taisha paggett’s School for the Movement of the Technicolor People (MAP 2014) opens October 21 at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions!
The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People is a large-scale installation and performance platform that takes the form of a dance school, shaped by the question, “what is a Black dance curriculum today?” Developed by paggett in collaboration with artists Ashley Hunt and Kim Zumpfe, the installation serves as a temporary dance school, performance space and home for dance company, WXPT (We are the Paper, We are the Trees).
WXPT is at the core of the School for the Movement of the Technicolor People: a temporary, experimental community of queer people of color and allies, dancers and non-dancers alike. WXPT was conceived by paggett as an exploration of queer questioning in our cultural imagination and as an expansion of contemporary dance practices and the ways dancers of color are positioned within that field. The company consists of Joy Angela Anderson, Heyward Bracey, Rebecca Bruno, Alfonso Cervera, Erin Christovale, Loren Fenton, Maria Garcia, Kloii “Hummingbird” Hollis, Jas Michelle, Meena Murugesan, taisha paggett, Sebastian Peters-Lazaro, Kristianne Salcines, Ché Ture, Devika Wickremesinghe and Suné Woods.
Inspired in part by a “school for colored youth” that members of paggett’s family founded in early 20th century East Texas, The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People extends WXPT into a curriculum and pedagogy. The installation at LACE will offer a program of workshops, weekly classes and micro-performances initiated by members of WXPT. The curriculum will be open to anyone, blurring lines between audience and participant, while especially encouraging queer people of color to join. Across the bodies of the company and the members of the public who join the school, the curriculum will build an accumulative performance score in weekly increments, culminating in the performance of a “collective movement choir” at the conclusion of the exhibition.
The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People began as a conversation between paggett, Rodney McMillian and Cauleen Smith. Tickets and more information are available here.
