The Black Magic of Living

Artist-scholars Thomas DeFrantz and Ni’Ja Whitson present dance works in response to the poetry of Jean Toomer and Marlon Riggs. DeFrantz and Whitson will conduct a two-week residency at Swarthmore College that will include a presentation of DeFrantz’s dance work CANE, a presentation of Whitson’s A Meditation on Tongues, master classes in contemporary dance vocabularies, and discussions with the campus community around historical and futuristic renderings of black contemporary performance. CANE and Meditation examine the complex and endangered terrains of black American life through history. Each work uses its own mediated performance device as a tool of magical narrative rendering—visual technology in the case of CANE, bodily ritual in the case of Meditation.

Thomas DeFrantz public conversation
Friday, Feb. 2, 5 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center, Cinema

CANE performance
Friday, Feb. 2, 8 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center, Frear Ensemble
Theater

CANE performance
Saturday, Feb. 3, 8 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center, Frear Ensemble
Theater

Public conversation between DeFrantz and Whitson
Sunday, Feb. 4, noon
Lang Performing Arts Center, Troy Dance Studio

Master class with Ni’Ja Whitson
Tuesday, Feb. 6, 4:30 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center, Troy Dance Studio

Master class with Ni’Ja Whitson
Thursday, Feb. 8, 4:30 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center, Troy Dance Studio

Ni’Ja Whitson public conversation
Friday, Feb. 9, 5 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center, Cinema

A Meditation on Tongues performance
Friday, Feb. 9, 8 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center,
Frear Ensemble Theater

A Meditation on Tongues performance
Saturday, Feb. 10, 8 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center,
Frear Ensemble Theater