Processes
BLACK SPACE
I (Leslie Parker) define Black Space as a form of consciousness not limited to or bound by place, time, energy, or geographic location. It is, and can be shared as a way of thinking/being in time, energy, and geographic location; an interwoven construct of lived experience and conduct. Black Space is neither exclusive or inclusive to any one person, people, place, or thing. It exists in the unknown, the subconscious, the mystical/magical, and infinitely here and now with deep cultural roots in Black Pan-African and transatlantic African diasporic cultures and communities.
Video courtesy of Leslie Parker
Leslie Parker Dance Project, LPDP, created by Leslie Parker, is driven to move Black culture(s) into the future through dance-art.
The exploration, research and development of 'Black Space' with a focus on the intersection of music, story-telling, visual art, text, film, and dance when grounded in themes of spirituality, gender, and racial identities is essential to LPDP creative processes. To call upon ancestral knowledge while digging into individual and collective memory is inspired by both folkloric and contemporary thought. LPDP, as an entity, cultivates shifting-narratives interwoven into a trans/multi-disciplinary approach to performance as daily-life for (extra)ordinary exchanges with audience, participants, witnesses, and observers.
This liberative, risk-taking, and reflective experience is initiated by a Black femme of Black diasporic heritage; a descendant of the historical transatlantic African passage.
We celebrate embodied practice, to transform, to enable more multicultural experiences, to claim personal narratives more authentically, and to hopefully co-exist more holistically.
By fore fronting Black subjectivity, our work goes beyond notions of dance technique only to experiment wildly when generating an ecstatic practice that is embodied.
LPDP brings together a group of independent performing artists in collective practice, adapts a project-based resourcing model that is decolonizing and supports work that is a continuum - connected and cumulative - to take necessary risks in collaboration, dialogue, and action. By living with dance art, LPDP cross-pollinates across sectors to further anti-racism for our thriving beyond; and to elevate Black, Native, Indigenous and people-of-color (POC) stories for the sake of well-being for all.
Photograph by Bobby Rogers (featuring Leslie Parker)