Friday, September 18 at 7:30pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
Welcome to Sacred Spaces. This work is a reckoning with our humanity, with joy and hope, with lament and memory, with the things we carry, the things we inherit, and the things we are still learning how to name.
At the heart of this work is the Negro spiritual: music born from a people who found ways to make sound out of sorrow, possibility out of pain, and hope out of what seemed impossible. We have returned to these songs not simply to preserve them, but to reimagine and resurrect them, allowing them to breathe again through new sonic frameworks, new genres, new bodies, and new generations.
The movement, the music, the conversations, and the films are all reaching toward the same question: in troubling times, is there something here that can help us, heal us, and hold us? Is there something in this music, in these bodies, in this remembering, that can still teach us how to endure, how to gather, and perhaps even how to hope?
If you feel invited, sing. Move. Laugh. Respond. Watch quietly. Take notes. Bear witness. And most importantly, journey with us.
This space is sacred not because of where we are, but because you are here, gathered with us.
“Overture” into “Glory Glory”
(Live)
Matthew Rushing & Du’Bois A’Keen
Sacred Songs: The Movement Process
(Film)
Mother Phrase — Matthew Rushing
“I Feel Like Going On”
(Dance Solo)
“My Lord, What a Morning” – Kingston Trio
(Playback)
“When the Stars Begin to Fall”
(Live Music)
Matthew Rushing & Du’Bois A’Keen
Creative Process Conversation
Sacred Songs: The Music Process
(film)
“Elijah Rock” – Moses Hagon Arrangement
(Playback)
“Elijah Riff”
(Live Music)
Matthew Rushing & Du’Bois A’Keen
with Ellen Davis & Luke Powery
Conversation
Dance + (Sacred Songs Suite Album- Playback)
Live Music + Dance
Live Music + Dance
Matthew Rushing & Du’Bois A’Keen
Creative Process Conversation
Gesture Demonstration — Matthew Rushing
Featuring Celeste & Alyxx
Precious Morning: Music Process — Du’Bois A’Keen
(Live Music + Dance)
“Water”
(Sound / Playback)
“Selah, Be Still”
(Live Music)
Matthew Rushing & Du’Bois A’Keen
Audience Conversation
“By the Waters”
Live Music + Audience Sing-Along
Matthew Rushing is an acclaimed dancer, choreographer, educator, and artistic leader whose more than three-decade relationship with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has established him as one of the defining interpreters and stewards of the Ailey legacy. Born in Los Angeles, Rushing began his training with Kashmir Blake in Inglewood before attending the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. A Presidential Scholar in the Arts and recipient of both a Spotlight Award and Dance Magazine Award, he continued his training as a scholarship student at The Ailey School and member of Ailey II before joining Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1992. Over the course of his distinguished performing career, he appeared internationally and performed for Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, as well as at the White House.
As a choreographer, Rushing has created a significant body of work grounded in Black history, music, faith, memory, and cultural inheritance. His works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater include Acceptance In Surrender (2005), created with Hope Boykin and Abdur-Rahim Jackson; Uptown (2009), an exploration of the Harlem Renaissance; ODETTA (2014), honoring the legendary singer and activist; Testament (2020), created with Clifton Brown and Yusha-Marie Sorzano in tribute to Alvin Ailey’s masterwork Revelations; and Sacred Songs (2024). Originally commissioned in conjunction with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s landmark exhibition Edges of Ailey, Sacred Songs resurrects and reimagines spirituals removed from the original 1960 version of Revelations, extending Ailey’s artistic and spiritual lineage for a new generation. The work premiered with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at New York City Center in 2024.
Beyond Ailey, Rushing created Moan (2012) for PHILADANCO!, which premiered at The Joyce Theater, and Beauty Chasers (2025) for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. His ongoing exploration of the spiritual continued at Duke University, where, as an Artist in Context with Duke Divinity School and Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, he developed Sacred Places: Decoding the Spiritual (2026), expanding the world of Sacred Songs through research into the Negro spiritual, liturgy, faith, and the social practices of art.
Rushing became Rehearsal Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2010 and was appointed Associate Artistic Director in 2020. From 2023 to 2025, he served as Interim Artistic Director, guiding one of the world’s most celebrated dance institutions through a pivotal chapter in its history. He has since resumed his role as Associate Artistic Director, continuing a remarkable career dedicated to honoring the depth of the Ailey tradition while carrying its artistic, cultural, and spiritual possibilities forward.
