Brownbody Presents: Tracing Sacred Steps

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A nonprofit fundraiser supporting

BROWNBODY

Support Brownbody as they present their newest evening length work, Tracing Sacred Steps!

$1,050

raised by 8 people

$2,000 goal

June 3rd -5th Brownbody will present 'Tracing Sacred Steps', their newest evening length work in St. Paul, MN. The Brownbody team has and continues to work diligently to breathe life into the artistic work and to be able to share it with you. This requires significant time, energetic and financial resources. We could not do this work without your support!

Producing a full scale theatrical performance on the ice is not easy and incurs a significant cost. For example, an hour of icetime ranges from $170/hour up to $250/hour--typically for a production we require upwards of 200 hours of icetime for rehearsals, and technical production requirements.

The Brownbody team can not wait to welcome our community to see 'Tracing Sacred Steps' in June, despite the challenge of creating a theatrical production on ice. Brownbody wants our entire community to be a part of this occasion. If you are unable to attend 'Tracing Sacred Steps' in person, consider supporting Brownbody by making a one time donation or becoming a monthly donor. Your donation will go directly towards off setting the cost of ice time and providing opportunity for community members to attend the show.

Purchase a ticket for tracing sacred steps here: 


About Tracing Sacred Steps

Tracing Sacred Steps (TSS) blends modern dance, figure skating, and Ring Shout.  In her essay, “Hoodoo Religion and American Dance Traditions: Rethinking the Ring Shout” Katrina Hazzard-Donald states:

“It was from the African sacred circle, that the first truly African American dance was born: the ‘Ring Shout.’ The Ring Shout was a counterclockwise, sacred circle dance that appears to have been done universally among [enslaved Africans] and later among freedmen. […] In the sacred circle, the center was a vortex of spiritual energy and power which represented a separate and sacred realm, one not of the material realities of enslavement. It represented a reality which connected one to the ancestors and reconfirmed a continuity through both time and space. Within the circle, the interaction between the individual and the community was mediated by sacred spiritual forces evidenced in spirit possession.”

TSS engages elements of this practice to illustrate how it continues to serve as a pathway to healing within so many Black spaces.  It 1) illustrates how this practice continues to be relevant, 2) pays homage to these important cultural rituals, and its practitioners: forcibly displaced Africans that found a way, amidst grave adversity, to work towards restoration and wholeness.

Tracing Sacred Steps features an all-Black cast of 4 professional skating artists and actor/vocalist Thomasina Petrus. 


About Brownbody

Blending modern dance, theater, social justice and skating since 2007, Brownbody received its 501(c)(3) status in 2013. Brownbody cultivates space to process and create  artistic work that offers honest and nuanced stories rooted in blackness. Moving from a US based Black perspective, Brownbody’s work and programs shift histories and contemporary realities lived by Black diasporic communities from the peripheries of mainstream consciousness to “center stage/ice.

For more information about visit www.Brownbody.org


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