Performance still of memory keep(h)er by Jasmine Hearn. Photo: Paul Kruse.
Angie Pittman, Jasmine Hearn, and Dominica Greene perform shook at St. Mark’s Church in New York City. Photo: Ian Douglas. Garments made in collaboration with Athena Kokoronis of Domestic Performance Agency.
Performance still of N I L E by Jasmine Hearn. Photo: Mark Mann. Garments made in collaboration with Athena Kokoronis of Domestic Performance Agency.
Performance still of N I L E by Jasmine Hearn. Photo: Kitoko Chargois.
Memory Fleet: The Return to Matr
Jasmine Hearn is an interdisciplinary artist, director, choreographer, organizer, teaching artist, and a 2017 and 2021 Bessie awarded performer. Hearn’s commitment to dance is an expansive practice that includes performance, collaboration, and memory-keeping.
Artist BioMemory Fleet: The Return to Matr is a migrating performance and archive that preserves the living memories of eight Black women of the North and South sides of Houston, Texas. Beginning with a solo Jasmine Hearn made with their grandmother to build an alternative archive for her stories and memories, the project is rooted in a collage of embodied technologies and oral practices of migrating Black American people. Memory Fleet tells the stories of Black women who have and continue to shape and nourish entire communities. These stories will be sourced to braid together collected text, photographs, and video with sound scores, choreographies, and garmentry to be experienced as a series of site-specific performances.
Jasmine Hearn
Houston, TX
Jasmine Hearn was born and raised on occupied lands now known as Houston, TX. They are an interdisciplinary artist, director, choreographer, organizer, teaching artist, and a 2017 and 2021 Bessie awarded performer. Hearn has crafted and shared solo and collaborative dance theater performances rooted in identity, memory, and the facilitation of creative space for feelings and fantasy. They are a company member with Urban Bush Women and a 2019 Jerome Foundation Jerome Hill Fellow. Hearn has creatively collaborated with multidisciplinary artists Solange Knowles, Alisha B. Wormsley, Vanessa German, Ayanah Moor, Staycee Pearl, Holly Bass, slowdanger, BANDPortier, and Jennifer Nagle Myers, producing solo and collective dance choreography and performances at the Guggenheim Museum, The Getty Center, Venice Biennale 2019, the Ford Foundation, New York Live Arts, and the Houston Arts Alliance. As a teaching artist and choreographer, they are greatly influenced by teachers and mentors, Claudette Johnson, Byronné J Hearn, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Marlies Yearby, Kathryn Leary, Staycee Pearl, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, jhon r. stronks, Kendra Portier, Barbara Mahler, Pamela Pietro, Sherie van den Wijngaard, Joy KMT, Alisha B. Wormsley, Samita Sinha, and Li Harris. Their commitment to dance is an expansive practice that includes performance, collaboration, sound, and garmentry.
Photo: Hayim Heron