the body is the brain

We talk about…stuttering as a teacher, "bending the clock" as a disability justice and a racial justice practice, sitting with the ethics of living on stolen land, engaging with the fraught archive of slavery, "opening time" on the page, wrestling with questions of voice in the archive, the healing work of putting the archive of slavery in conversation with an archive of plants, collaborating with ensemble, singing hymns, Saidiya Hartman, m. nourbeSe philip, and much more. ABOUT THE ARTISTJerome Ellis describes themself as a “blk disabled animal, stutterer, and artist.” They were born in 1989 to Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants. Jerome lives in Tidewater, Virginia with their wife, ecologist-poet Luísa Black Ellis. Jerome has been awarded a United States Artists Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, a Creative Capital Grant, and 2 MacDowell residency Fellowships. Ellis was in the 2024 Whitney Biennial as both a solo artist and as a member of the People Who Stutter Create collective. Jerome's debut album, The Clearing in 2021, which was accompanied by a book, is a score of stuttering and an act of resistance against performative fluency. Most recently, Jerome is the author of Aster of Ceremonies, a multi-layered book of poetry and music that came out in 2023 from Milkweed Editions. Aster of Ceremonies engages with the fraught archive of slavery by bringing the voices of "runaway slaves" into conversation with an archive of plant life. It weaves together practices of history, ecology, and disability justice and claims stuttering as a portal into a liberatory relationship to time. www.jjjjjerome.com@jjjjjeromeellisPhoto credit: Annie ForrestSHOW NOTESJerome Ellis, “The Clearing: Music, Dysfluency, Blackness, and Time," Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, 5, no. 2 (2020)Saidiya V. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)Craig Dworkin, “The Stutter of Form,” in M. Perloff and C. Dworkin, eds., The Sound of Poetry / The Poetry of Sound (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009)Robin Coste Lewis, The Race in Erasure, Portland Arts & Lectures, (April 20, 2016) Fred Moten and Saidiya Hartman in conversation with J. Kameron Carter and Sarah Jane Cervenak, “The Black Outdoors,” Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University, (September 23, 2016) Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016)Ashon T. Crawley, Black Pentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017)/////Are you an artist in need of value-aligned legal support?Reach out to Movement Law.movementlaw.net

We talk about: attention as a material, the politics of audio description, queer abstraction, tuning ensemble in improvisation, avoiding saying "no" when directing, translating site-specific improvisation to a proscenium context, the difference between impulse and desire, refusal as a practice, making experimental dance with AI, and much more…ABOUT THE ARTISTSRashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener's work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. They met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance company and since 2010 they have created over 25 multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances and dances for film in venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barbican Centre, REDCAT, The Walker Art Center, and MoMA/PS1. Throughout they have maintained a commitment to queer culture and aesthetics. Their partnership intentionally blurs authorship and maintains a deep commitment to collaboration with a diverse community of dancers, performers, artists and cultural institutions.https://www.rashaunsilasdance.com/@rashaun.silasSHOW NOTESRashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener, and Claudia LaRocco, Already & Not Yet: Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener in Conversation with Claudia La Rocco, SFMOMA's Open Space, Nov. 7, 2019Megan Metcalf, Future Formers, Former Futures, SFMOMA's Open Space, February 13, 2018Ted Chiang, Why AI isn't going to Make Art, The New Yorker Danielle Goldman, I Want to be Ready: Improvised Dance as a FreedomHope Mohr, Self and System, SFMOMA's Open Space, Oct. 24, 2019Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists in Conversation with Merce Cunningham at 100///Are you an artist or arts organization in need of legal support or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, dedicated to building power with artists and mission-driven organizations. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/⁠