Du’Bois A’Keen is a composer, choreographer, writer, director, and educator whose interdisciplinary practice spans music, dance, opera, contemporary performance, and scholarship. Rooted in Black cultural traditions and shaped by a career across performance, composition, choreography, and teaching, his work examines memory, spirituality, identity, formation, and the social possibilities of art.
A former touring company member of Urban Bush Women, A’Keen has performed works by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Alex Ketley, and Carl Flink and has been commissioned as a choreographer by Arizona Opera, Red Clay Dance Company, and Harlem Stage through its E-Moves series. His creative practice moves fluidly between concert dance, theatrical performance, sacred music, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
A’Keen served as Creative Associate and Music Director for Matthew Rushing’s Sacred Songs (2024) for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, contributing original music and musical direction to a work that premiered during the Company’s New York City Center season and was developed in connection with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s landmark exhibition Edges of Ailey. He later reunited with Rushing to co-create Sacred Places: Decoding the Spiritual (2026), expanding that artistic inquiry through a collaboration with Duke University and Duke Divinity School.
In 2026, A’Keen made his Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall as Director of the Harlem Gospel Ensemble and a featured solo vocalist in Carrie Mae Weems’ Contested Sites of Memory, appearing alongside Nona Hendryx, Carl Hancock Rux, Helga Davis, and Craig Harris. He previously served as Associate Director of Music and Programming for Sing Harlem at the Mama Foundation for the Arts, with performance appearances including the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s Albie Awards and Glamour’s Women of the Year celebration honoring Mary J. Blige.
A’Keen is the founder and artistic director of the Harlem Gospel Ensemble and Sacred Groove. His growing catalogue of original music spans gospel, soul, R&B, contemporary classical, and experimental performance. Recent recording projects include Sacred Songs Suite (2025), a collection of original compositions developed from his work with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the double-sided EP A’ LOVE NOTE (2025), which he celebrated with his Apollo Theater Music Café debut. His artistic work and performances have been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Dance Magazine, and OperaWire.
Alongside his artistic and literary practice, A’Keen serves on faculty at Columbia University’s Climate School and School of Professional Studies in the Sustainability Management program, where his teaching and advising extend his interdisciplinary approach to systems thinking, creative inquiry, and collaborative problem-solving.
In a few weeks, I’ll return to Duke University with my collaborator Matthew Rushing, Associate Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, to continue a creative conversation we’ve been having for years.
We’re returning with Sacred Spaces, our latest collaboration, as part of We the People, a Duke and Durham initiative marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence through art, scholarship, and civic dialogue.
I keep getting stuck on those three words.
We the People.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
As an artist, composer, educator, and increasingly as a researcher and essayist, much of my work begins with questions I don’t yet know how to answer. I make in order to understand. I read. I listen. I enter rehearsal rooms. I sit with scholars and artists. I write songs and essays.
Somewhere in the process, language begins giving shape to things I could previously only feel.
At the center of the creative conversation Matthew and I have been having for years is something deceptively simple:
Words.
Or, perhaps more specifically, our search for the right ones.
Matthew and I first began working together on Sacred Songs, a dance work that premiered as part of Edges of Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art before entering the repertory of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. I composed and arranged the music for the ballet and later
released Sacred Songs Suite, an album built from the original compositions and arrangements created for the work.
But the work kept moving.
Matthew’s subsequent artist residency brought us to Duke Divinity School, where we spent several weeks developing another iteration of this creative world: Sacred Places: Decoding the Spiritual.
Now we are returning to Duke under the auspices of Duke Arts with Sacred Spaces, another evolution of an inquiry that neither of us seems to have exhausted.
At the center of all three works is the spiritual.
Not simply the Spiritual as a genre of music, but the spiritual as an inheritance. Songs passed from generation to generation.
Language carrying information across time.
Melodies holding histories their original singers could not write down.
Music somehow surviving the bodies that first carried it.
Throughout this process, Matthew and I have spent countless hours in conversation with each other, with artists, theologians, scholars, musicians, and thinkers at Duke and beyond, trying to understand what the Spiritual still means in a contemporary context.
Again and again, we’ve found ourselves reaching for words.
Early in the process, Matthew offered three:
Lament. Joy. Hope.
They became anchors.
Then other language began surfacing through our conversations and research.
Memory.
Sorrowful joy.
Rupture.
Remembrance.
Each word gave us another way into something the music had been carrying long before either of us arrived.
Perhaps that is what has fascinated me most about this entire process.
We keep searching for language to describe experiences that are older and larger than us.
Complex human emotions.
Nuanced realities.
What it means to be Black.
What it means to be American.
What it means to be a spiritual being inside the complicated context of the American experiment.
