Zain Alam, Alcia Raquel Morales, and Ray Jordan Achan share their practices and process, with a roundtable discussion following the presentations.
Morales will be sharing a peek into crowning in october, or how to change shape while remembering your name, and their practice of city scape ritual dance. What does it mean to sink into a place? What does this challenge, unearth, and offer?
In his presentation, Achan guides the audience through a vivid history of Newtown Creek and discusses his work in connecting marginalized communities with the complicated history of the Creek.
Alam will share the latest reserch from his work with re-framing Muslim chant, story, and song.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ZAIN ALAM, CULTURE PUSH FELLOW
Zain Alam is an artist and musician of Indian-Pakistani origin based in Brooklyn, NY. Described as “a unique intersection, merging the cinematic formality of Bollywood and geometric repetition of Islamic art,” his recording project Humeysha began during his year working as an oral historian for the 1947 Partition Archive. His work is a project in translation using contemporary pop forms, found sound, and oral history.
Alam’s practice extends his sonic vision into video, performance, and writing. His essays have been published in Miami Rail, Buzzfeed, and The New Yorker, and Humeysha has been covered by the New York Times, Vice, and Village Voice. Alam has recently completed fellowships with The Anderson Center, Marble House, and Harvard University. He is currently at work on a full-length album and the Bed-Stuy Faith Archive.
ALICIA MORALES, CULTURE PUSH FELLOW
I am a dancer, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural organizer. My aesthetic is quirky, queer, “spanglish,” Boricua, urban, nerdy and working class. I grew up building altars, listening to and making up stories that straddle "real" and unseen worlds, and watching formal and informal ritual work. I am a child of street dance. These practices shape my world view and style. In pandemic times, I have brought my dance practice back outdoors.
I am a former Dancing Futures and Skylab Artist in Residence, and a Brooklyn Arts Fund and NYFA Bridge Fund Recipient. I have danced with Arthur Aviles Typical Theater, MBDance, Renegade Performance Group, K. Hamilton Productions, and the NWA Project. My current work is a constellation of interactive pieces within the crowning world, the latest of which is crowning in october (or how to change shape while remembering your name).
RAY JORDAN ACHAN, CULTURE PUSH ASSOCIATED ARTIST
Ray Jordan Achan (he/him/his) is an Indo-Caribbean, Brooklyn based theater-maker. Ray is the Founding Artistic Director of EXILED TONGUES, a performance collective that provides financial, artistic and collaborative support to artists of the global majority who center diasporic consciousness. Ray's performative work primarily deals with the intersection between racial and climate justice, particularly as they relate to the NYC coastline. He is the recipient of the 2022 NYSCA Individual Artist Grant for his site-specific documentary theater project, "Our Bang for Their Buck: No Pipeline for LNG", and is the recipient of the 2022 Creative Equations Fund from the Brooklyn Arts Council and a commissioned artist with Works on Water for his site-specific documentary theater project, "(Re)Imagining Greenpoint's Green Waters."