Danspace Project’s Platform 2018: Dancing Platform Praying Grounds: Blackness, Churches, and Downtown Dance, curated by Reggie Wilson, inspired an extensive Philadelphia project which featured eight Philly choreographers at three historic churches in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia project resulted in a documentary film entitled GROUNDS THAT SHOUT!… and others merely shaking produced by Deborah Thomas, directed by Gordon Divine Asaan, and curated by Reggie Wilson.

As part of Danspace 50th celebration, we are revisiting Platform 2018: Dancing Platform Praying Grounds: Blackness, Churches, and Downtown Dance, which emerged from Wilson’s ongoing research into religion, dance, and race—specifically the history of our site, St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. Wilson and a team of artists and curators researched the history of the Church, revealing its completion in 1799, the year of the New York State Gradual Emancipation Act, a fact which is now incorporated into Danspace Project’s land and site acknowledgements. St. Mark’s history is summarized in Hussie-Taylor’s essay for Wilson’s Platform.