We talk about: audience-determined structures, reparations as a culture-building project, Augusto Boal's "rehearsal for revolution," balancing audience choice with a desire to "get into the harder stuff," the "curb cut effect" (why reparations are for everyone), and much more… ABOUT THE ARTISTEric Avery is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural organizer with over eighteen years of professional experience in theatre, interactive performance, and community-based projects. Since 2018, they have focused on applying a reparationist framework to their creative practice, organizing projects, and life. This dedication to relationship-centered process has put Avery in partnership with non-profit organizations, municipalities, social service agencies, universities, farms, community centers, prisons, art galleries, and private homes. In addition to collaborations, Avery has independently created over 25 original productions. They earned a Bachelor's in Theatre & Film from the University of Kansas and an MFA in Theatre Arts from Towson University. Honors/Awards, including a Bessie Award (Outstanding Visual Design), Lavender Magazine Best of List (Outstanding Performance), Elliot Norton Award (Outstanding Design), 2024 MAP Grant Awardee, Zellerbach: Community Arts, East Bay Fund for Artists, Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency, and a TBA CA$H [email protected] Avery, The Pla[y/n] for Reparation$Eric Avery, 67 Simple OperationsARTIST INSPIRATIONSTheater of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal)On Theater of the Oppressed 10,000 Things Theater CompanyLee BruerBasil TwistPina Bausch36 Questions to Fall in LoveREPARATIONS RESOURCESCalifornia Reparations ReportReparations in California (KQED)On "the curb cut effect"Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in AmericaCenter for Belonging (UC Berkeley)SPECIFIC REPARATIONS PROJECTSBruce's Beach (Southern California)Wildseed (New York)Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (Universal Basic Income pilot program)More on the Stockton UBI projectLand Back to Shasta Indian NationVirginia Policy regarding "Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship and Memorial Program"UBNC Chapel Hill tuition proposal  ///Are you an artist or arts organization in need of legal support or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, a law practice dedicated to helping artists and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/

We talk about… the difference between social practice and socially engaged art, how Bass' installation Wayfinding relates to performance, the "singular family narrative" as a fiction, how lawmaking and artmaking differ, using language as a material, being a "writer for the encounter," and much more…ABOUT THE ARTISTChloë Bass is a multiform conceptual artist working in performance, situation, conversation, publication, and installation. Her work uses daily life as a site of deep research to address scales of intimacy: where patterns hold and break as group sizes expand. She began her work with a focus on the individual (The Bureau of Self-Recognition, 2011 – 2013), followed by a study of pairs (The Book of Everyday Instruction, 2015 – 2017), and recently concluded an investigation at the scale of the immediate family (Obligation To Others Holds Me in My Place, 2018 – 2024). She will continue to scale up gradually until she’s working at the scale of the metropolis. She is currently working on Since feeling is first (2023 – ongoing), a series of works examining intimacy at the scale of the courtroom and the law.You can learn more about her work at chloebass.com.@publicinvestigatorRESOURCESLinks to specific projects by Chloë Bass discussed in the podcast:Wayfinding#sky #nofilter: Hindsight for a Future Americathis is a filmsoft servicesPerspective Alignment⁠Recess⁠ Analog ResidencyArt as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art, by Gregory Sholette (Editor), Chloë Bass (Editor), Social Practice Queens (Editor)Social Practice [email protected] Berlant, Cruel OptimismAruna D'Souza, review of the exhibit Cantando Bajito: Chorus at the Ford Foundation Gallery, featuring Chloe Bass, Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina (Trans Memory Archive Argentina), Tania Candiani, Hoda Afsharand, and Textiles Semillas (Textiles as Seeds), and curated by Roxana Fabius, Beya Othmani, Mindy Seu, and Susana Vargas Cervantes.Aruna D'Souza, Writer and Art CriticJudith Butler, The Psychic Life of PowerRuth Wilson Gilmore, Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation///Are you an artist or arts organization in need of legal support or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/

We talk about: supporting socially engaged artists, how design of arts funding pathways influences outcomes, co-leadership in the arts, the overlap between art practice and arts leadership, A Blade of Grass, and much more....ABOUT THE ARTISTLu Zhang is an artist and arts administrator. She’s been at A Blade of Grass (ABoG) for two years. Before joining ABoG Lu was the Initiatives Director of United States Artists (USA), a national arts funding organization headquartered in Chicago. In that role, Lu launched Initiatives, a department dedicated to expanding holistic support for artists and their communities. In partnership with foundation leaders, Initiatives conducts research, shares learnings with the field, and increases direct support to individual artists across discipline and geography. Key programs include Disability Futures, a fund to increase the visibility of disabled creative practitioners, and Artist Relief, a $23.4 million emergency initiative to support artists facing dire financial circumstances due to COVID-19.Prior to joining USA, Lu was Deputy Director of The Contemporary, a nomadic, non-collecting art museum in Baltimore, Maryland, where she provided strategic and operational oversight, and led resource initiatives for local artists.As an artist, Lu creates projects that take various forms—including books, drawings, installations, interventions, and an institute. She has collaborated with Press Press to produce publications and The George Peabody Library to launch a studio residency program. Lu is the founder of the Institute for Expanded Research which activates sites and leverages resources to produce and present projects in collaboration with artists. Lu received her MFA from the Frank Mohr Institute in the Netherlands and her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.https://www.abladeofgrass.org/@zhanglux@abladeofgrassorgRESOURCESPaper Monument, "As Radical, As Mother, As Salad, As Shelter: What Should Art Institutions Do Now?" I Want to Be With You Everywhere Performance Festival by and for Disabled ArtistsLiz Lerman's Critical Response Process///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/