The Spirituals have survived because generation after generation has inherited them, interpreted them, rearranged them, sung them differently, danced to them differently, and asked them new questions.
The songs remain.
But we keep changing.
And somehow, they continue speaking.
I’m beginning to think that inheritance is not preservation.
To inherit something is to enter into relationship with it.
To carry it.
To question it.
Sometimes to argue with it.
Sometimes to discover something inside it that those who handed it to you may not have been able to see.
Maybe that’s why, as I’ve been preparing to return to Duke under the banner We the People, another set of words has begun pressing on me.
I’ve always had a peculiar relationship with words.
Long before I understood myself as a songwriter or writer, I knew myself as someone captivated by language.
Words have a way of finding me long before I understand them.
A lyric will arrive, and I’ll spend years growing into it. A phrase will appear in a notebook, then resurface in a song, then find its way into a lecture, a grant proposal, or an essay, quietly insisting that it means more than I first imagined.
Sometimes I think I’m writing.
Other times, I think language is writing me.
I’ve come to believe that the greatest works of language are never finished when they’re first spoken, written, or sung.
Their real life begins when someone else inherits them.
If you’ve ever read the Bible, even if you aren’t Christian, one of the first things you encounter is a God who creates through language.
“In the beginning…”
God speaks.
“Let there be…”
And there is.
Whether you understand that literally, poetically, or somewhere in between, the proposition has always fascinated me.
Words don’t simply describe reality.
They invite reality.
They imagine it.
They build worlds.
Which is to say, language has a strange way of becoming larger than the person who first speaks it.
And now, as America finds itself in this season of celebration, acknowledgment, and reckoning around the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I haven’t been thinking primarily about history.
I’ve been thinking about language.
About the words we inherited.
About the words we’re still trying to live into.
And about one word in particular that I haven’t been able to escape.
We.
Which brings me back to another phrase that has been following me for years.
No Us in “We.”
It first appeared as a lyric in my song “STEADY.”
Later, it became the working title of a performance I began developing while applying for a series of grants.
Each time I thought I understood it.
Each time it asked more of me.
Now I think it has become something else entirely.
Not a title.
An inquiry.
I’ve realized something that feels almost embarrassingly obvious now.
When America celebrates its 250th birthday, we aren’t simply celebrating the founding of a nation.
We’re celebrating a document.
A declaration.
A manifesto.
A daring act of imagination.
A draft of a dream.
That strikes me because I’ve spent my life watching language do exactly that.
A poem becomes a movement.
A sermon becomes a community.
A song becomes someone’s survival.
A single sentence becomes the language another person has been searching for their entire life.
The Declaration belongs in that lineage.
Not because it is perfect.
But because its language has refused to die.
The men who wrote it lived their lives.
History has judged them and will continue to judge them.
But they are no longer the people we contend with.
Their language is.
Political theorist Danielle Allen has spent years asking readers to return to the Declaration not simply as an artifact to revere, but as language with which we remain in relationship. In Our Declaration, Allen argues for the political power of language itself and for an understanding of democracy in which citizens participate in creating and recreating their shared world.
That idea has stayed with me.
Because artists know something about the afterlife of language too.
We don’t return to James Baldwin because he is still alive.
We return to his words.
We don’t inherit Zora Neale Hurston.
We inherit the worlds she imagined.
We don’t contend daily with Martin Luther King Jr.’s biography.
We continue wrestling with the language of his dream.
Even songs have afterlives.
Every day, somewhere in the world, someone presses play on a voice that outlived the body that carried it.
Perhaps that’s what great language does.
It refuses to remain inside the lifetime of its author.
But inheritance carries another responsibility too.
Words can be misunderstood.
They can be stripped of context.
Sanitized.
Weaponized.
Made to serve worlds their authors never imagined.
Once language leaves us, we cannot entirely control what someone else will make of it.
So perhaps the question is not simply whether language survives.
It is how we choose to carry it.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the history of America is, in many ways, the history of a nation trying to catch up to its own language.
The Declaration proclaims that all are created equal.
Yet many of the people already living on this land, enslaved Africans, Indigenous peoples, women, and countless others excluded from political power, were not imagined as full participants in the freedom being declared.
That contradiction cannot be ignored.
But neither can the astonishing possibility contained within the words themselves.
Whether the authors fully grasped the implications of what they were writing, I can’t say.
What I can say is that the language has continued to exceed the world they built.
For two hundred and fifty years, generation after generation has inherited those same words and demanded they become more truthful.
Not different words.
The same words.
Perhaps that’s the real story.
Not that the language failed.
But that the language kept asking more of us than we were prepared to give.
