Danspace
Project

a new work produced by 7NMS
visioned by Marjani Forté-Saunders

The Artists of float.

Marjani Forté-Saunders- Choreographer & Performer
Everett Asis- Sound Designer
Jasmine Hearn – Collaborating Artist & Performer
Nayaa Opong – Collaborating Artist & Performer
Bennalldra Williams- Integrative Movement Coach
Guy de Lancey- Media Design

Selected sound & texts for this showing:

End of Innocence by Shabaka 
Kiss me before I forget (feat. Lianna La Havas) by Shabaka
Every Color in Blue by Brittany Howard 
Clip “on meditation” an interview with Phylicia Rashad
Selected text/excerpts from “Of Water and Spirit” by Malidoma Somé

Costume & Set Design

Marjani Forté-Saunders

float. is a recipient of the 2023 MAP Fund and is being commissioned, in part by Danspace Project for a Fall 2025 Preview. float. was developed in part during a Movement Research residency, and is also a recipient of the Barnard Movement Lab Residency. 

Marjani Forté-Saunders (she/her) is an award winning choreographer and performance artist, as well as an educator, community organizer, facilitator, and visioning founder of the burgeoning platform Art x Power which is dedicated to building resilient futures for Black Artists, by creating pathways towards long-term, fiscal and creative wellness. 

Art x Power, is one branch of the brain trust that is 7NMS (names), the creative pairing of Marjani Forté-Saunders and composer/sound designer, Everett Saunders. In addition to being life- partners, the creative duo have been touring their latest work, Prophet: The Order of the Lyricist, since its  premiere in 2022. 7NMS are recipients of New Music USA Award (2021), the MAP Fund (2020) and the National Dance Project Production & Touring award, for this work. In 2023, PROPHET had its Los Angeles premiere, at the REDCAT ROY AND EDNA DISNEY/CALARTS THEATER (REDCAT), and traveled to the Musuem of Contemporary Arts Chicago, May 2024.

Marjani Forté-Saunders (she/her) is a 2023 United States Artists Fellow, and  recently celebrated her debut as choreographer for the New York Metropolitan Opera, El Niño. She is an awardee of the prestigious Dance Magazine Harkness Award (2020) and the (2020) Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fellowship. She is an inaugural recipient of 3 distinguishing fellowships in dance, including Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Center Initiative Fellowship (2017), the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2018), and the DanceUSA Artist Fellowship (2019). 

Commercially, as a choreographer and movement coach, Saunders has worked with Sundance Award winning director and fellow LMU Alum Kahlil Joseph (PROCESS & Pantene Pro-V Black is Beautiful commercial campaign), Kevin Willmott (The 24th- a feature film), Kevin Everson (Black Bus Stop), and actress Tracee Ellis Ross’ PATTERNS.. 

Saunders was a touring artist for five years, with the internationally renowned Urban Bush Women Dance Company (UBW) where she also performed works by celebrated artists, Camille A. Brown and was the first and only artist (beyond Blondell Cummings) to perform Cumming’s American Masterpiece Chicken Soup.

Humbly, Saunders embraces the depth of her career and craft as a divine opportunity and command to listen, serve, and transform. She defines her work by its lineage stemming from culturally rich, vibrant, historic, loving, irreverent conjurers. With joy, Saunders’ most creative, commanding and rewarding practice is as a Mother, which operates inextricably alongside her visioning as an artist.

Everett Saunders is a Composer, and Sound Designer specializing in collaborative processes, score and soundscape development for theater and film.  

Everett is the composer and thought partner behind the award-winning and internationally touring production, Memoirs of a.. Unicorn. His work can be found as composer/sound designer on Jaamil Kosoko’s Chameleon, mayfield Brooks Whale Fall,  and Urban Bush Women’s Hair & Other Stories (2018). His ongoing work in the production Memoirs of a… Unicorn, received a 2018 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production, with international debuts in Brussels, Belgium and Berlin, Germany.

Saunders was awarded two different New Music USA grants in 2017 to develop a 3-Dimensional Binaural Soundscape and Score for the performance work being Here…/this time, and later featured as 1 of 5 installations exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Art (Brooklyn, NY), funded by the SURDNA Foundation Thriving Cultures Grant as part of the being Here… In Memory 3 month installation. 

As a community organizer and teaching artist, Saunders formerly served as an interim Director of Operations and Programs at the Alkebulan Cultural Center, instituting new programs and projects for artists, Youth, and adults- focused on galvanizing and transforming community through the arts. 

