in. The Finding: A response by Keyierra Collins

Keyierra Collins responds to a prompt from PRJ2.0 presented in conjunction with the “Deconstructing Language: Liberationist Writing for Performance” workshop series during PRJ’s satellite residency in Summer 2021 with the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron.

Image created by Keyierra Collins

I found my head upside down my hips…

They peaked in new sky from legs formed like ghosts 

Tap…

tap

tap

tap

tap 

“ready me, earth to go again”

I prepared my own path with the sweep of the flesh of my hands

Clear a way 

Make ready my defiance

Today mines looks like rest resting in risk like black bodies

Me

I take time to move these feet when ready

Arch back when ready…ready to go again

I took time off 

Allowed my body to fall through the ground 

The melody pulled me out, soaking wet

Dripping off restlessness from Momma n’em

I got trapped between heaven and sound again

Looped [loop LOOP] looped through seven generations and ended back here 

Same body new tone 

Same skin new glow

Same walk,

new walk,

they walk,

with hips,

hips talk,

hips take new form,

now my hips sit back as I go again

Make ready again

Finding love for this shit again

Releasing cool breath again

Trees left room for broken crystals of light to plummet down on me, knocking me into the mercy of the wind 

I prayed to my GOD to carry me in rest 

Give me peace oh Lord

Allow me to hear the melodies and conversations between the notes and the trees in my sleep

Wake me up to a well rested body

Rested enough to find more 

The kind of rest with the audacity of my chest to know I am promised to live many many more tomorrows

[Writer’s Note: This series is based on my latest work in-development, How I found my feet again which is an explorative journey of me rediscovering myself as a movement artist. I use process, dance/movement, writing, and routines as tools for discovery. My NOW body, values, and current stage in life inform who I am now, in this moment in time as a movement artist. I utilized the tools offered by Brianna Alexis Heath during her “Deconstructing Language” workshop.]

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Keyierra Collins is an international dancer, choreographer, and teaching artist based in Chicago. In 2020 she was awarded the 3Arts/ Walder Foundation Awardee grant. As a dance artist Collins worked with artists like educator, international performer, and choreographer Onye Ozuzu as well as France-based Rwandan artist Dorothee Munyaneza. She also has had the pleasure of working with many Chicago based artists like Paige Cunningham, Emily Stein, Anna Martine Whitehead, and Sonita Surratt to name a few. Collins’ work explores how dance and movement can be used to heal trauma, particularly the collective and individual trauma experienced by people of the African diaspora. She graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 2016 with a BA Dance.There she studied various dance forms, including West African, modern, jazz, ballet, hip-hop, and improvisation. Having toured and worked with artists in Haiti and Nigeria, Collins wants to continue to travel and collaborate with artists around the world.

You can find Brianna Alexis Heath’s “Deconstructing Language” workshop here.