There is something else about Duke’s commemoration that I find unexpectedly moving.
This fall, three historic copies of the Declaration will travel to Durham, first to the Durham County Main Library and then to Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art. Part of the invitation surrounding the exhibition is to consider how the document was circulated and visually rendered in the nation’s early decades.
Circulated.
There’s that idea again.
Words survive because somebody carries them.
The Spirituals moved from mouth to mouth, body to body, generation to generation.
The Declaration moved through broadsides, engravings, classrooms, courtrooms, speeches, protests, and movements.
Baldwin survives because someone keeps opening the book.
A song survives because someone keeps pressing play.
Language may outlive its author, but it does not travel by itself.
We carry it.
And there is a strangely literal dimension to all of this.
The Declaration we so often reproduce as an icon is rendered in a script many young Americans have had far less opportunity to learn than generations before them. Cursive instruction declined significantly in American schools for years and is now experiencing something of a return.
There’s something almost poetic about that to me.
A nation trying to read its inheritance must retain the tools required to decipher it. Perhaps that is true beyond handwriting too.
Maybe that’s why the Declaration still matters.
Not because it perfectly described the world in 1776.
It didn’t.
But because it imagined a world that history has continued to argue toward ever since.
Frederick Douglass inherited those words.
The suffragists inherited those words.
The Civil Rights Movement inherited those words.
Immigrants inherited those words.
Disability advocates inherited those words.
LGBTQ+ communities inherited those words.
Each generation has asked the same question:
If these words are true…
…who else must belong inside them?
And perhaps no word has carried that question more than the first person plural.
We.
There may not be another word in the English language with greater moral consequence.
It can unite.
It can exclude.
It can comfort.
It can colonize.
It can liberate.
It can erase.
Every “we” quietly answers another question:
Who do we imagine belongs here?
Deborah Rutter, Duke’s Vice Provost for the Arts, has described the institution’s hope that people encounter the Declaration not only as a treasured artifact, but as a “living document,” one that continues to provoke questions about democracy, belonging, and civic life.
I like the idea of a living document.
Because living things change in relationship to the worlds around them.
They breathe.
They encounter.
They reproduce.
They acquire new meanings.
And perhaps most importantly, they require participation.
I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to build communities.
Choirs.
Dance companies.
Classrooms.
Bands.
Churches.
I’ve learned that a “we” doesn’t happen because people occupy the same room.
It happens because they begin breathing together.
Listening together.
Singing together.
Risking together.
Belonging isn’t declared.
It’s rehearsed.
Maybe democracy isn’t so different.
Maybe every generation rehearses the kind of “we” it hopes to leave behind.
As an artist returning to Durham, I’m not arriving with answers to these questions.
I’m arriving with the work.
With research.
With music.
With bodies.
With questions.
With a collaborator and a community of artists who have spent years listening to songs that have already survived more history than any of us will ever witness.
That feels important to name.
Because Sacred Spaces is not a performance about the Declaration of Independence.
It doesn’t need to be.
It is a work about inheritance.
Memory.
Lament.
Joy.
Hope.
About what human beings carry forward and what changes in the carrying.
And perhaps that is precisely how it enters this larger conversation about We the People.
As America marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, I find myself less interested in celebrating the age of a nation than in contemplating the life of its language.
Perhaps that’s what we’re really inheriting.
Not merely a country.
A vocabulary.
A collection of unfinished words still asking something of us.
I’ve spent years watching lyrics reveal meanings I couldn’t hear when I first wrote them.
And now, through Sacred Spaces, I find myself participating in the inheritance of songs whose original authors I will never know.
Songs that have survived centuries.
Songs that have crossed bodies, generations, sanctuaries, stages, and histories.
Songs that are still teaching us how to name lament.
Joy.
Hope.
Memory.
I wonder if nations inherit language the same way.
Perhaps the greatest works of language are never finished when they’re written.
They begin when someone else inherits them.
And inheritance asks something of the inheritor.
What will we preserve?
What will we question?
What will we reinterpret?
What will we carry forward?
Maybe that is what has arrested me about the invitation to return to Duke under the banner We the People.
Not simply the history contained in those words.
But the question still living inside them.
Two hundred and fifty years later, who is the “we”?
Who are “the people”?
And what might those words still be asking us to become?
Perhaps that has been America’s work all along.
Trying to become worthy of the world its words first imagined.
Trying to catch up to one unfinished sentence.
Trying to grow into one small word.
We.
