Dancing Words

Join for poetry and improvised dance.

Three poems that tie us to this moment, the earth, and to one another will be read by award-winning actor Donna Simone Johnson. At the same time, experimental dance artist Taylor Hollingsworth improvises movement to set the words on fire.

About the participants:

Victoria Marks, your friendly neighborhood Artist Laureate, is an Alpert Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim and Rauschenberg Fellow, and Fulbright Distinguished Scholar. She practices knowing and unknowing, making dances for the stage, public spaces, and film. Marks’ creative work migrates between choreo-portraits for individuals who don’t identify as dancers-- and dances for and with dancers that fuel Marks’ inquiries into movement and generally keep her on her toes.

Donna Simone Johnson is a two-time NAACP Award-winning actor, director, choreographer, and educator. She can be seen (and heard) in a wide range of commercials and audiobooks. Her theater credits include devised performances with Dan Froot & Co., Power of Sail (The Geffen Playhouse), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (NY Resident Acting Company), and performances at La Mama, The Guthrie, Virginia Stage Company, Portland Center Stage, The Road Theatre Company, and The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where she is a proud company member. She also serves as Co-Artistic Director of Watts Village Theater Company, which nurtures and produces diaspora-driven work while celebrating the rich history and cultural diversity of South LA.

Taylor Hollingsworth (she/her) is a Los Angeles-based movement artist currently pursuing an MFA in Choreographic Inquiry at UCLA. Her work has been presented at Arts on Site, Dixon Place, Greenspace/Dance Entropy, Emerging Artists Theater, WAXworks, Young Choreographer’s Festival, and Estia Day Fest. She holds a B.F.A. in Dance Choreography and a B.A. in Social Entrepreneurship from Marymount Manhattan College (2017–2021).

Poems by Joy Harjo, Mary Oliver and Warsan Shire.