Angie Pittman: I’ll tell you, but please be still

Friday, January 28, 20228:00 pm
  • This performance will be live stream ONLY.
  • A live stream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.
  • Please support Roulette this season. Donate.

I’ll tell you, but please be still is a dance performed by two people dancing together and apart.  The dance is growing from Angie Pittman’s embodied research into Darkness in the style of Audre Lorde and Piracy in the manner of Nina Simone.

“These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through darkness.” — Audre Lorde, Poetry is not a Luxury (1985)

This dance looks to narrative for a nudge, and coexists with daydreams. It relies heavily on the movement to make the meaning and embraces change. This dance is at the volume it wants to be.

Livestream audiences are encouraged to experience this work through headphones.

Performers: Angie Pittman, A Sef
Composer: Cody Jensen
Recording artists: Lola Honeye, Angie Pittman
Mixing Engineer: Jake Metz
Lyrics and text assembly: Angie Pittman
Stage support: Malcolm-X Betts

Text spoken during the performance references Christina Sharpe, Kamau Braithwaite, Igbo’s Landing, Nina Simone, Pirate Jenny, and Angie Pittman.

Please note: this performance will be live stream only with no in-person audience. It will be available for free on Roulette’s websiteFacebook, and YouTube, and in perpetuity in the Roulette archive.


Angie Pittman is a New York-based dance artist, maker, and educator. Her work has been performed at The Kitchen, Gibney Dance, BAAD!, Movement Research at Judson Church, Triskelion Arts, STooPS, The Domestic Performance Agency, The KnockDown Center, The Invisible Dog(Catch 73), The Chocolate Factory, and Danspace Project. Angie has had the pleasure of being able to create collaboratively with Jasmine Hearn, Jonathan Gonzalez, Athena Kokoronis, and Anita Mullin. Angie is currently working as a collaborator and dance artist with Donna Uchizono Company and LVJ Performance Co. She holds an MFA in Dance and Choreography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a graduate minor in African American Studies and is a M’Singha Wuti certified teacher of the Umfundalai technique. Her choreographic work has been supported by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and residencies through Tofte Lake Center, Movement Research, and Djerrassi. Angie’s work resides in a space that investigates how the body moves through ballad, groove, sparkle, spirit, spirituals, ancestry, vulnerability, and power. As an educator, she is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Marymount Manhattan College.

A Sef (they/them) is a somatic educator and transdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. A Sef organizes strategies for intimacy and collaboration based on sensory awareness. Drawing on dance-based training, somatic tools, kink politics, dream studies, creative non-fiction, and design, they foreground pleasure in the project of self-determination. A Sef is also a co-founder of Autosomatica, a creative generator for somatic education and relational praxis prioritizing services for BI/POC, T/GNC, Disabled, queer, migrant, and fiscally challenged individuals. A Sef has presented work and taught through The Brick, School of Making Thinking, Abrons Art Center, Arts on Site, Triskelion Arts, Mark Morris Dance Center, Gibney Dance, Bronx Museum, Chocolate Factory Theater, Judson Memorial Church, Minka Brooklyn, 33rd and Rising and UC Santa Barbara.

Angie Pittman: I’ll tell you, but please be still is supported, in part, by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and is presented as part of DANCEROULETTE supported in part by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and through Roulette’s GENERATE program, providing over 30 artists each year with in-depth creative and technical support.

Photos: Whitney Browne

Angie Pittman: I’ll tell you, but please be still

Friday, January 28, 20228:00 pm
  • This performance will be live stream ONLY.
  • A live stream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing.
  • Please support Roulette this season. Donate.

I’ll tell you, but please be still is a dance performed by two people dancing together and apart.  The dance is growing from Angie Pittman’s embodied research into Darkness in the style of Audre Lorde and Piracy in the manner of Nina Simone.

“These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through darkness.” — Audre Lorde, Poetry is not a Luxury (1985)

This dance looks to narrative for a nudge, and coexists with daydreams. It relies heavily on the movement to make the meaning and embraces change. This dance is at the volume it wants to be.

Livestream audiences are encouraged to experience this work through headphones.

Performers: Angie Pittman, A Sef
Composer: Cody Jensen
Recording artists: Lola Honeye, Angie Pittman
Mixing Engineer: Jake Metz
Lyrics and text assembly: Angie Pittman
Stage support: Malcolm-X Betts

Text spoken during the performance references Christina Sharpe, Kamau Braithwaite, Igbo’s Landing, Nina Simone, Pirate Jenny, and Angie Pittman.

Please note: this performance will be live stream only with no in-person audience. It will be available for free on Roulette’s websiteFacebook, and YouTube, and in perpetuity in the Roulette archive.


Angie Pittman is a New York-based dance artist, maker, and educator. Her work has been performed at The Kitchen, Gibney Dance, BAAD!, Movement Research at Judson Church, Triskelion Arts, STooPS, The Domestic Performance Agency, The KnockDown Center, The Invisible Dog(Catch 73), The Chocolate Factory, and Danspace Project. Angie has had the pleasure of being able to create collaboratively with Jasmine Hearn, Jonathan Gonzalez, Athena Kokoronis, and Anita Mullin. Angie is currently working as a collaborator and dance artist with Donna Uchizono Company and LVJ Performance Co. She holds an MFA in Dance and Choreography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a graduate minor in African American Studies and is a M’Singha Wuti certified teacher of the Umfundalai technique. Her choreographic work has been supported by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and residencies through Tofte Lake Center, Movement Research, and Djerrassi. Angie’s work resides in a space that investigates how the body moves through ballad, groove, sparkle, spirit, spirituals, ancestry, vulnerability, and power. As an educator, she is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Marymount Manhattan College.

A Sef (they/them) is a somatic educator and transdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. A Sef organizes strategies for intimacy and collaboration based on sensory awareness. Drawing on dance-based training, somatic tools, kink politics, dream studies, creative non-fiction, and design, they foreground pleasure in the project of self-determination. A Sef is also a co-founder of Autosomatica, a creative generator for somatic education and relational praxis prioritizing services for BI/POC, T/GNC, Disabled, queer, migrant, and fiscally challenged individuals. A Sef has presented work and taught through The Brick, School of Making Thinking, Abrons Art Center, Arts on Site, Triskelion Arts, Mark Morris Dance Center, Gibney Dance, Bronx Museum, Chocolate Factory Theater, Judson Memorial Church, Minka Brooklyn, 33rd and Rising and UC Santa Barbara.

Angie Pittman: I’ll tell you, but please be still is supported, in part, by Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant and is presented as part of DANCEROULETTE supported in part by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and through Roulette’s GENERATE program, providing over 30 artists each year with in-depth creative and technical support.

Photos: Whitney Browne