jess pretty
call and response

June 2024

photo by Brian Rogers

Performances will take place at The Chocolate Factory Theater, 38-33 24th Street, Long Island City.

call and response is personal and archival; calling on me to turn towards my own story, lineage and memory as the site of choreographic creation. in looking to/for myself, i gather an archive to provide proof of life for future generations instead of the constant images of black death we have experienced time and times again.

how do we see ourselves? how do we see each other? how do we care for each other? how do we make space for pleasure, joy, ease and non-urgency? how do we ‘get free’ using the body as the site for radical transformation? taking place somewhere between a self portrait and the middle of the dance floor, call and response directs our attention inward to the deep histories our bodies hold. calling us to say ‘yes’ to the self, to “the encounter”, to vulnerability, to the collective, to the moving body, to change and to transformation.

created and performed by jess pretty.