"People don't acknowledge how much capital is in cultural capital. So people will hoard it. That is what creates the gatekeeping. We were there to care. Rather than being the gatekeepers, we became the caregivers." --Rhiannon MacFadyenWe talk about artist-led mutual aid,  regranting in community, reparations partnerships, calls to action for arts funders, defining who an artist is for eligibility purposes, and more…ABOUT THE ARTISTSChris Evans is an Oakland-based interdisciplinary artist with a foundation in music and dance. She is a Certified Pilates Instructor, Certified Massage Therapist, and a soon-to-be Certified Eden Energy Medicine Practitioner. She is also the founder of Deep Breath Pilates studio.Her movement background includes Modern Dance, Ballet, Aikido, and years as a competitive junior tennis player. Using tools such as the cello, improvisation, dance, literature, language, research, and collaboration, Evans creates moments of community that honor, challenge, and hold space for our imaginations, stories, and bodies.Evans is the founder of the Black Women’s Self-Care Reparations Project, co-founder of Idora Park Project Space with Ernest Jolly, and director of the Reconstruction Study Project. She was a member of the House Full of Black Women collective led by Ellen Sebastian Chang and Amara Tabor-Smith, and of A Simple Collective, founded by Rhiannon MacFadyen Evans.She received an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music/Sound/Text in 2013, and was nominated again in 2016 for her work on Reconstruction Study 1A.@⁠deepbreathpilates⁠Rhiannon Evans MacFadyen is a curator, consultant, project-based artist, and a San Francisco native with over 20 years of in-depth experience in the performing and visual arts. Inspired by productive discomfort, their curatorial focus is on projects that push formal and contextual boundaries and her cross-discipline personal work engages symbols, identity, communication, and the unseen. Founder of A Simple Collective and the experimental project space Black & White Projects, Rhiannon has curated exhibitions and presented work nationally, including USF’s Thacher Gallery, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Root Division in San Francisco, SCOPE in New York, and Pro Arts in Oakland. They have been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED Arts, SF Weekly, The New Asterisk Magazine, SFArts, and Art Practical, among other publications. Deeply involved with community-building through the arts, she is on the Curatorial Committee for Root Division and is the Curator in Residence at India Basin Waterfront Park in SF’s Bayview–Hunters Point neighborhood and is a career coach for artists and creative entrepreneurs. Rhiannon is also a founding member of Pacific Felt Factory and Co-Director of Emerging Arts Professionals San Francisco/Bay [email protected]@emergingartsRESOURCES Artist Adaptability CirclesEmerging Arts ProfessionalsDeep Breath Pilates StudioEquus InspiredRed Clay Sound HausBlack and White ProjectsMonthly Full Moon Water Rituals at India Basin Waterfront ParkCompton FoundationMedicine for NightmaresCommunity Ownership and Self-Determination: Lessons from Atlanta, Boston, Lisjan Territory, and New Orleans, Rebecca Marx, Brett Theodos, and Tené Traylor (Urban Institute May 29, 2025)Norma Wong, When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse, North Atlantic Books (2024) ///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at https://www.movementlaw.net/