Alexandria “Alyxx” Johnson is a native of Dallas, TX, where her earliest memories of embodiment started in the West African Dance and Drum ensemble, Djeli Kunda, directed by Moussa Diabate. In addition to touring Canada with Les Amazones de Guinea as an acrobat, Alyxx cheered with Cheer Athletics and is a 3-time National Cheerleading Association Champion. She graduated from The Ailey School/Fordham University BFA Program in Dance with a minor in Mathematics, and holds an MFA in Performance + Performance Studies from Pratt Institute. As a dancer, performer, and choreographer, Alyxx has had the opportunity to work with artists such as Francesca Harper, Peggy Robles-Alvarado, Jazzmeia Horn, and Yaya Bey. The work she has done with and alongside Matthew Rushing has spanned the last decade and includes working with The Ailey School and Extension program, Dallas Black Dance Theater, and The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. As an educator, Alyxx has taught for Dance Theatre of Harlem, City University of New York, and Prince George’s Community College, as well as for dance intensives in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. Over the years, her passion for dance and movement evolved into a deeper love of the body. She is a Licensed Massage Therapist and a practitioner of Fascial Counterstrain, a revolutionary technique developed by Brian Tuckey. Alyxx has integrated her work as an artist, educator, and manual therapist into the creation of Body Unbound, a restorative wellness center where the focus is on client education, pain relief, and longevity of the body. In addition to serving a wide range of clients at BU, Alyxx works as an adjunct professor at Coppin State University. When she’s not busy supporting others towards better-feeling bodies, she enjoys yoga, painting, and traveling with her wife, Samantha.
Bilal Shakur Smith began his formal training at the a Baltimore School for the Arts at the age of 14. Trained at summer intensive such as Houston Ballet , American Ballet Theatre , Dance Theatre of Harlem , Nashville Ballet , and Carolina Ballet. In 2013 was accepted into Professional Training Division at Dance Theater of Harlem .
In 2015 joined Carolina Ballet as an Apprentice ,was promoted to Corps de Ballet in 2016, and to Soloist in 2021. Bilal had the privilege of dancing works by Jerome Robbins, Balanchine , Lynne Taylor Corbett, Amy Hall Garner, Zalman Raffael , and Robert Weiss.
In April 2025 Bilal left Carolina Ballet to pursue future artistic endeavors in dance.
Celeste Brace (she/they) is a movement artist and choreographer with roots in Chicago and Colorado. She engages with dance as a holistic, spiritual practice and a medium to interrogate experience, paying homage to her dance lineages with intention and reverence. Celeste graduated with a BFA from Columbia College Chicago in 2023, and is in her second year of graduate study in Duke University’s MFA-EIP program. From 2023-2025, she danced as a Touring Company Member with Chicago’s Red Clay Dance Company under the direction of Vershawn Sanders Ward, performing works by Bebe Miller, Michelle N. Gibson, and Du’Bois A’Keen. She currently acts as Michelle Gibson’s teaching and choreographic assistant and has assisted creation processes at Boston Conservatory, Ohio State University, the American Dance Festival, and more. Most recently, Celeste choreographed and performed a solo entitled when you come knocking for Duke Dance’s Spring Dances Concert and is excited to present her MFA thesis work in February of 2027.
Gabrielle Jones—as her parents might tell it, she has been dancing since the womb. Her love for music has always found its way into movement, making dance one of the ways she naturally expresses herself.
Gabrielle began dancing at the age of three and continued to cultivate her passion throughout her school years. Her journey has included performing with school ensembles, E-Motion Company under the direction of Lisa Wilder, and Scarlet Lace at Winston-Salem State University.
After many years away from dance, this opportunity has served as a beautiful reintroduction to a part of herself she never truly left behind. Returning to movement has reminded Gabrielle of the joy, freedom, and connection that dance brings. She is grateful for the opportunity to once again tell stories through her body, music, and movement.
Henry Kennelly is a second year student in the Master of Divinity program, on track toward priesthood in the Episcopal Church. While he’s loved movement his whole life, his dance journey began four years ago with ballroom partner dancing. He has since grown into salsa and Afro-Latin dances, joining Mambo Dinamico Dance Company last summer under director Betto Herrera. He is overjoyed to get to dance for Matthew in this incredible project, alongside such a wonderful community of dancers and artists.
Iona Batchelor studies dance at the Ballet School of Chapel Hill and has trained with global artists through The Royal Ballet and International Ballet Academy Summer Intensives. She began her musical education in the UK with the South African composer David Earl and sang with the Oxford and Cambridge Singing School at St. Catharine’s College. She placed as a national semifinalist in classical voice in the NATS 2026 competition and is currently studying musical theater in a BFA preparatory course at Center Theater Company.
