Freedom and the archive

Framed by the realities of historical and contemporary anti-Blackness in the US, choreographer, dancer and vocalist Germaine Ingram speaks with dance ethnologist and writer Toni Shapiro-Phim about Ingram’s work as an activist/curator/artist confronting absent and misrepresented stories of Black individuals and communities. Identifying large and small acts of resistance that have brought Ingram’s city of Philadelphia to our contemporary moment, she continues to choreograph resistance to assaults on human rights and dignity. Germaine Ingram practises styles of percussive dance, vocal improvisation, and performance production that channel Philadelphia’s long history and current prominence as a place of nurturance and innovation of jazz aesthetics. This conversation explores Ingram’s work excavating and imagining - through rhythm, movement, music and song - the inner lives of those enslaved by the first president of the United States, among others. Ingram nurtures ways for future generations to know who former/historical resisters were and what they did.