"Space is just a container. How do we work filling that container in different ways from the street to the nightclub to the proscenium? They're forms to be fucked with."--Anna Thompson, slowdangerWe talk about: coming up in Pittsburg's queer club culture, staying connected to a DIY approach while making performance for the proscenium stage, what it means to queer dance, Sara Ahmed, abstraction, re-imagining Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, working together through the Creative Administration Research program through the National Center for Choreography, and much more...ABOUT THE ARTISTStaylor knight & anna thompson are co-founding artistic directors of slowdanger, a multidisciplinary performance organism based out of Pittsburgh, PA since 2013. slowdanger uses systematic approaches to movement, technology, sound, queer world building and ontological examination to produce performance work, utilizing process based practice to delve into circular life patterning including effort, transformation, and death. From directing music videos to scoring plays, they transform their shape to adapt to a variety of different containers. slowdanger has performed across the United States, Canada and Europe in venues ranging from proscenium theater and gallery to nightclub and dive bar. Their work has been shared at the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), Dance Place (DC), The Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh), Kelly Strayhorn Theater (Pittsburgh) and more. They have held residencies at Carnegie Mellon University’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Texas A&M School for Performance, Visualization, and Fine Art, University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and more.www.slowdangerslowdanger.com@__slowdanger__CALL TO ACTIONClick here to Email Congress and Tell Them to Save the NEAPersonalized outreach is critical. Remind your elected official of the value of the arts in your community.SHOW RESOURCES Creative Administration Research, National Center for ChoreographyVIA Festival, Pittsburg music and new media festivalKahlon, Curated by Baltimore-based rapper Abdu AliSara Ahmed, Orientations: Toward a Queer PhenomenologySara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, OthersLuciana Achugar, Pleasure Body, Plant BodyKatherine Profeta, Dramaturgy in Motion: At Work on Dance and Movement PerformanceMiguel Gutierrez, Does Abstraction Belong to White People?, BOMB MagazineHector Berlioz, Symphonie FantastiquePBS Keeping Score - Symphonie Fantastique///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/.⁠

"When we gather together, the forces around us become louder. There's a danger in gathering, but there's a grounding in it as well."--Sholeh AsgaryWe talk about: the relationship between photography and sound practice, the politics of sound, transcribing the waterways of Iran into music, incorporating the politics of a venue into site-specific installation, how sound becomes object, and much more...ABOUT THE ARTISTSholeh Asgary engages performance, interdisciplinary forms, and collective processes to investigate, memorialize, and express the complexities of joy and survival inherent in diasporic and refugee experiences. Her work challenges colonial assumptions about what is heard, proposing new futures through sound.Featured in Art in America's 2022 "New Talent Issue," Asgary was a Bay Area Now 9 artist at YBCA, a 2023 Artadia Finalist, and part of the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival (2024). She is exhibited in PST-Getty's Atmosphere of Sound and supported by institutions such as the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, MASS MoCA, and Headlands Center for the Arts. Asgary is a Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and California College of the Arts and serves on the Southern Exposure curatorial council. She holds an MFA from Mills College and BA from San Francisco State University.⁠https://www.sholehasgary.com/⁠@⁠sholehasgary⁠Debut Album: آبـان (Aban) ⁠Sming Sming Books⁠⁠crystalline morphologies⁠⁠https://sholehasgary.bandcamp.com/album/aban⁠Protect the NEA: Resources for ActionFind your elected officials at congress.gov/members.Email: Use Americans for the Arts’ Arts Advocacy Alert to send an email to your elected officials.Phone: Refer to Americans for the Arts’ Arts Advocacy Alert phone script when calling your Members of Congress OR use the 5calls NEA script.DO MOREIf your award was rescinded: The Americans for the Arts Resources & Guidance Amplify the call to protect the NEA with the Americans for the Arts Social Media ToolkitShare how the arts have enriched your life with Americans for the Arts to fuel their advocacy efforts///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/.⁠

