Portfolio

Marsae Mitchell’s original dance piece “Reflect.Black.TImes” samples songs and interviews by Nina Simone and three original poems. The songs elaborate on how the institutions of white supremacy have affected and continue to affect people of color. The songs suggest resolutions. An excerpt from the lyrics in the song Blackbird reads “You ain't got no one to hold you. You ain't got no one to care. If you'd only understand dear, nobody wants you anywhere”. People of color have been subjected to trauma for over 400 years and this trauma inducing atrocities are still occurring today. The effects of this trauma include self-hatred, the desire to assimilate to the colonizer and devaluing ourselves. The future of the melanated community is predicated on first learning to love ourselves then each other. The lyrics from Nina Simone’s song Image suggests that if melanated people lived in an environment likened to where our ancestors originated that we would see the beauty within ourselves, another nod to repatriation. The last two songs tell a story first of self-love and then allowing someone else to love you. The future MitchelI wants for her community is one of love. She believes Black love, Black families and Black education are the most revolutionary ways to negate the effects of white supremacy. Co-produced, Written & choreographed by Marsae Mitchell Co-producer, Film direction and videography by Julia Yezbick Dancer, Paris Richey Mural “A Date with Destiny” by Sydney James Music by Nina Simone Drums by Efe Bes Interviewees include William Copeland, Marsae Mitchell, Paris Richey, Erika Stowall, Julia Yezbick,

I offer her this dance at dawn this cinnamon this broom Mopeo Ase Yeye Osun SpellING is a dance short film by Shawn Antoine II and Marsae Lynette that explores themes of ritual, intention, and ancestral connection through movement. The film opens with the sound of Lake Michigan’s waves, paired with Alice Smith’s haunting rendition of “I Put a Spell on You.” The dance becomes a ceremonial act, sweeping away what no longer serves and calling forth that which is meant. The movement is improvisational reflecting fugitivity and vulnerability inviting spirit and ancestral presence into the creative process, allowing space for the unexpected and the unseen. According to filmmaker and scholar Bree Gant, art is a way of accessing alternate forms of knowledge. Thus, SpellING becomes a site of knowledge production, archiving the embodied memories of those who came before me and an archival offering of embodied memories to future generations(BG). Filmmaking is therefore an inter-generational inter-dimensional art form; a temporal crossroad (giving honor to Elegua) and creative collaboration with the past, present, and future.

Catch A Train is a dance short film by Shawn Antoine II and Marsae Lynette that critiques the endless cycles of capitalism. The relentless rush to “catch a train” mirrors the futility of running in loops that lead nowhere and challenges linear conceptions of time through polyrhythm and improvisation. As Erykah Badu asks, “Who are you running from?” This work invites viewers to slowdown, reflect, and resist the rat race by learning from the past lest they be caught in the laborious Loop.  I chose tap as the central medium in this screen-dance short for its relationship with rhythm and time, allowing it to serve as both a critique of and an alternative to capitalist temporalities. This performance is also in honor of the legacy of tap dance in my home town Flint, MI. Dressed in vintage attire, I blend past and present, embodying a temporal fluidity that honors ancestors while questioning modern urgency. The cigar I hold pays homage to Elegua, the Yoruba Orisha of crossroads, whose presence symbolizes the intersection of past, present, and future.

Choreographed and produced by Marsae Lynette Wisdom: Ponca Nation Matriarch, Casey Camp-Horinek Music: Creative Passion by Beautiful Chorus, Yeye O Aremi by The London Lucumi Choir Date: September 30, 2022 Location: Detroit, MI

Collaged Memories | Collective ALTERity is a collaged collective choreopoem and short film crafted by Aarc Collective founders—Marsae Lynette, Nora Alami, and Johanna Middleton. Drawing from their poems titled —Self Offering, Cassie Louise Lightfoot, Pour, Joy’s Been Kidnapped, Odutola Told, and others—the work embodies themes of memory, ancestral connection, devotion, and joy as a revolutionary practice. Structured as a ritual and gathering, the film meditates on collective care, resistance, and the entangled layers of identity and futurity. It quilts together poetry, movement, and sensory aesthetics inspired by African diasporic and Venusian symbology to explore liberation and intimacy through unchoreographed relationality. Central to the narrative are questions of communal expansion, rupture, and the multiplicity of joy as resistance. Collaged Memories | Collective ALTERity celebrates the Aarc collective’s multifariousness while honoring care and interrelationality as acts of Afrofuturist worldbuilding.