Program

Johnnie Cruise Mercer (he/him) • Process memoir 7 (Vol.4): an attempt to study and embrace the Holy Spirit
Baye & Asa (he/him, he/him) • Suck It Up
Greg David (they/them) • I Think You Should Leave
Charlie Maybee (he/him) • Protologisim
Kayla Farrish (she/her) • To Dream A Lifetime

About the Works

Process memoir 7 (Vol.4): an attempt to study and embrace the Holy Spirit

Choreographed by Johnnie Cruise Mercer
Performed by Johnnie Cruise Mercer
Music by Monstah Black and Karen Clark Sheard
Video by Torian Ugworji

Video Credits
Music by Monstah Black
Kinetic Costume Design by Trebian Pollar
Film Appearances by Shanice Mason, Thomas Tyger Moore, Adrianne Ansley and Mikaila Ware

“My dad once told me to never forget the feeling of catching the holy ghost. He said, “It will bring you clarity”. I swore to him that I wouldn’t forget. This study, this shared moment, leans into my family’s practice of calling upon this non-earthly entity, as I both combat the external falsities of this world, and seek truth from the boundless possibility of another.”

–Johnnie Cruise Mercer

Part movement study, part archival revisitation, this volume of PM7 glitches into material developed in 2019’s Process memoir 4: The word, the spirit, and Little Rock. A three night radical risk ritual which was later crafted into a film, the process memoir was presented by Danspace Project Inc. at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery on a split bill with Angie Pittman.

PM4’s journey and process was taken alongside choreographic artists Shanice Mason, Adrianne Ansley and Thomas Tyger Moore, videographer and creative director Torian Ugworji, music artist Monstah Black, costume designer Trebian Pollard, lighting designer Carol Mullins and collaborating artists Mikaila Ware.

An attempt to study and embrace the Holy Spirit is the fourth formally presented volume within Process memoir 7: Volumes on Black Philosophy, Othered Possibility, and Freedom (through Rest, Unrestricted Thought thus Imagination). The seventh process memoir in Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC's current six year anthology project–"A Process Anthology: The Decade from Hell and the Decade that Followed Suite," PM7 activates itself as a series of facilitated experiments, events, curations, retreats and collaborative projects commissioned to ignite collaboration within the TRPNYC network. Unlike other process memoirs, this chapter of the process anthology renders its goals completely outside of the context of performing; embracing alternate ways to view, produce and take on work.

This study was made possible with support from Abrons Arts Center through the AIRspace (2018) Grant Residency Program, the Cuny Dance Initiative as resident artists at York College, as well as with support from RestorationARTS Choreoquest AIR 2018. The process was furthered while in residence support at Bates Dance Festival and during the inaugural residency season of the Stephen Petronio Partnership Residency Program (a collaboration between NYDanceForce and Danspace Project Inc. PM7 (Vol. 4) was made possible with support from The Princess Grace Foundation USA, and through the 2022 Artist in Residence Program at Center Performance Research.

Suck It Up

Choreographed by Baye & Asa
Performed by Amadi Washington and Sam Pratt
Music by Mystic Inane, Greg Ball, Heidi Fisher and Lian Malki-Schubert
Costumes by Baye & Asa
Cinematography by Alan Jensen
Camera Assistance by Josh Lawson

Commercial images promise status, offer solutions to inadequacy and breed entitlement. Internalized deficiency has created a culture of resentment. Suck It Up: a duet confronting the violent fallout of male insecurity and entitlement.

I Think You Should Leave

Choreographed by Greg David
Performed by Gred David and Stephen Lyon
Music by Little Snake, Bruce Brubaker & Max Cooper and Teen Daze
Costumes by Greg David

It’s about to get ugly. And we’ve been here before. From prayer to plead. Through hope, to desperation. It’s a cycle that ends only to begin, leading right back to the precipice. And then again.

Protologisim

Choreographed by Charlie Maybee in collaboration with V Cangelosi
Performed by V Cangelosi and Charlie Maybe
Costumes by Whitney Edmonds

"Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not on the basis of original innocence, but on the basis of seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other”

–Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto (1985)

To Dream A Lifetime

Choreographed by Kayla Farrish
Performed by Kayla Farrish
Music by C. Diab, Ella Fitzgerald, Aaron Dilloway, James Blake, Dinah Washington, Dream Crusher and score mixes by Kayla Farrish
Costumes by Kayla Farrish
Camera Operations by Brittany Gabriel

This is a solo creation dreaming for a character in a future feature film. She is being returned back to the land, possibly home, or place that could have roots in erased lineage. Ancestors, ghost run around her as she sees memories, spaces of the past and her own life. What if she can tap into a power of those before her, the same feeling that could be depleting if not used, and she pushes outwards what she has been holding in her whole life? Inspired by film projections, scenic ideas meeting a real person in front of us–surreal and intimate.