Ja’Michael De’Shawn is a New York-based multidisciplinary performer and writer from Hearne, Texas. He holds a Theatre degree from the University of Texas at Austin and received a Fulbright U.S. Student Award to study physical theatre at Atelier Teatro Fisico in Turin, Italy.
His theatre credits include “Much Ado About Nothing,” “TwentyEight,” “Hunted JOY!,” and “End of the Day,” with screen credits including “GIVE ME BACK MY BICYCLE!,” “You Die,” and “Soul Mate.” His original works include “The Electric Lady,” “Exile Blues,” “The Self-Portrait of the Soul as a Young Man,” and the short film “The Locker.”
As a dancer, Ja’Michael has performed works by Ian DaSilva, Maguette Camara, Lisa Johnson-Willingham, Earl Mosley, Ron K. Brown, and Matthew Rushing at venues including Jazz at Lincoln Center, Ailey Citigroup Theater, and the Whitney Museum. He is honored that this performance marks his third collaboration with Matthew Rushing and Du’Bois A’Keen.
Jasmine Powell, a Creative Expressionist from Hillsborough, North Carolina, creates embodied dance rooted in performance at the intersection of cultural memory. Durham-based, she has danced with Philadanco, Dianne McIntyre, Milton Myers, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Bill T. Jones, Okwui Okpokwasili, Justin Tornow, KT Collective, Culture Mill, and Moving Spirits Inc. Jasmine studies globally in Africa, South America, and Europe, holding a BA from Oberlin College, an MFA from Hollins University- collaborating with ADF and Frankfurt University in Germany, and is an Assistant Professor at Elon University. Recognized with NDEO’s Outstanding Dance Educator in Higher Education Award, Powell connects artistry, teaching, and community through choreography, international dance film awards, and festivals. Her works include Approximation of a Woman, Flightless Doves, and Self Un/En Titled, co-curated at Carolina Performing Arts. She values diasporic history found in the body’s personal story and engages wellness coaching in her dance artistry through a Creative Expressionist lens.
Jingqiu J. Guan (管競秋), originally from Chengdu, China, is an award-winning filmmaker, choreographer, dancer, scholar, and Associate Professor of the Practice at Duke University’s Dance Program. Her interdisciplinary practice foregrounds embodied storytelling and centers the experiences of women, immigrants, and people of color. Her work explores diasporic experience, social and cultural memory, motherhood, and questions of racial justice. Guan’s dance films and documentaries have screened at festivals worldwide. Her feature-length documentary Mama Dancers has won multiple awards at dance film festivals and is currently available on Amazon. Her live performance work has been presented at venues such as the Getty Museum, Highways Performance Space, Harvard CAMLab, the Art Center in Carrboro (NC), Shadowbox Theater, and various universities. She is currently developing an evening-length dance theater production, Rail-Tracks, that explores narratives of trains and railroads with a focus on the Asian diaspora.
Johanna Kepler is a Guatemalan American choreographer, dancer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist whose research examines identity, cultural memory, embodiment, and belonging. She holds an MFA in Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis from Duke University and a BFA in Dance with a minor in Latina/o Studies from the University of Michigan. Her graduate research culminated in *Woven Between Worlds*, an interdisciplinary thesis integrating choreography, visual art, oral history, and ethnographic research with Maya textile weaving in Guatemala. Her developing methodology, *weaving*, brings together drawing, meditation, movement, and writing as tools for embodied inquiry and choreographic generation. Prior to graduate study, Johanna worked in Marketing and Communications at American Ballet Theatre in New York City, supporting one of the country’s leading classical ballet institutions. Her work has also been presented and taught through Duke University, American Dance Festival, community organizations in Guatemala, and dance institutions throughout Massachusetts and North Carolina.
Julia Phu is a Durham-based dance artist whose work is rooted in ballet and modern technique, guided by a deep commitment to collaborative process. She has most recently been a company dancer with the Kristin Taylor Duncan Collective & D’Vorah Dance Arts. Her performances for the 2025–26 season include works with Helen Simoneau, Sidra Bell, Matthew Rushing, and Diana Hoffmaster.
In addition to her work with KTC, Julia has had the privilege of training with Doug Varone and Dancers and with a wide range of educators at the American Dance Festival. She has performed works by Jenna Riegel, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE Dance Company, Jill Guyton Nee, Christina McKinney, Kara Robertson, and others. She continues to pursue growth in floorwork, partnering, and cross-genre movement practices, approaching each project with curiosity, discipline, and a collaborative spirit.
Julia will be continuing her dance career in Chicago, IL this upcoming Fall.
