Arien Wilkerson performing Charity Starts at Home Nadine Ruff, photo courtesy of the artist.
Due to unforeseen circumstances and scheduling changes, Charity Starts at Home Nadine Ruff, will not appear at The Church as planned.
The Church is is pleased to be supporting Arien Wilkerson’s work at The Black Box at Vox Populi 319 N 11th St, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107
Dates: February 20, 21, 22
Doors Open: 6:30 PM
Show Starts: 7:30 PM
Tickets: $15
Get Tickets Here: Vox Populi Event Page
We are thrilled to be working with this up-and-coming dance star and look forward to working with him in the near future.
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Arien Wilkerson/Tnmot Aztro considers that the complexities within art derive from the alienation of objects, identities, the body, sounds, and humans. Their work is rooted in repurposing and redefining meanings of “fine art” and its attachment to colonialism, white supremacy, and institutionalized racism. Their practice articulates epistemology and ontology by producing large-scale performance installations where audiences, public masses, or viewers are submerged within an immersive experience that populates multiple meanings and multiple engines and embodies specific movement vocabularies, choreographic structures, and improvisations. Their discipline spans dance, performance art, digital performance, immersive installation, large-scale projection mapping, and lighting design. Within their creative discipline, they work deeply with digital and live noise/sound experimentation, clothing design and set fabrication, conceptual writing, scientific research, investigative journalism, community organizing, critical art theory, queer studies, and curatorial presentation. Wilkerson is also the co-curator of Black Aesthetics, an experimental performances program at Judson Memorial Church with Malcolm X Betts and serves as a professor at the New School. Their work has been showcased at prestigious venues including the University of Pennsylvania, Yale School of Art, University of Connecticut, Rhode Island School of Design, and Wesleyan University, as well as prominent spaces such as the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at CUNY, Real Arts Ways, Vox Pouli Gallery, Asian Arts Initiative, and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Recognized for their impact as an artist, Wilkerson has received over $76,000 in funding from state, national, federal, and nonprofit sources, including the Penn Treaty Special Services District, the Sachs Program for Arts & Innovation at UPenn, the Graham Foundation, and the Velocity Fund. Additional accolades include NEFA’s Rebecca Blunk Fund, the Connecticut State Fellowship, and the Spirit of Juneteenth Award from the Amistad Center for Art & Culture. They recently completed a ten-month paid residency at the University of the Arts iLab, which concluded in May 2024.
MACKENZIE-SOLEIL COLLYEAR
Photo Courtesy of the artist
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Mackenzie-Soleil Collyear is a site-specific, improvisational artist interested in work researching duration, aural kinesthetic, and materiality within natural elements. Soleil is a deconstructor of the hyper-normative nature of the categorization. Soleil began their dance training with Dallas Black Dance Theater at the age of two, studying in Horton, ballet, African diaspora, Dunham, Lemon, jazz, tap, and Graham. During their summers they attended the Alvin Ailey School, the Joffrey Ballet School, and in 2018 transitioned to full-time schooling with the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. Since then, Soleil had the opportunity to collaborate, exchange, and learn from creators Milton Myers, Birgitte Moore, Angelica Stiskin, Nycole Ray, Zach Ingram, Jamal Story, Sidra Bell, and Akira Yoshida. Soleil studied for their BFA in dance and MFA in curation with the University of the Arts, Philadelphia and has transitioned their career to company work with the Tnmot Aztro company in New York and Philadelphia. Soleil is the assistant curator for The Future Is Us collective and currently interning as the head curator of Vox Populi in Philadelphia. Soleil plans to continue their studies with Bennington School in Vermont, studying for BFA in dance and curation.
JOLIE PADILLA
Photo Courtesy of the artist
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Jolie Padilla is a multifaceted artist dedicated to exploring the essence of humanity through performance, scholarship, and creation. They have served as a research assistant for the Bennington College MFA Dance residency under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield and deepened their studies at the ICI-CCN in Montpellier, France, working with and under Thomas DeFrantz, Douglas Becker, Jennifer Nugent, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed.
Jolie’s performance experience includes collaborations of Netta Yerushalmy, Sidra Bell, Mark Caserta, Jesse Zarrit, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, and Arien Wilkerson. Their practice extends into dramaturgy and ongoing work as a performer and collaborator with various Philadelphia-based collectives. These projects traverse movement, film, multimedia installation, event activation, and responses to societal crises, reflecting Jolie’s commitment to creating art that resonates with and challenges contemporary landscapes.