"It comes back to not letting the Trump Administration frame the problem, but remembering the world and the environment and the circumstances under which we want to work."  – Yanira CastroWe talk about: the arts funding landscape, inviting audiences to create systems of cooperation, "thinking in an emergency," performance as civic orientation, resilience practices, "scoring freedom" and much more… ABOUT THE ARTISTYanira Castro's work is rooted in communal construction as a rehearsal for radical democracy. She is an interdisciplinary artist born in Borikén (Puerto Rico) and living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Castro forms iterative, multimodal projects that center the complexity of land, citizenship, and governance in works activated and performed by the public. Co-creating with a team of collaborators under the name, a canary torsi, she investigates choreography as a practice of collective embodiment, grappling with agency and communal action as a body politic. She has developed over fifteen projects that have been recognized with national awards, commissions and residency support, including Creative Capital, Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Dance, NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary Artist and Choreography Fellowships, and two Bessie Awards for Outstanding Production. She has recently been in residence at LMCC, MacDowell, Yaddo, and The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography.https://www.acanarytorsi.org/⁠@acanarytorsi⁠RESOURCES & REFERENCESTo receive emails for IRL and virtual gatherings for Circle Up, an effort to build and strengthen the performance artist community through knowledge shares and collective action, contact Yanira at [email protected] America, Local Control, Local FieldsCreating New Futures: Notes for Equitable FundingIn Thinking in an Emergency, Elaine Scarry lays bare the realities of “emergency” politics and emphasizes what she sees as the ultimate ethical concern: “equality of survival.” She reveals how regular citizens can reclaim the power to protect one another and our democratic principles.Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The War on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, The New Yorker, February 8, 2025Council of Nonprofits, Executive Orders Impacting Nonprofits PR News Wire, American Alliance for Equal Rights Files Request to IRSPresident Trump’s executive order “Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness,” issued March 7, 2025Solidarity Economy PrinciplesSustainable Economies Law Center///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at https://www.movementlaw.net/.

We talk about: curatorial practice, radical hospitality in performance, ethical grantmaking in the arts, softening the architecture of engagement, operationalizing "art for change," the current state of arts funding, and much more…ABOUT THE ARTISTSince retiring as a dancer and choreographer, Michèle has managed performing arts projects and professional development programs for On the Boards (Seattle), New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project (Boston), DanceUSA (DC), and the Deborah Hay Dance Company (Austin). She joined the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis) in October of 2006 as Assistant Curator for the Performing Arts and remained in that role until summer of 2013. She was on the boards of the National Performance Network (New Orleans) and Movement Research (NYC) from 2012-2018. She has served on panels for the NEA, MANCC, NPN, McKnight Foundation, USA Fellows, Pew Foundation, Herb Alpert Award, MAP Fund and been an artist mentor for Creative Capital's retreat and Arts Midwest's ArtsLab. She holds an MA from the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University and was published in Curating Live Arts (Berghahn Books, New York/Oxford). Committed to social justice in the arts, she has researched and facilitated sessions at conferences and professional gatherings such as Grantmakers in the Arts (2022), Association of Performing Arts Professionals (2018 & 2019) in partnership with American Realness, Interrarium at Banff Centre (2018), National Performance Network (2017 & 2018), Arts Midwest (2011 & 2014), and DanceUSA (2012 & 2013 + 2014 host & showcase committees). Half Québécoise and half American, Steinwald is currently living in Montréal as an independent curator, community organizer, dramaturg, and occasional writer. www.44artsproductive.com@michele_steinwaldRESOURCES AND REFERENCESMichèle Steinwald, Noticing the Feedback: A Proposal to the Contemporary Dance Field or This Revolution will be CrowdsourcedHope Mohr and Michèle Steinwald, Building Accountability in the Dance FieldHope Mohr, Shifting Cultural Power: Case Studies and Questions in Performance, with a foreword by Michèle SteinwaldMichèle Steinwald and Michael Trent, "A Note on Curatorial Statements-A Third Space: Chasing the Intangible," in Curating Live Arts: Critical Perspectives, Essays, and Conversations on Theory and Practice, Edited by Dena Davida, Marc Pronovost, Véronique Hudon, and Jane GabrielsMichèle Steinwald, Feminist Movement: Deborah Hay, Artistic Survival, Aesthetic Freedom, and Feminist Organizational PrinciplesMeg Foley, Blood BabyMichèle Steinwald, Cultural Dramaturgy and the Early Mapping of Meg Foley’s Blood BabyLuciana Achugar and Michèle Steinwald in Conversation at the Walker Art CenterLuciana Achugar, Otro TeatroDance USA, DFA Data Collection and AccountabilityBridget Fiske + Joseph Lau, Project Auske Manchester Art Gallery, Rethinking the collection///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/.⁠

