RAKIA!:
myeyesdontcrynomore

A Sarah Donnelly Production
November 4, 2017 at 8PM

Part of JACK’s year-long series, Reparations365
​
The performance collective RAKIA!, led by choreographer and dancer Rakia Seaborn, inverts playground routines into the language with which a trio of dancers communicates with the black women who died too soon. This highly-stylized immortality ritual hearkens back to a care-free time of middle school talent shows, Blue Magic hair grease & "CrazySexyCool." Part of JACK's year-long Reparations365 series, "myeyesdontcrynomore" positions reparations as freedom from a never-ending fear of another black death. What if there was something else? Endless life, endless joy.

With Kendra J Ross and Pia Monique Murray
Austin Guerrazzi (Composer)
Sean Billy Kizy (Visual Artist)
Ethan Baldwin (Art Director)

Rakia Seaborn (Choreographer) A native of Detroit, Seaborn is a choreographer and performer whose work has appeared at Dixon Place, La MaMa, The Tank, AUNTS, The Bessie Schönberg Dance Theatre, JACK and Brooklyn Studios for Dance. She makes dances about women through a literary lens, to rewrite history, redefine the present and offer images of a more just future. Seaborn has worked with Dianne McIntyre, Rashaun Mitchell, Jodi Melnick, Michael Cross Burke, Tyler Ashley, and PMMDC. She is currently a Guest-Artist-In-Residence at Trinity/La MaMa. She graduated from Oberlin College in 2007, earning a Bachelors of Art in Dance with a concentration in Choreography, and in 2014, she gained an MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College.

Kendra Ross (Performer) is a dancer, teaching artist, choreographer and community organizer from Detroit, MI. Kendra received a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University in Dance. Upon graduation Kendra began sharing her knowledge as a teaching artist in the New York City Public Schools which she has been doing since 2007. As a dancer in New York City, Kendra has worked with Urban Bush Women, Andrea E. Woods/ Souloworks, Genesis Dance Company, Vissi Dance Theater, and Motion Sickness with Monstah BlackM, BDance, and Moving Spirits Dance Company. Kendra is currently a company member of Ase Dance Theater Collective. Kendra also completed an European tour dancing with Adira Amram and DJ KId Koala in Vinyl Vaudville 2.0. Kendra is currently an artist in residence at Brooklyn Studios for Dance. Kendra’s work has been presented at the Detroit Performing Arts High School, Joffrey Summer Intensive, Halftime Performances at Florida A&M University, the off Broadway show 7 Sins, and Museu de Arte in Salvador, Brazil.

Pia Monique Murray (Performer) is known as a jack of all trades in the dance industry, having been a choreographer, performer, teacher, arts administrator, stage, tour and company manager, and rehearsal assistant. She hasworked with nora chipaumire, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Paloma McGregor, Dianne McIntyre, Blondell Cummings, and Pedro Ruiz in various capacities, and performed with Vado Diomande’s Kotchegna Dance Company for ten years. Pia has been a teaching artist for Urban Arts Partnership, Dreamyard Project, Brooklyn Arts Council, Dancewave, and Mark DeGarmo & Dancers. As a Lincoln Center Scholar she attained a master’s degree in dance education from Hunter College and graduated with high honors as a member of the National Honors Society for Dance. Pia currently teaches elementary school dance with the New York City Department of Education, performs with RAKIA! and leads Pia Monique Murray
Dance Collective (PMMDC).

Austin Guerrazzi (Composer) is a New York based multi-instrumentalist and composer. Receiving a Bachelor of Music from New York University, Austin began scoring dance through the Tisch School of the Arts, and has continued to collaborate on projects with film, dance, and interactive media for the past 4 years.

Sean Billy Kizy (Visual Artist) is an architect, installation artist, and toy designer. Originally from outside Detroit, MI he now resides in Brooklyn, NY. He has established Billy's Action Figures as a studio that designs and fabricates projects of all scales with the overlying ambition to create forms that engage motion and inspire action by others. He is a registered architect in New York City with LEED credentials, holds a B.S in Architecture with Distinction from the University of Michigan and an M.Arch from Rice University. Sean Billy Kizy has taught at Rice University, has been on architectural studio juries at CUNY NY and has lectured at NJIT on the topic of 'Explosive Organism and Sustainable Regrowth'. His experience includes work at several architectural firms including OMA and SHoP Architects.

Ethan Baldwin (Art Director) is a DC-born and Brooklyn-based Art Director, Graphic Designer and Photographer. Having always been drawn to artistic movement, his work often incorporates themes from dance, athleticism, and high-energy, on stage and off. He has also danced and choreographed with Danceworks NY, and is almost always moving and shaking while pushing pixels. He is excited for another performance with RAKIA! and truly buys into the life of incorporating glitter in all we do.

Photo Credit: Ethan Baldwin