Dark Night of the Soul 2023: The Dance Union Video Podcast Ep #001

Dark Night of the Soul is MIDHEAVEN Network’s annual Solstice Festival of art, music and crucial conversations to explore and understand the shadow, where all possibility (including rebirth) originates.

The Dance Union Podcast captures timely and ephemeral conversations circulating within dance communities that support transparent discourse on a variety of topics including pay inequality, sexual harassment, abuse of power, tokenism, and much more. 

Madhura Studios is the container for this evening of dance performance by Tyrone Bevans, j. bouey & Jayson P. Smith followed by a candid discussion on punking and waacking, a freestyle dance practice created during the 70s disco era by Black and Brown queer youth on the West Coast.

DNOTS 2023 - Welcoming + Conversation

DNOTS 2023 - j. bouey

j. bouey is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist whose work merges movement, multimedia performance, and storytelling to explore liberation, identity, and radical imagination. Through projects such as A Message… (ImPulsTanz, Vienna) and SATURN: A Revelation (JACK, Brooklyn), Bouey envisions Afrofuturistic futures where dance becomes a tool for collective healing and transformation.

As the founder of The Dance Union, bouey is a fierce advocate for equity and resilience in the arts, serving on the DanceUSA Board of Trustees and DanceNYC’s Dance Workforce Resilience Task Force. Their artistic approach highlights the power of movement to disrupt oppressive systems and cultivate joy.

Their work has been featured in The New York Times, Dance Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail, celebrating their impact as a leader in contemporary dance and performance. With a deep commitment to storytelling and community, bouey’s work continues to invite audiences to envision and embody a freer, more equitable world.

DNOTS 2023 - Tyrone Bevans

Tyrone Bevans is a dancer, choreographer, Illustrator and printmaker. He is currently dancing for The Fabulous Waack Dancers and Joya Powell’s Movement of the People. In the past, Tyrone has performed and collaborated with artists such as Christal Brown, Chafin Seymour, Maya Orchin, Vessels, FunkanometryNY, Synead and Karla Garcia. As a mover, Tyrone investigates space, risk, and play with one’s physical vernacular in order to access a personal freedom.

DNOTS 2023 - Jayson P. Smith

Jayson P. Smith (b. Bronx, NY. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, & curator, currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Jayson has received support from New York Foundation for the Arts, The Poetry Project, Poetry Foundation, and The Conversation Literary Festival. Their writing appears in html.review, West Branch, boundary2, The Poetry Project’s Recluse, Gulf Coast, & The Offing, among others.

Jayson’s performance work has been featured in numerous venues throughout the U.S., such as Guggenheim Museum, MOMAPS1, Loft Literary Center, The Home School, & Ace Hotel NYC.

Jayson founded & curates NOMAD Reading Series in Brooklyn, & elsewhere.

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