Anchored in a steady collaboration with partner and choreographer Marjani Forté-Saunders, they have emerged as 7NMS| Everett Saunders & Marjani Forte. The duo’s latest work, Prophet: The Order The Lyricist was awarded a 2020 New Music USA grant for Everett’s lyric and sonic design, and a 2021 National Dance Project Touring & Presentation award. Including an early post-COVID premiere at Abrons Arts Center in 2022, the project has presented at the Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center at Rennslaar University, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, REDCAT Los Angeles, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. 

Jasmine Hearn, born and raised on occupied lands now known as Houston, TX, is an interdisciplinary artist, teacher, doula, performer, and organizer. They are a recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2023), Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Rome Prize in Design with collaborator Athena Kokoronis of Domestic Performance Agency (2023), a Creative Capital Award (2022), and New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards for Outstanding Performer (2021, 2017).

Jasmine has creatively collaborated with artists, Bill T. Jones, Saul Williams, Solange Knowles, Alisha B. Wormsley, Vanessa German, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Lovie Olivia, Tsedaye Makonnen, Ayanah Moor, Sandra Organ Solis, Holly Bass, Li Harris, and companies, Staycee Pearl dance project, Urban Bush Women, David Dorfman Dance, Helen Simoneau Danse, Dance Alloy Theater, and August Wilson Dance Ensemble, which have produced solo and collective dance choreography for performances.

Jasmine gives gratitude to Spirit, their mothers and aunties, and all the mothering Black people who have supported their moving, traveling, remembering body.

Ny Opong is a movement artist and performer. They received a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2019. Upon graduation they joined the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company where they were a member from 2019-2024. Ny has also worked as a performer with artists along the East and West coasts; Lee Mingwei, Chien-ying Wang, Vinson Fraley, Shamel Pitts, Huiwang Zhang, Marjani Forté-Saunders and Volta Collective.Through years of modern, jazz, west african and ballet dance training partnered with somatic practices, Ny is interested in uncovering the memories that are held in the body, and discovering how those memories both known and unknown influence, affect, and aid in how we shape our lives. Ny constantly plays between the subtleties and extremities in their body. Whether that be in movement, in feelings and emotions or otherwise.  As they continue to work with their mind-body connection, Ny is interested in awakening the ancestral histories of movement within them, and is committed to the evolving union between the spiritual and physical realms.

Bennalldra Williams is an Integrative Movement Coach and birth doula that believes movement is our universal first language and the body is our greatest teacher. This belief has been foundational in the development of both her community and private practice.

She comes to movement coaching with over two decades of concert dance and teaching experience, including her work with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Alabama ballet, and the New York based Urban Bush Women. She has a BFA in Dance and Exercise Science, a level 2 Gyrotonic certification, she’s a level 3 Franklin Method Educator, and received her Pilates training from the Kane School of Core Integration. She has also completed Functional Anatomy for Movement and Injuries at Mt. Sinai. These learning experiences help cultivate her specialized wellness programs for those with such conditions as osteoporosis, scoliosis, multiple sclerosis, cancer, foot and ankle disfunction, disc fusions, herniations, and ACL and Meniscus rehabilitation just to name a few. 

Bennalldra’s love of learning about the body has also fueled her doula practice, which got started after her learning  with Mama Glow and Manhattan Birth. 

 Her goal is to help people demystify their bodies in a way that helps them be their most Balanced, Optimized, Vibrant and Expressive selves, which is why she created Bové, a wellness initiative that explores the intersectionality of movement science, education, art and activism. She is also currently the movement coach for Urban Bush Women and other dance companies.

Prophet: The Order of the Lyricist

Marjani Forté-Saunders: Choreographer, Performer 
Everett Saunders: Writer, Composer, Sound Designer, Performer (EMCEE)
Chris Williams: Musician, Co-Composer
Meena Murugesan: Media Designer, Filmmaker, Thought Partner 
Marcella Lewis: Dancer
Sabela grimes: Directorial Consultant
Sharon Bridgforth: Dramaturg, Literary Coach 
Omi Osun Joni L. Jones: Dramaturg, Literary Coach
Rahaman “Kil” Kilpatrick: Hip Hop Connoisseur, Thought Partner 
Shvawn “Siren” Bausley: Costume Design
Rashaud Michel: Documentation & Storytelling Filmmaker
John D. Alexander: Production Manager, Lighting Designer

ABOUT THIS WORK

PROPHET is an archival, research, & multi-genre storytelling project on the life-journey of a Lyricist, Prophet: The Order of the Lyricist, illuminates the distinctive practices, systems, philosophies, and political ideologies that have shaped Hip Hop’s Emcee/Lyricists.  The Lyricist is an Order of craft, of prose, oration, and exposé (to name a few). Through the coming of age story of Everett as ‘Mental’ the Emcee, audiences are invited to enter a world of courage, self-determination, and devotion. Using text, sound, film, and performance, Prophet is our critical and embodied offering to the scholarly, civic, and ancient bodies of radical Black expression.

