Arien Wilkerson - Live Dance Experience

Wilkerson defies colonial and white supremacist norms through immersive, risky performances—audiences aren’t watchers, they’re inside it.
About this Event

Arien Wilkerson (they/she) is a Hartford-born queer Black artist who works as a choreographer, dancer, filmmaker, and installation artist. Their artistic practice encompasses performance, sculpture, experimental film, and photography. Raised in Hartford, Connecticut, Wilkerson received training from Deborah Goffe and at The Artists Collective. They further pursued studies at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and the Earl Mosley Institute of the Arts, with international studies in Cape Verde, Europe, and the Levant. Currently, Wilkerson serves as the Judson Arts Wednesday Program Manager, curates The Notes Toward's A Live Performance series for BIPOC practitioners, and is the director of the Notes Toward Val Lier Fellowship at Judson Memorial Church. They have also held teaching positions at Parsons School of Design. Their work has been showcased at various esteemed venues, including the University of the Arts, Vox Populi, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Quick Center for the Arts, Icebox Project Space, Yale School of Art, and The LGBT Center in NYC. Wilkerson has secured financial support from various organizations since 2018, including The Penn Treaty Special Services District, The Graham Foundation, and The Velocity Fund. Additionally, he has been a finalist for the Pew Fellowship on two occasions.

Arien Wilkerson constructs temporary worlds that feel ritualistic, unstable, and alive. These worlds do not promise resolution. They ask what the body remembers after being overworked, eroticized, surveilled, politicized, and repeatedly erased. Movement becomes language when language fails. Comedy becomes defense. Stillness becomes a threat.