We talk about: scores for performance, weaving politics and abstraction, dance and visual art in conversation, revolutionary time, Ranu's painting process, the importance of sari fabric in her work, hybridity, installation "versus" performance, the fires in LA and much more… ABOUT THE ARTISTRanu Mukherjee makes hybrid work in painting, film installation and performance to expand imaginative capacities. Commissioned projects have been presented by Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 18th Street Arts Center, Los Angeles, de Young Museum, Karachi Biennale 2019, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco Ballet, San Jose Museum of Art and Singapore Biennale 2022. Recent honors include an Artadia Award (2023), Pollock Krasner Grant (2020) and a Lucas Visual Arts fellowship (2019-2024). Gallery Wendi Norris published her first monograph, Shadowtime in 2021. Mukherjee is dean of the School of Film and Video at CalArts. https://www.ranumukherjee.com/@ranumukherjeescore for transitional times, The Moody Center for the Artsfloat the mark, Mills Art MuseumEnsemble for Non-Linear Time, 836M Gallery/18th Street Arts CenterHope Mohr/Ranu Mukherjee Collaborative ProjectsGallery Wendi Norris, Ranu Mukherjee: ShadowtimeNight Thicket (image of painting discussed)Fanny Soderback, Revolutionary Time: On Time and Difference in Kristeva and IrigarayJonathan Griffin, On Fire (Paper Monument) An oral history of the phenomenon of the studio fire. RESOURCES FOR RESPONDING TO THE FIRES IN LALA Arts Community Fire Relief FundGrief and Hope- Help LA's Artists and Art Workers Start OverMutual Aid LAAltadena GirlsFree Art Fair LAStudio Loan Project A project of the Contemporary Art League and The Artist's Contract providing tools for sharing short-term studio space in LA. @thebodyisthebrain///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/.⁠

"The way to strengthen our rights is to continually use them and demand that they be recognized." -- Annie DorsenWe talk about: the Artist Open Letter to the NEA, resistance strategies, algorithmic theater, speechmaking as an embodied practice, and much more...ABOUT THE ARTISTAnnie Dorsen is a MacArthur Fellowship awarded director and writer whose works explore the intersection of algorithmic art and live performance. Most recently, her piece Prometheus Firebringer was presented at Theater For a New Audience in Brooklyn. Other algorithmic theater projects have been widely presented in the US and internationally since 2010. She has written frequently about art and technology for leading performance journals and magazines. She is also a recent graduate of NYU Law School, where she focused on tech policy and civil rights.https://anniedorsen.com/ Annie Dorsen, "The Dangers of AI Intoxication," American Theater, Aug. 30, 2023NEA’s ⁠“Legal Requirements and Assurance of Compliance”⁠  (as of 2/25/25)⁠Text of Artist Open Letter⁠Hundreds of Artists Call on N.E.A. to Roll Back Trump’s Restrictions, N.Y. Times, Feb. 18, 2025Text of Trump's Executive Order on "gender ideology"Lawsuit challenging anti-trans Executive Order, lambdalegal.org"The NEA's new diversity edits worry arts groups," N.Y. Times, Feb. 12, 2025"Judge largely blocks Trump's Executive Orders ending federal support for DEI Programs," NPR, Feb. 21, 2025‘Outrageous’ and ‘chilling’: Local orgs react to new DEI restrictions from the National Endowments for the Arts, MPR, February 19, 2025@thebodyisthebrain///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/.⁠

"At the core of nonstopping is a very political stance of each individual, maintaining, cultivating, nurturing, sustaining the agency of their attention." -Jeanine DurningWe talk about: the practice of "nonstopping," embracing not knowing as a generative state, going before we're ready, sustainability as an artist, Steve Paxton, Deborah Hay, Pema Chodron, and much more….ABOUT THE FEATURED ARTISTJeanine Durning is an Alpert Award winning choreographer and performer whose work has been described by The New Yorker as having both “the potential for philosophical revelation and theatrical disaster.” She has been investigating the mobilizing and mutable force of bodies and grappling with their conditions in time, space, and place for over 25 years through experiments in choreography, performance, practice-based research, teaching, and mentoring. Jeanine’s ongoing project,nonstopping, has been the foundation for her performance research since 2009, manifesting in many ways and contexts since. Jeanine has had the privilege to collaborate with several choreographers over the years, who have shaped her outlook on performance, including her mentor Deborah Hay, since 2005.http://www.jeaninedurning.com/@jeanine.i.dream@thebodyisthebrainREFERENCES/FURTHER READINGOn Jeanine Durning'sLast Shelter for Candoco Dance CompanyOn Jeanine Durning's⁠Dogs of Devotion⁠On Jeanine Durning's⁠dark matter, selfish portrait⁠ ( MANCC)On Jeanine Durning's⁠inging andTo Being⁠ (Chocolate Factory)Jeanine Durning,⁠nonstopping bookEleanor Bauer,⁠ Workshop by Jeanine Durning⁠Carl Phillips, StaminaDeborah Hay, My Body, The BuddhistDeborah Hay's websiteHope Mohr, Shedding a Split SelfSteve Paxton talking dancePema Chodron on groundlessness///Are you an artist in need of legal support? A mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, a law practice dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation at ⁠⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/.⁠⁠⁠