SUPPORT FOR THIS WORK

SPECIAL THANKS

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

7NMS|Marjani Forté-Saunders +  Everett Saunders Operating in CA and NY, 7NMS| is the public emergence of Marjani Forté-Saunders and Everett Saunders’ work as a collaborative team, radically engaging art as a medium of elevation, healing, and futurity. With 7 award-winning projects in 10 years, 7NMS tote a revolutionary commitment to the Black radical imagination. PROPHET is an awardee of the 2020 MAP Fund and 2020 New Music USA Award, and the National Dance Project Production and Touring grant 2021. Marjani is a 2019 FCA Fellowship awardee, a 3x Bessie award winner, and an inaugural recipient of the Jerome Hill, Dance USA and UBW Choreo. Center Fellowships. Everett is the composer and thought partner behind the award-winning and internationally touring production, Memoirs of a.. Unicorn, and a 2x New Music USA Awardee. His recent work can be found as composer/sound designer on Jaamil Kosoko’s Chameleon, mayfield Brooks Whale Fall,  and Urban Bush Women’s Hair & Other Stories (2018).

While incubating PROPHET through our Fall ‘20 and Winter ‘21 Satellite Residencies, in our newly erected home studios, we have worked in close collaboration with co-visionaries d. Sabela grimes (movement composer and sound archivist), Meena Murugesan (filmmaker & media designer), and Marc Winston (photographer), producing PROPHET’s latest filmic iteration, commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow. 

Chris Ryan Williams is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York and most at home collaborating with improvisers and experimentalists. During his years in Los Angeles, Williams was mentored by multi-reedist Bennie Maupin whose teachings instilled a conviction in finding one’s own path in life through sound. Concurrently, he spent time in the community band Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. These collaborations continue to influence his musical journey as a recent addition to the New York creative community, one in which elders and young folk (in spirit, age, and experience) share a space in creation. Williams’ work explores the dyad of ancestral trauma and power existing in all Black Americans: I Ain’t Got No Spare (2019) is a modular video and performance piece that explores the rich legacy of Black music and film in Los Angeles; House of Peace (2021) is a video installation and soundscape blending fabricated and ‘real’ memories across generations; Of Yours (2020) is a free jazz setting for imagined exchanges between Black leaders. Recent grants and residencies include, Foundation of Contemporary Arts, Musik installationen Nürnburg, Atlantic Center for the Arts WasteLAnd, and MATA Festival. Williams has collaborated with Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Fay Victor, Luke Stewart.

Meena Murugesan (they/them) is an award winning video artist and movement artist living on Tongva-Kizh land, or Los Angeles. Meena creates experimental non-linear narratives at the intersection of live performance, video art installation, and social issues. Grappling with the practices of improvisation, somatic bodywork, brahminized bharatanatyam, collage, projection mapping, and contemplative documentary, Meena centers an anti-racist, anti-caste, feminist, queer, melanin-rich creative liberatory practice. They are directing a multimedia series entitled Dravidian Futurities about African-Dravidian connections, casteism, colorism, and trance/possession movement rituals. Meena is a current founding member of two collectives: SADA (South Asian Dance Artists, Mellon awardee 2021-2026) and SiriusShapeShifters (with d. Sabela grimes). Meena’s dance, video art, or video projection design work has been presented at Getty Museum, Getty Villa, Underground Museum, Broad Museum, MOCA LA, The Ford Amphitheater, Pieter, LACE, UCLA, ODC, YBCA, Dance Mission, Abrons Arts Center, Gibney, NYLA, 651 Arts, EMPAC, Jacob’s Pillow, SOPHIENSALE, Pearlstein Gallery, Black Star Film Festival, ICA Philadelphia, Opera Omaha, Tangente, MAI, Le Gesu, Monument National etc.