Kristin Taylor Duncan is a Durham native with a BFA from the UNC School of the Arts. She has trained at Jacob’s Pillow, Lou Conte Dance Studios and Collage African Dance Company and Dance Arts Unlimited. Kristin has apprenticed with Urban Bush Women, and worked with Nathan Trice, Bridget Moore, Christal Brown and Sidra Bell, Dr. Andrea E. Woods Valdes, Helen Simoneau, Tania Perez-Salas, Juel Lane, Gaspard Louis, Jasmine Powell, Yuxtadanza and Bill T. Jones Arnie Zane Dance Company. Kristin had the honor of working with Dr. Kariamu Welsh and Nnenna Freelon in the ClothesLine Muse.
Mrs. Duncan is a recipient of the Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artist Grant and the Artist Support Grant in support of her company KT COLLECTIVE Dance Company. She has been commissioned to create works by American Dance Festival, Carolina Theater, UNC Arts Everywhere, Helen Simoneau, Dr. Kristi Vincent Johnson, NC Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum, NC Museum of History and Myra Weiss.
Mrs. Duncan enjoys working with the students of Riverside High School, the Ballet School of Chapel Hill and Duke University. She is honored to have a career in the Performing Artist and Arts Educator.
Stephanie Watkins-Cruz is a Charlotte, NC native and multidisciplinary dancer whose love for dance began at the age of three. Watkins-Cruz is classically trained in ballet, and has also studied and performed modern, jazz, and contemporary dance styles. After moving to the Triangle in 2015 and earning master’s degrees in Public Administration and City and Regional Planning, she began her Afro-Latin dance training. Currently she is a company dancer and teacher with Mambo Dinamico Dance Company, a founding pillar of the region and state’s Latin Dance community for nearly 25 years. In 2025 she performed in the company’s “La Clave”, the company’s featured work in the American Dance Festival Made in NC show. Dance remains a source of joy, refuge, and connection – and a way for her to explore her identity, to honor the memories of her parents, and celebrate histories and resilience carried through music and movement.
Tristen Matthews is a contemporary/modern dancer and choreographer from Northern Virgina, currently based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She earned her BFA in Contemporary/Modern Dance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she studied Cunningham, Graham, Limón, ballet, and contemporary techniques. During her senior year, she attended The Ailey School Independent Study Program, training intensively in Horton, Graham, Dunham, ballet, contemporary, and West African dance under the mentorship of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater member Patrick Coker. Tristen is a former member of Gin Dance Company and currently performs with KT Collective Dance Company under the direction of Kristin Taylor Duncan. Through KT Collective, she has collaborated with choreographers Helen Simoneau and Sidra Bell. She recently performed the role of the Chosen One in The Rite of Spring, a year-long creative process that deepened her artistry, physicality, presence, and storytelling through movement.
Baron Tymas is a guitarist, composer, and educator whose work moves fluidly through jazz, blues, roots music, and contemporary composition. Known for a lyrical, groove-centered approach, he has performed across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, and has collaborated with artists including Branford Marsalis, René Marie, Nate Smith, Kofi Burbridge, Camille Thurman, and the North Carolina Symphony. He has released four albums as a leader and continues to create interdisciplinary work exploring music, place, memory, and human connection. An experienced educator and arts leader, Tymas has taught at Concordia University, North Carolina Central University, UNC–Chapel Hill, NC State, and the University of Richmond. Based in Durham, he remains active as a performer, composer, teacher, and curator, bringing a spirit of deep listening, collaboration, and soulful intention to every project.
Jonah Smith is a pianist, composer and educator based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Studying both classical and jazz piano from an early age, his interest in jazz grew during his high school years in the nationally acclaimed Triangle Youth Jazz Ensemble. He continued jazz performance in college, earning a Bachelor of Music from East Carolina University, and a Master of Music in jazz composition from Durham’s North Carolina Central University. Jonah has performed with artists such as Ulysses Owens Jr., Javon Jackson, Carroll Dashiell Jr., John Brown and more. Jonah also teaches piano at Durham Academy as well as private lessons in the Raleigh-Durham area.
Joshua Mickens has spent years traveling the world as a musician performing on major stages in Japan, New Orleans, New York, and more! These experiences have shaped a versatile skillset that he now uses to create value within and beyond music. One thing that he loves just as much as being a traveling musician is being able to share his experiences through his instrument, captivating each and every listener. His goal is for you to enjoy listening to him play as much as he enjoys playing for you!
