angel shanel edwards

angel shanel edwards will partner with Black Spatial Relics to expand and document Black I.O.N (It’s Ours Now!), a public performance and drama therapy program uplifting court-involved Black youth, by reclaiming city streets as spaces of joy and belonging through video vignettes and public projections.

angel shanel edwards will be attending the New Waves Institute in Barbados this summer, from July 26th-August 2nd. New Waves! BIM is a gathering of dance artists, scholars, teachers, students, and leaders in the field of dance who embody the depth and spirit of contemporary dance and performance practice in the Caribbean and its Diasporas. In an organizing principle of “Emancipation,” sessions will be held at art and cultural spaces throughout Barbados, including The University of the West Indies at Cave Hill. As a first-generation Jamaican, being in the Caribbean will be proximal to angel’s ancestral knowledge and practices and will provide them an opportunity to further explore and re-orient their art practice, which is rooted in a history and lineage of liberatory dance-making practices. 

The WOO Grant will assist with the attendance fee and transportation costs to and in Barbados.

Shanel Edwards will attend Theatre of the Oppressed's annual workshop held in Rio Di Janeiro, Brazil. Theater of the Oppressed is a theater methodology codified by Augusto Boal that equips and empowers oppressed people to transform society through art. The upcoming program will be held in December and will include an in-depth introduction to the methodology and rigorous facilitation training guided by veteran Center for Theater of the Oppressed jokers. This opportunity connects to Shanel’s art as social change practice as they work to consistently decenter whiteness and center Black Queer and Trans folks in their artistic work. As a facilitator, dancer, poet, filmmaker, and photographer, they constantly seek spaces that help them create authentically with their community. As a result of this opportunity, they intend on creating an artistic regimen that is more frequent and in alignment with Black Queer thriving – as well as a retreat space to share these techniques with these folks on the East Coast.

Shanel Edwards will choreograph a dance visual production called This is for You that represents the softness, kinship and radical joy among black queer femme circles. The cast and crew will include black queer femmes in the Philadelphia area who will demonstrate the ways they flourish and pour into one another. This is for You portrays the existence of black queer femmes beyond their trauma of being silenced, stolen from and erased, and allows for more creative abilities to take up space. As a video, this piece utilizes both racial and gender identities to uplift a specific intersectionality and addresses the need for black queer feminism visibility in media. The visual will be published online and made accessible to black queer femme circles around the world.