MARCELLA LEWIS is a recipient of the Princess Grace Award in Dance. Ms. Lewis hails from Los Angeles, CA, where she began her dance training at the Lula Washington Dance Theatre. She then continued her studies at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts(LACHSA). She later received her BFA from the Purchase Conservatory of Dance in 2016, where she was awarded the Adopt-A-Dancer Scholarship. She joined A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in fall 2016, as a dancer, soloist, and company liaison. Marcella was featured with A.I.M in Dance Magazine in August 2017 and was mentioned in the New York Times for the A.I.M’s Joyce season in May 2018. Marcella is currently a performer with TRIBE multidisciplinary visual performances and is a freelance artist, choreographer and teacher in Los Angeles and New York.

Sabela grimes – be a trans-media storyteller, sonic ARKivist, movement composer. Improvisational systems and collaboration are at the heart of his creative practice, inhaling through socio-historical observation, self-examination and speculative meanderings, exhaling through layers of interconnected sonic, visual and kinesthetic arrangements. Sabela be investing in the poetics of assemblage, the magic of mutability, mastering misuse. Past projects include Philly XP, World War WhatEver, 40 Acres & A Microchip and ELECTROGYNOUS. Sabela’s current collaborative endeavor with Meena Murugesan, Parable of Portals, dreams Butler’s professional and personal writings into live performances, audio-visual installations, site-specific short films, and interactive community activations. Each experience realizes quantum Blackness as a means to play within the nowness of recurring futures.  On faculty at USC’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, he continues to cultivate, Funkamental MediKinetics, a movement system that draws on the layered dance training, community building, and spiritual practices evident in Black vernacular and Hip Hop/Street dance forms. He is a 2023 USC Associates Award for Artistic Expression recipient, 2021 Bessie Award winner for Outstanding Performer, 2017 County of Los Angeles Performing Arts Fellow and 2014 United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow.

Omi Osun Joni L. Jones is an artist/scholar/facilitator who employs Black Feminist aesthetics and theatrical jazz principles in her work. Her original performances include sista docta, a critique of academic life, and Searching for Ọ̀ṣun, an ethnographic performance installation around the Divinity of the River. Her dramaturgical work includes August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and Shay Youngblood’s Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery—both under the direction of Daniel Alexander Jones, as well as Sharon Bridgforth’s con flama under the direction of Laurie Carlos. Her most recent book is Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power of the Present Moment, a collaborative ethnography focusing on three theatrical jazz practitioners. Omi has been shaped by Robbie McCauley’s activist art, Laurie Carlos’s insistence on being present, and Barbara Ann Teer’s overt union of Art and Spirit. She earned her Ph.D. from New York University, and her Embodied Social Justice Certificate from Transformative Change. She is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin, a mother, a Queer wife, and a curious sojourner.

A 2022 Winner of Yale’s Windham Campbell Prize in Drama, Sharon Bridgforth is 2020-2023 Playwrights’ Center Core Member, a 2022-2023 McKnight National Fellow and a New Dramatists alum. She has received support from The Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Creative Capital, MAP Fund and the National Performance Network. A MAP Fund Scaffolding for Practicing Artists Coach, Sharon’s work is featured in Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature and Mouths of Rain an Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought. Sharon’s Lambda Literary award winning, the bull-jean stories will be produced by Pillsbury House + Theatre in October/November 2022, directed by Signe Harriday. Herdat Black Mermaid Man Lady/The Show is streaming on the Twin Cities PBS platform. Sharon has served as a dramaturg for: the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative’s Choreographic Fellowship program and is proud to be in deep process with 7NMS. More at: https://www.sharonbridgforth.com.

In 1984, when Rahaman “Kil” Kilpatrick was 10 years old, he saw Run DMC performing “Rock Box” on American Bandstand & he knew he wanted to be part of the hip hop culture. While other kids were asking their parents for toys for Christmas, Kil begged his parents to buy him two turntables so he could be a DJ. 

In 1992 Kil began attending Morgan State University & saw an article in Vibe magazine that Bobbito wrote highlighting the dopest hip hop radio shows. When he saw Morgan’s show Strictly Hip Hop 88.9 was named he knew he had to become part of that show! For the next 7 years from 1994-2001 Kil hosted Strictly Hip Hop which is currently the longest running hip hop radio show on the east coast.

After graduating from Morgan State, Kil dedicated his life to helping teens in Washington DC by running numerous teen centers throughout the city. He’s gone on to become a music producer who has produced by groups such as MOP, Maffew Ragazino, RJ Payne and Pete Rock’s 1st artist signed his record label Amxxr. He also hosts by a weekly hip hop podcast Apt. 5B. 

The Los Angeles native Shvawn “Siren” Elyse is a dancer, actress and costume designer for unique artists around the world. A lover of the arts, she has worked on her crafts for many years and has acquired a B.A. in Theatre and B.A. in Dance.