists on the viewer to take part in sewing pieces of aquatinted triangles of Mylar, representing the prickled pieces of our disdainful past.

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This piece was performed on as a part of Black Gotham's, Nerdy Thursday series, the Ghana edition.

Promotion: Pubessence addresses African womanhood, puberty, rites, violation and healing. It implicates the viewer as both violator and healer, asking the audience to "Repetal My Flower" as audio from a documentary in Akan on the Bragoro puberty ritual radiates from the body. The performance concludes with intimate gestures of ecstatic forgiveness 

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Performed at Inertia, presented by the Blue Rose on 11.11.17 at Oya Damla's The Ear, curated by Polina Riabova.

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Ama BE

Promotion: Pubessence

2017

25 minutes
video by Karl Cooney

Promotion  is  the first iteration of the Mudcloth & Doilies performative brunch as a solo performance. The work addresses sources of cultural orthodoxy and dissociation of dining norms by way of forced migration. 

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This was performed on 9.22.17 as a part of Karl Cooney's Archive series at Le Petit Versailles. 

Ama BE

Promotion

2017

25 minutes
video by Karl Cooney

African Body Snatchers (2016)

A performance by Nana Ama Bentsi-Enchill (Ama BE), Tsedaye Makonnen, Megan Livingston & Ayana Evans, is a TransAtlantic journey from, bearing waters from Jamestown, Virginia to the shores of James Town, Accra, Ghana. A conjuring of historical mythology about the restless spirit of the ill-famed, ill-fated Queen Dode Akabi, the performance returns source to source, using waters as a medium for reconciliation.