Kenneth Gay III is a professional bassist and multi-instrumentalist from Greensboro, North Carolina, with experience performing in concert, festival, and live production environments. A graduate of North Carolina Central University’s Jazz Studies program, he performs on electric bass, upright bass, and synth bass across R&B, gospel, pop, hip-hop, and jazz. His performance background includes ensemble work, artist support, studio experience, and live events in a range of professional settings. His performance experience includes work with Darin Atwater and Vincent Herring, appearances at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and international work at World Expo 2025 Osaka.
Danyele Yvonne James is a NYC-based vocalist from South Florida. She received vocal training from Florida Atlantic University and studied acting at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She has performed at celebrated venues such as 54 Below, Green Room 42, Carnegie Hall, and New York City Center. She is a founding member of Fused NYC, a group that specializes in rearranging theater music with songs across other genres. Her Off-Broadway credits include Fancy Maids and Call Me from the Grave written by Charlie Romano and Harold Hodge Jr. She has performed behind Du’bois A’keen with the Sacred Groove band since its inception.
Ms. Jhori Stallworth (who goes by her artist name, Jhori Ahnae) , is a native of Tallahassee, FL. She is an active performer, songwriter, producer, and arranger. Jhori has produced and released numerous songs and projects, which are available on all streaming platforms. She has been a professional background vocalist for the band, Tallahassee Nights Live, since 2016 where she’s opened for nationally recognized names such as Melanie Fiona, Boyz II Men, Anthony Hamilton, Adina Howard, Tasha Cobbs and Samoht. She has also sung background vocals for artists such as Tweet, James Fortune, William Murphy, Kelontae Gavin, Jessica Reedy, and the world renowned FAMU Gospel Choir. She’s also performed internationally on Carnival Cruise line. Jhori is a graduate of Florida A&M University where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, and recently attained her Masters Degree in Creative Media and Technology at Berklee NYC, where she wrote the book, music and lyrics for her original musical, Technicolor Blues. She is a Spring 2015 initiate of the Theta Nu chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity and a Spring 2024 initiate of the Tallahassee Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated.
Tamieyah Johnson is a Dallas-born, Miami-raised R&B and soul artist blending rich vocals with bold storytelling. A FAMU alum and Berklee NYC master’s graduate, she has released two projects, Mie and Love Mie Now. Also a supporting vocalist, Tamieyah has shared the stage with artists including Masego, and Charles Jenkins, most recently completing her first tour with Melanie Fiona. As a solo artist, she continues to carve out a space where soulful music, vulnerability, and powerful storytelling meet.
Rehearsal Assistant & Creative Collaborator: Alexandria Johnson
Lighting Design: Emma Sabulsky
Stage Management: Lee Edwards
Line Producer: Emily Liptow
Audio Production Lead: Reed Smith
Audio Technician: Bill Peebles
Production Manager: Nick Bria
Costume Supervisor: Caroline Vance
Production Support: IATSE Local #417
Scenic Design: Cici Stevens
Having grown up on a farm in Wisconsin, Cici Stevens is most at home outdoors- exploring wild lands, old buildings, scrap yards, rivers and waterways. A former cabinetmaker in Chicago, she came to North Carolina to study metalwork at Penland School and fell in love with the mountains.
Cici’s sculptural installations have sprouted up in galleries, storefront windows, and outbuildings across North Carolina. She has presented ‘active installations’ at historic sites and in rivers from the Big Horns to the Green Mountains. Cici collaborates with choreographers to create otherworldly stage sets. She worked with students to create a fantasy entryway for Raleigh’s Contemporary Art Museum, and with clients & staff to transform the meeting rooms at Durham Mental Health. Cici was selected as a NC Visiting Artist and received grants from the Durham Arts Council, Alternate Roots, and the NC Arts Council. She has been awarded artist residencies in North Carolina, Wyoming and Vermont.
Thank you to Duke Arts for bringing this iteration of Sacred Spaces to life. Special thanks to Deborah Rutter.
Gratitude to DITA and Duke Divinity School, Dr. Ellen F. Davis, Dr. Dan Train, Dr. Quinton Dixie of the Office of Black Church Studies, Dr. Natalie Carnes, and Rev. Dr. Luke Powery.
This project has emerged with the support from the following residencies and collaborators over the past two years: Creative Collective Belmont University for developmental support of Sacred Places: Decoding the Spiritual; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Sacred Groove Original Band Members for music collaboration and Sacred Song Suite Album Recording; 92nd Street Y Early Developmental Residency; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
This event is part of We the People: A Duke & Durham Initiative
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In this evocative work, hundreds of oranges spill across the stage—passed hand to hand, scattered and crushed underfoot—as dancers reshape the space in an ever-shifting meditation on loss, survival, and human connection.
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