Ep.57: Excavating Spirituality w/ Poet aja monet, Writer Emma Warren, Visual Artists Senga Nengudi Fittz & Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees

Stance delves into the spiritual realm and how it manifests through the visual arts, dance, music and poetry. An ever-evolving topic, we cover the power of spirituality through ancestral connections, imagination, movement, humor and joy. 

To start, we speak with surrealist blues poet, aja monet on the artistic movements shaping her writing and community organizing. We discuss her upcoming poetry collection Florida Water, and album When The Poems Do What They Do. 

We cover writer and journalist Emma Warren’s book Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through the Dance Floor, an intimate look at movement through the personal, social and cultural history of dance. 

We speak in conversation with visual artists Senga Nengudi Fittz and Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees who were both members of the Just Above Midtown (JAM) creative space which centered African American creatives in the 1970s and 80s in NYC. We explore the spiritual links between art, history and tradition, and their collaborative performance piece Tying & Un-tying at the MoMA in New York. 

This episode is guest-edited by Tamika Abaka-Wood, a cultural anthropologist, creative strategist, and founder of Dial An Ancestor.

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