Ladies of Hip Hop – Public Show and Tell

Join us at Bethany Arts Community for this showing in advance of the Ladies of Hip Hop world premiere on March 27, 2022 at Works & Process at the Guggenheim in New York City.

In January 2021 within the safety of a Works & Process bubble residency at Bethany Arts Community, the Ladies of Hip-Hop initially gathered a group of eleven major practitioners including dance elders (ages 50–60), innovators (ages 33–49), and young celebrants (ages 20–32) to support and facilitate the much-needed exchange of inspiration and the transference of knowledge between generations. Led by Executive Director Michele Byrd-McPhee and Trustee LaTasha Barnes, this intersectional project incubated and captured the knowledge, beauty, and power of Black female street dancers and resulted in a rare indoor video performance, commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim, and co-produced by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

As the Ladies of Hip-Hop look beyond the traditional lens of exposure for Black bodies in dance, which has overwhelmingly focused on Eurocentric dance aesthetics including modern, contemporary, and ballet, together again Works & Process and Bethany Arts Community will provide a LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” residency in March 2022, with an in-process showing for the local community.