BLACK (they/them)
is a renaissance, embodying the legacies of artists like Josephine Baker and Ntozake Shange, who were unapologetic and unbound in their creative expression. They were born on the ancestral and unceded land of Massachusett people, (colonially known as Boston, MA). Raised by a family and community of artists and educators, Black inherited a reverence for creativity and its historic influence on the evolution of society and culture. From a young age, they recognized racial and economic disparities that impacted their own access to the arts. This ignited their mission to become a creator, leader, and advocate for healing, justice, empowerment, and liberation through artistic expression.
Black is an Afro-Indigenous, genderqueer healing and teaching artist based in Bulbancha, on unceded Chitimacha, Choctaw, Tunica, Atakapa-Ishak, Hiuma, Cad, and Natchez territory, (or so-called New Orleans, LA.) They have been a youth worker, community artist, and organizer since Sunday School. After earning their B.A. in Communication from Boston College, with a double-minor in Theater and African Diaspora Studies, Black became committed to honing in on creativity as a healing and liberatory practice.
Through transdisciplinary creative practice, Black transcends the boundaries between art and form to create space for discovery and transformation. At the center of their work is a reclamation of embodied and ancestral wisdom. Black is an Afrofuturist, world-building through creative expression to facilitate a sense of collectivity and wholeness. It is through their creative work that Black strives towards liberation.
Black has had the opportunity to create and present work across a multitude of stages, spaces, and communities both locally and nationally. In 2017, Black was an inaugural awardee of the OUT’Hood Artist Residency at The Theater Offensive. This allowed them the opportunity to devise, direct, and perform in an original multimedia choreopoem project, titled SPECULUM. That same year, Black was nominated to be a Neighborhood Salon Luminary Artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. At the Gardner, Black engaged in community conversations with their Luminary Cohort, held creative workshops, performed, and deejayed in the iconic courtyard. Since then, they have gone on to be a 2021 and 2022 We Create Festival Fellow for Danza Organica and from 2022-2023, Black conjured a Last Call Creative Fellow, where they conducted creative community and participatory research with their cohort for an Oral History Project on Spaces of Black Trans Joy in New Orleans.
​
​
Black's cultural and community work centers collective care for our capacity to create the change we need in the world. With over 10 years experience in arts administration, community organizing, and youth-work, Black proudly shares their passion for the healing and transformative power of creativity in various capacities across communities and organizations. Black is a graduate of Lesley University, having earned an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, specializing in Expressive Arts Therapy. Now, as a Creative Wellness Coach, they provide support for groups and individuals through therapeutic artistic expression. As a Registered Expressive Arts Consultant and Educator (REACE), certified by the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, they also offer healing justice-centered learning spaces and partner with schools and organizations to cultivate creative strategies towards organizational wellness, development, and transformation.
