Overview

Matriarch is a full-length, two-act concert dance work that enters Black women and the roots they plant within families, lineages, and community.

LOCATION: Center for Performance Research, 361 Manhattan Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11211

DATE: Sunday March 22nd. 2026

TIME: 6-8 PM

PRICE: $25

ABOUT

Matriarch is a full-length, two-act concert dance work that centers Black women and the roots they plant within families, lineages, and communities. Grounded in the belief that legacy lives in the body, Matriarch invites audiences to reflect on inheritance, memory, and what it means to be held —physically, emotionally, and spiritually —by those who came before us.

Blending original choreography, spoken word, and the voice of a guest choreographer, Matriarch weaves concert dance and storytelling to create an intimate, community-rooted experience. Movement serves as both archive and offering, revealing how Black women carry wisdom, grief, joy, and resilience across generations.

Act I: Received

The first act explores perception, acceptance, and the ways in which we receive the world and one another. Through layered movement and narrative, Received examines how grief can surface in many forms-quiet, explosive, tender, unresolved—and how it shapes our understanding of self and lineage. This act asks audiences to sit with what has been passed down, both the visible and the unspoken, honoring the complexity of inheritance without rushing toward resolution.

Act II: I Know You

The second act shifts in tone and energy, using the full spectrum of emotion to move toward recognition and celebration.

I Know You is rooted in clarity—not as a punishment, but as power. Here, the work embraces joy, release, humor, strength, and connection, affirming the beauty of being seen and known. The act culminates in a collective celebration of Black womanhood, community, and the freedom that comes with understanding one's place within the lineage.

Together, the two acts create a journey from reflection to affirmation, from receiving to knowing. Matriarch is not only a performance—it is a communal experience that honors the past, acknowledges the present, and gestures toward a future shaped by clarity, care, and connection.