Beginnings...
Parker's earlier beginnings of informal training began with community activists who founded the Lou Wiley High Steppers (Rhythm & Drill team); and founders of the Rainbow Children's Theatre Company in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Growing up in the Rondo community rooted her in socially engaged art and motivated her research of dance forms of the Sene-Gambian region, Guinea, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire. She holds a BFA in Choreography and Modern dance technique from Esther Boyer College of Music & Dance (Temple University) and a MFA in dance from Hollins University in partnership with the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, The Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and The Dresden Frankfurt Company in Frankfurt, Germany.
Video courtesy of Leslie Parker
Space & Processes
BLACK SPACE
I 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 nor is it 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.
Leslie Parker Dance Project, LLC , is driven to move Black culture(s) into the future through dance-art.
LPDP holds shifting-narratives and transdisciplinary perspectives to engage performance as part of daily ritual for (extra)ordinary exchanges. Witnesses/observers/participants become an audience from many communities to participate in risk-taking and reflection collectively; and that is created with the lens of a femme from Black and African diasporic heritage.
The exploration of 'Black Space' with a focus on the intersection of spirituality, gender and racial identities is an essential part of LPDP practice; to call on ancestral wisdom, guidance and collective memory within a contemporary moment. The goal is to bring forth subjectivity, go beyond notions of dance technique only, and to experiment wildly when generating an ecstatic practice that is embodied. In processes of decolonizing histories using the body, to in-part transform, to make space accessible for more multicultural experiences, we claim personal narratives authentically and hopefully co-exist more holistically.
LPDP values taking necessary risks to center collaboration, dialogue and action. By absorbing and engaging with dance art, LPDP cross-pollinates across sectors to further anti-racism for thriving and beyond and to elevate Black, Native, indigenous and POC stories for the sake of holistic well-being within all communities.
Thresholds of Change, an installation by visual artist Jordan Hamilton and Leslie Parker