ABOUT THE PROJECT
Sage Ni’Ja Whitson is a nonbinary writer and interdisciplinary artist whose current work explores their idea of the “vaporous body” through relationships among astronomy, cosmology, time, Blackness, Trans-embodiedness, and premature death. It is an undertaking where interrogations of dark matter and dark energy serve as portals to spaces of undefined phenomena that unequivocally co-compose the universe. The project asks: How do you see something you can’t see? What if Blackness refused to arrive and exists in the unarrival?
The Unarrival Experiments will be co-developed with scientists, cultural theorists and producers, artists, and musicians convened by Whitson as “Dark Matter Cyphers” — collaborators who meet regularly to draw and expand upon the work of forebears from Black experimental and creative traditions. Fathomers is assisting Whitson in the planning and production of West Coast Cypher convenings, and Whitson’s studio residency at 18th Street Arts Center, supported by Fathomers, will serve as the hub for these interdisciplinary work sessions.
Above left, at right, and at top of page: Sage Ni’Ja Whitson, Oba Qween Baba King Baba, 2019. At Danspace Project, New York. (photo: Ian Douglas) / Bottom left: Sage Ni’Ja Whitson, A Meditation on Tongues, 2018. At Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. (photo: Ian Douglas).
ARTIST BIO
Sage Ni’Ja Whitson (NY/LA) is an award-winning Queer Nonbinary Trans multidisciplinary artist and futurist. They engage transdisciplinarity through a critical intersection of the sacred and conceptual in Black, Queer, and Transembodiedness, site, body and spirit. Whitson is a United States Artist Fellow (2021), Creative Capital Awardee (2019), two-time "Bessie" Awardee (2017, 2019), Hermitage Fellow (2020-2021), and artist in residence at 18th Street Arts Center (Los Angeles) and New York Live Arts (2021-2023). Whitson was the featured choreographer of the 2018 CCA Biennial, 2018-2020 Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellow, and invited presenter at the 2019 Tanzkongress international festival.
Commissions include Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, Abrons Arts Center, American Realness, the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the California African American Museum. Whitson’s practice extends to choreography in conventional and experimental theatre and performance, most recently with Yale Dance Lab and Omar, composed by Rhiannon Giddens, directed by Charlotte Brathwaite, to premiere at the 2021 Spoleto Festival. Their writing has been published by Contact Quarterly, Dancing While Black journal, and the anthology Critical Black Futures (2021).
Whitson holds an MFA in performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. They are an assistant professor of experimental choreography at UC Riverside and a sought-after speaker, consultant, masterclass facilitator and conversationalist sharing among notable institutions and organizations: Princeton University, Cornell University, Rutgers University, LAX Festival, Movement Research, American Dance Festival, Collegium for African Diasporic Dance conference (2020 keynote), and UNESCO.
ACTIONS / UPDATES
Featured
