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concrete skin
CHOREOGRAPHY
Roderick George
DANCER
Natasha Poon Woo
ORIGINAL MUSIC
LOTIC and Byrell the Great
DIRECTOR
Barbara Willis Sweete
CINEMATOGRAPER
Kandis Williams
VIDEO EDIT
Drew Berry Livestream
COPYWRITING
Natasha Poon Woo

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Concrete Skin premiered on September 30, 2020 as part of Night Shift 2020. Night Shift is produced by Citadel + Compagnie, co-presented with Fall for Dance North, and directed by Barbara Willis Sweete.
In this recent 2020 creation, choreographer Roderick George highlights Africanist aesthetics that often circulate through dominant cultures in the form of cultural appropriation, which separates Black dancing from Black bodies. With music by LOTIC, a Berlin-based, transgender woman, and mixing by New York DJ and producer Byrell the Great, Concrete Skin celebrates Black and queer experiences while dismantling white supremacist ideologies that prioritize individualism and binary/either-or thinking. Working collaboratively with dance artist Natasha Poon Woo, George was able to conduct a personal dive into Poon Woo’s background and origins, which include intergenerational suppression of and disconnect from mixed-race Black identity. These conversations influenced LOTIC and ignited an innovative system through which movement and music are co-created and codependent; each artist feeding off of the work being developed visually, kinesthetically, and acoustically. This sharing of energy in Concrete Skin reflects a political priority that is interdependent, synergistic, and celebrates our differences.
Concrete Skin was created through an entirely remote process during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which I was based at home in Toronto, and Roderick in New York City. Having first met at Springboard Danse Montreal in 2013, with myself as a dancer and Roderick as the Emerging Choreographer for whom I was cast to dance, Roderick and I have maintained a steady, growing friendship and artistic collaboration despite rarely being in the same city in the past eight years. Surprisingly, both the pandemic and the livestream format of the Night Shift festival made us realize we didn’t have to wait for “ideal” circumstances to make and present something meaningful. We could shift and adapt our idea of what resources are necessary to create contemporary concert dance without diminishing the value of the creation process nor our artistic integrity, and still involve other artists from marginalized groups whose work we value and aspire to bring to the fore. The experience of creating and performing Concrete Skin ultimately opened our eyes to the ability of concert dance to transcend physical space and traditional format. Roderick and I also hope viewers around the world were inspired to more deeply consider the experiences of BIPOC artists, and that those who could relate to the messages and imagery in the work would feel validated and supported to share and live their truths authentically. - Natasha Poon Woo