2022 Festival Schedule

Four nights, three different programs—plus a daytime Roots Party!
Stay after for the post-show Q&As and parties.

SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 12–4pm
Southside Cultural Center of Rhode Island
Free! (And attendees get discount show tickets!)

ROOTS PARTY

The festival kicks off with a Roots Party! Join multi-disciplinary artist Edisa Weeks in the journey of making 1,865 roots out of paper and twine. We’ll make roots, share a vegan meal by So Plantiful, and engage in a community conversation led by Haus of Glitter.

The roots are for the March 11 & 12 performance installation, 3 RITES: Liberty, and will dangle from the ceiling to the floor to create an environment that the audience separates and moves through, to eventually meet the Liberty character.

The Roots Parties emphasize engaging people in a shared dialogue about how liberty is protected, promoted and accessed in their community and America at large. The Roots Parties started from a desire to understand why the United States Declaration of Independence guaranteed liberty as an inalienable right, and how America is living up to that guarantee. Previous conversations have included prison abolition, legalizing marijuana, water rights, financial literacy, and self-care as a liberating act.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 7:30pm
WaterFire Arts Center

AIR STREAM

A one-time-only ensemble of experts in the art of improvisational dance performance. Using the entire 15,000 square foot Main Hall, unbound to a traditional proscenium stage, the dancers explore and enliven the space following both predetermined and spontaneous rules of engagement—as the audience is invited to follow along literally and figuratively. Conceived by Lila Hurwitz and Andy Russ, with Rhode Island dance artists Shura Baryshnikov, Heidi Henderson, Cathy Nicoli, Michelle Struckholz and Stephanie Turner and a live sound score by Russ.

THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 7:30pm
WaterFire Arts Center

SMALL MOVES, BIG PICTURE

A spunky hybrid of live dance performances on a small stage juxtaposed with dance films on a big screen. Featuring performances from Shura Baryshnikov (RI), Olivier Besson (MA), Ali Kenner Brodsky & Andy Russ (RI), Assitan Coulibaly (RI), David Dorfman (CT) and Joshua Tuason (RI). With dance films from Kate Corby (WI), Tori Lawrence (MA), Anabella Lenzu (NY), Katie Beard and Naomi Turner (UK), and Esther Dganit Zimmerman (Israel).

FRIDAY & SATURDAY, MARCH 11 & 12, 7:30pm
WaterFire Arts Center

3 RITES: Liberty

a work in progress by DELIRIOUS Dances/Edisa Weeks

The show contains mature themes and potentially triggering content about psychological and sexual violence.

Connected like a puppet to objects that have informed the Black experience in America (bible, black dick, blonde wig, watermelon, gun, lightbulb, sneakers), multi-media artist Edisa Weeks alternates between black face, white face, storytelling and visceral dance to dig into the pathologization of African-Americans and the foundations of Liberty in America. As our nation grapples with confederate monuments, the lynching of Black lives, fake news and economic stratification, 3 RITES: Liberty humorously and poignantly insists on a reckoning with our past and present.

Stay for post-show talks led by Gail Burton (Friday) and Valerie Tutson (Saturday).

The full work, 3 RITES: Life, Liberty, Happiness, will premiere at 651 ARTS in Brooklyn, NY in Fall 2023. It is a seven-hour interdisciplinary interactive experience that integrates dance, live music, text, visual installations, shared meals, and community conversations to examine how America has protected, promoted and pursued life, liberty and happiness, and how these rights manifest in the body.

3 RITES is made possible in part through residencies at BRIC Arts Lab, Choreoquest at Restoration ART/Billie Holiday Theater, Gibney DIP; Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Mabou Mines SUITE Space, Maggie Allesee Center for Choreography, Materials for the Arts, Mount Tremper Arts, Norte Maar @ Socrates Sculpture Park, Snug Harbor Cultural Center; as well as grants from Black Arts Future Fund, Brooklyn Arts Council, Creative Capital, the Harkness Foundation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project, New Music USA, The National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron, New York State Council on the Arts, New York State Dance Force; as well as through the sponsorship of The Field; and the generosity of individuals. 3 RITES is a National Performance Network/Visual Artists Network (NPN/VAN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by 651 ARTS in partnership with RestorationART, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, and NPN/VAN.