The Griot project
DRAMATURGY SITE
DRAMATURGY SITE
What is the Griot Project?
THE GRIOT PROJECT is a new multi-year international performance. This project explores the role of griots and how they use oral traditions to impact the communities, lineage, and culture where they live.
We also ask, how does this living archive of tradition and culture exist in a diasporic context? In movement, music, and text we will draw connections from West African griots to Black elders in the Diaspora. We will investigate how the griot’s mix of virtuosic talent, lineage keeping, and essential presence exists in communities today. Rejoice Diaspora Dance Theater will draw bodily connections through story, memory, rhythm and movement to create an evening performance that merges history with current experience. THE GRIOT PROJECT will elevate the living history of the griot, drawing connections between artistic communities in Senegal, Brazil, and the United States, and shining a light on the diversity of Black communities around the world.
MEET THE TEAM
CREATOR & CHOREOGRAPHER
PHOTO BY JINGZI PHOTOGRAPHY
CREATOR & CHOREOGRAPHER
PHOTO BY JINGZI PHOTOGRAPHY
WRITER & DRAMATURG
PHOTO BY SHAWNTE SIMS
Rejoice! Diaspora Dance Theater seeks to diversify the contemporary dance landscape with untold stories and under-told perspectives of communities of color. Grounded in values from the African Diaspora we use our art as activism. Rejoice! celebrates and cultivates community through artistic engagement, performances, and dialogue, weaving stories of hardship and triumph.
Learn more about Rejoice Diaspora Dance Theatre by clicking here.