PLAY, LAY, AYE: ACT 5, 2023
Featuring:
Destiny Diaz
Maria Burt
King Friday
Claudens Louis
Shows:
Soho Pool House, Miami FL, 2023
Comissioned by:
The Center for Global Black Studies
Commissioner
Featuring:
Destiny Diaz
Maria Burt
King Friday
Claudens Louis
Shows:
Soho Pool House, Miami FL, 2023
Comissioned by:
The Center for Global Black Studies
Commissioner
PLAY, LAY, AYE: Act 5 draws from the legacy of Bill T. Jones' Still Here and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, offering a powerful meditation on grief, loss, joy, and desire. This iteration centers around movement, creating a platform for emotional expression through dance and live jazz music, emphasizing the complexity of these intertwined emotions.
Destiny Diaz and Maria Burt, from Syncopate Collective, explore these themes through movement. Their bodies navigate the installation’s structure—now transformed into a space of expression—where grief and loss coexist with the beauty of resilience, joy, and desire. The dance is both intimate and expansive, creating a dialogue between the performers and the audience, grounded in vulnerability and strength.
The live jazz, was composed and performed by King Friday on the keyboard and Claudens Louis on the saxophone. The music’s complex harmonies and melodies serve as an emotional landscape that mirrors the dancers' journey. The raw, improvisational nature of jazz allows for an intimate conversation between the dancers and the musicians, creating moments of tension and release, while enveloping the space in a sonic embrace. King Friday's delicate piano and Claudens Louis' expressive saxophone create a dynamic score that mirrors the fluctuating rhythms of grief and joy, guiding both the performers and the audience through this emotional terrain.
In Act 5, the installation becomes more than just a space for movement—it is a conduit for collective experience, where grief, joy, and desire flow together in a symbiotic dance between sound and movement. The performance celebrates resilience, healing, and the beauty found in navigating the full spectrum of human emotion.
Destiny Diaz and Maria Burt, from Syncopate Collective, explore these themes through movement. Their bodies navigate the installation’s structure—now transformed into a space of expression—where grief and loss coexist with the beauty of resilience, joy, and desire. The dance is both intimate and expansive, creating a dialogue between the performers and the audience, grounded in vulnerability and strength.
The live jazz, was composed and performed by King Friday on the keyboard and Claudens Louis on the saxophone. The music’s complex harmonies and melodies serve as an emotional landscape that mirrors the dancers' journey. The raw, improvisational nature of jazz allows for an intimate conversation between the dancers and the musicians, creating moments of tension and release, while enveloping the space in a sonic embrace. King Friday's delicate piano and Claudens Louis' expressive saxophone create a dynamic score that mirrors the fluctuating rhythms of grief and joy, guiding both the performers and the audience through this emotional terrain.
In Act 5, the installation becomes more than just a space for movement—it is a conduit for collective experience, where grief, joy, and desire flow together in a symbiotic dance between sound and movement. The performance celebrates resilience, healing, and the beauty found in navigating the full spectrum of human emotion.