HaMapah/The Map Dance-on-Film

HaMapah/The Map Dance-on-Film is a multimedia, genealogical journey that traces the intersections of Adam W. McKinney's African American, Native American, and Jewish heritages. The film weaves contemporary dance with archival material, personal interviews, and music ranging from Eartha Kitt and Felix Mendelssohn to John Jackson and Yiddish songs.  In HaMapah/The Map Dance-on-Film, directed by Daniel Banks with cinematography and editing by Laura Bustillos Jáquez, McKinney explores identity, heritage, and ancestry. The three artists traveled to film Adam dancing in his ancestral locations: Benin, West Africa; Kraków and Siedlanka, Poland; Colt, Forrest City, and Palestine, Arkansas; St. Louis, Missouri; Harlowton and Lewistown, Montana; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. HaMapah/The Map Dance-on-Film is an adaptation of our dance-theatre production HaMapah/The Map, which has toured the world since 2010. As part of the program, DNAWORKS Co-Curators Sarita Ocón and  Daniel Banks will lead a Community Storycircle with the audience about the core ideas of the piece, welcoming their narratives of identity and belonging.

About DNAWORKS Storycircles:
All our events include a Community Storycircle, organically flowing out of the creative offering. We turn down the lights on the stage and up on the audience and ask participants to relate stories of how their personal narratives intersect with the material of the piece. We first invite sharing among audience members in pairs, then to the room as a whole. The goal of the storycircle is to balance artist and audience voices and create a space for community members to learn more about one another—to breathe and listen together. Current research shows that audience members’ heartbeats synchronize while watching a performance.  For DNAWORKS, the artistic offering is a catalyst for greater community sharing, inter-/intra-group understanding, and healing. This work has been consistently successful, generating partnerships among audience members as well as inspiring individuals to begin their own research and projects around identity and heritage. The Storycircle often lasts longer than the performance or film.

More info can be found on the HaMapah/The Map Dance website.