Live Art Series: The Earth Still Shakes

Join performance theorist, choreographer, and curator Jay Pather; Washington, D.C.-based Ethiopian American artist Tsedaye Makonnen; Zimbabwean choreographer and performer nora chipaumire; and South African dancer, performance artist, and choreographer Nelisiwe Xaba as they discuss with moderator Asgleigh Coren how they as artists consider spirituality, healing, and connection in their practice, as well as precarity, loss, and a deeper understanding of trauma while working with the notion of love and care as action.

For this performance, Makonnen revisits her Astral Sea textile and soft sculpture series in conversation with her current exhibition Sanctuary :: መቅደስ :: Mekdes which features the monumental light installation Senait & Nahom | ሰናይት :: እና :: ናሆም | The Peacemaker & The Comforter, honoring Black lives lost to violence and displacement through towering, mirrored forms cut with patterns referencing Ethiopian and Eritrean crosses.

The textiles of Astral Sea, created from the negative spaces of these sacred light towers, serve as both soft sculpture and ritual garment. Activated in performance, these soft-sculptures as protective veils and womb-like enclosures recontextualizes everyday textiles into sacred objects.

Makonnen collaborates with performer and dancer Jasmine Hearn and musician Cecily to animate these textiles in improvised, water-like gestures that evoke shimmering celestial waves. These movements act as conduits for the lives the work honors, creating a ritual encounter that cleanses, heals, and invokes the spiritual sovereignty of Black life.

6:00PM Doors Open

6:30PM Performance of Astral Sea, Mezzanine and Sylvia Williams Gallery (S1)

7:15PM Panel Discussion, Sylvia Williams Gallery (S1)

8:30PM Event Concludes

By attending this event, you grant the Smithsonian Institution permission to photograph, film, videotape you and/or record your voice and likeness in connection with or the promotion of the project.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher National Museum of African Art