For an afternoon, the Graham Foundation will host an “open rehearsal jam” for Anna Martine Whitehead’s new project Force. Force is a dance opera about queer and trans women of color waiting to get into prison featuring an all qt+ bipoc cast and crew (qt+ = queer and/or trans and/or more; bipoc = black/brown/indigenous/person of color). Force’s open rehearsal will be an opportunity for anyone interested (regardless of background or ability to pick up an instrument) to move their body free from expectation. While this jam will be open to all, queer, trans, and gender nonconforming black, brown, and indigenous folks of color are especially encouraged to come through and take up space.



Anna Martine Whitehead does performance. She has been presented by venues including the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art; San José Museum of Art; Velocity Dance Center; Chicago Cultural Center; Links Hall; AUNTS; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. She has developed her craft working closely with Onye Ozuzu, Jefferson Pinder, taisha paggett, Every house has a door, Keith Hennessy, BodyCartography Project, Julien Prévieux, Jesse Hewit, and the Prison + Neighborhood Art Project, among others. She has been recognized with awards from Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, The Graham Foundation, 3Arts, Chicago Dancemakers Forum, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, Rauschenberg Foundation, and Djerassi. Martine has written about blackness, queerness, and bodies in action for Art21 Magazine, C Magazine, frieze, Art Practical; and has contributed chapters to a range of publications including Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings (Oxford, 2017), Organize Your Own: The Politics and Poetics of Self-Determination Movements (Sobsercove, 2016), Platforms: Ten Years of Chances Dances (2016), and Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism (NYU, 2009). Martine is the author of TREASURE | My Black Rupture (Thread Makes Blanket, 2016).

Image: Anna Martine Whitehead performance at Hyde Park Art Center in collaboration with Jamie Hayes/Production Mode, 2017.  Photo: Sarah Pooley