Themes of Black feminism and perseverance will take center stage in a new improvisational performance that will premiere as part of the University of Michigan’s winter 2021 Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series season kick-off event on Jan. 22.
The work was produced and directed from more than 600 miles away by New York-based performance artist Ayana Evans, who collaborated with U-M Stamps School of Art & Design professor Rebekah Modrak and students in her “Dressing Up and Down” course during the fall 2020 semester.
Evans, a Roman J. Witt Visiting Artist at Stamps, is known for her guerilla-style street performances and public interventions where she uses her physicality to express ideas about the body, race and gender. These ideas were present as she worked through a series of phone calls, Zoom meetings and emails to communicate what her next big performance would be a spectacular show on U-M’s Elbel Field, complete with cheerleaders from the U-M Cheer team, vocalists and ac