"My weapon against destructive forces is creative forces." –Aejay Antonis MarquisWe talk about preparing to direct as an embodied practice, facilitating ensemble process, the politics of casting local, creating liberatory spaces for Black and queer bodies, Lorraine Hansberry, The Magnolia Ballet, and much more…@thebodyisthebrainABOUT THE ARTISTAeJay Antonis Marquis (They/Them) is a performance artist, scholar, educator, and activist committed to transforming theatre. A PhD student in Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, their work explores Black and Queer cultural safety, decolonizing theatre, and queer political performance. Formerly the Director of Theatre at Contra Costa School of Performing Arts, AeJay’s Bay Area contributions include directing, choreographing, acting, and dramaturgy. They are directing The Magnolia Ballet at Shotgun Players this summer. AeJay also serves as an Artistic Associate at Marin Shakespeare Company, Artistic Producer at Playwrights Foundation, and Education Program Associate at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. They are also a proud GAAP Fellow.RESOURCES/REFERENCESTicket link to The Magnolia Ballet at Shotgun Players (opens July 2025)Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas, Duke University Press (2003)Grassroots Artists Advocacy Program (GAAP)///Are you an artist in need of legal support? A mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, a law practice dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation at ⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/.⁠⁠

Episode 1: Pina, queering as a transitive verb, wrecking, drag as political practice, visibility …A conversation with artists Eric Garcia and Chuck Wilt about their collaborative show, Beyond, “an evening-length production that reassembles Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring into an intergalactic, Queer extravaganza.”ARTIST BIOSEric Garcia is a San Francisco-based devised dance-theater artist, drag queen, community organizer, and the Co-Director of Detour. He creates immersive and site-responsive performances that straddle nostalgia, radical futurism, collaborative ensembles, and queer maximalism. Eric is rooted in the drag and nightlife scene as Churro Nomi, and produces/hosts Clutch The Pearls, a drag cabaret on the first Sunday of every month at Make-Out Room in the Mission District.  https://detour.productions/Chuck Wilt is a choreographer, drag artist known as Fuchsia, educator, and the Artistic Director of San Francisco based UNA Productions. Chuck is currently on faculty at the LINES Training Program and has taught, created and set repertory for universities, training programs, professional companies, youth companies, public high schools, and professional dancers. Chuck’s work through UNA has been presented in San Francisco, NYC, Maryland, Colorado, San Diego, Massachusetts, Tokyo and Kaga Japan, Montreal, Vancouver and Rural BC. www.una.productionsRESOURCESSusan Rethorst, A Choreographic MindTILT Shift Dance, On WreckingJosé Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopiabell hooks, Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical OpennessOn Pina Bausch's Sacre (Rite of Spring)Hope Mohr, Self and SystemJack Halberstam, The Queer Art of FailureSarah Schulman Waxes Politic///Are you an artist in need of legal support? A mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, a law practice dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation at ⁠⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/.⁠⁠⁠

Hi friends. I'm Hope Mohr, artist and advocate. For decades I have woven artmaking and activism.    the body is the brain is a podcast about art and social change. Through conversations with artists and cultural workers, we explore the practice of contemporary artmaking. The podcast extends my decades-long work as a community-based curator of live performance. My guests include artists I know and love. Our conversations are informed by my wide-ranging career, which has included dancing professionally, writing a book about activist curation, making multidisciplinary performance, and working as an arts attorney. These conversations cover both the mysteries of the creative process and the realities of producing art today.  They uplift artists as essential workers. One conversation at a time, we build an artist commons—a context for practice. Tune in and be a part of the art. https://www.hopemohr.org/