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.
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 website, Facebook, 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.
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.