(Rhy)pistemology! (Or, To Know Through the Rhythm)

About the Artists

Photo courtesy Benae Bemon

Benae Beamon (Dancer) is a scholar and artist. Both her artistic work and scholarship examine the extraordinary and spectacular in the everyday, focusing on the way that the mundane can be sacred ritual. She has performed at Joe’s Pub in New York City as part of Subject:Matter, a Boston-based tap dance company. Independently, she was a 2019 finalist for the Hudgen’s Prize and has premiered work at VCU Institute for Contemporary Art. Most recently, she was named an Artist-in-Residence at the Center for Performance Research. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. in Religion from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Social Ethics from Boston University. Instagram: @benaebeamon

Photo by Joseph Frantz

DeForrest Brown Jr. (Composer, Performer, and Visiting Lecturer in the Princeton Atelier) is an Alabama-raised, now identifying as Ex-American musician, rhythmanalyst, theorist, and writer. Creating music under his own name as well as the moniker ‘Speaker Music,’ Brown channels the African American modernist tradition of rhythm and soul music as an intellectual site and sound of generational trauma. On Juneteenth 2020, he released the album Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry on Planet Mu followed by the release of his book Assembling A Black Counter Culture, published by Primary Information in 2021, both of which explore topics like the Black American experience, industrialized labor systems and Black innovations within electronic or techno music. Brown is also best known as a representative of the Make Techno Black Again campaign and has appeared in Artforum, Triple Canopy, NPR, CTM Festival and Mixmag among many other publications. He has presented his work at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Camden Arts Centre, UK; Unsound Festival, Krakow; Sónar, Barcelona; Issue Project Room, New York; and many others. Instagram: @clinicalpoetics

Photo courtesy Jeffrey Clark, Jr.

Jeffrey Clark Jr. (Dancer) is a tap dancer living in Columbus, Ohio. After studying various forms of dance while growing up and attending tap festivals and classes across the country, Jeffrey joined Tapestry Dance Company performing in national and international venues under the direction of Acia Gray and Matt Shields. Since then, he has spent time in Seattle, Washington, learning and helping to produce dance workshops like the Dianne Walker Experience, attending tap jams, and teaching classes at VAM Studios under the direction of Veronica and Mark Mendonca. Jeffrey is continuing his studies, attending classes and tap festivals around the country and in Columbus, and cultivating his own classes. He is deepening his improvisational practice by immersing himself in his local jazz community and considering his lineage and relationship to jazz and tap dance. Jeffrey is passionate about dancing for joy and creating a safe and enjoyable environment for learning and performance. Instagram: @jeffreyclarkjr

Photo courtesy Ariel “Aryel” René Jackson

Ariel “Aryel” René Jackson (Video and Sculpture Installation Artist and Visiting Lecturer in the Princeton Atelier) is a Black creole anti-disciplinary, film-based artist whose practice considers land and landscape as sites of internal representation. Themes of transformation are embedded in their interest and application of repurposed imagery and objects, video, sound, and performance. Jackson’s work is heavily influenced by their afro-creole Louisiana heritage and Black American cultural language. They currently live and work in Austin, Texas, where they teach foundation courses at Texas State University. Jackson is an alum of The University of Texas at Austin (2019), the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2019), Royal College of Art Exchange Program (2018), and The Cooper Union (2013). Their work has been shown nationally and internationally at various galleries and institutions such as the Digital Arts Resource Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; the Dallas Contemporary (2021); Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Seattle (2021); Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans (2018); Depaul Art Museum, Chicago (2018); Rhode Island School of Design Museum (2017); and Studio Museum in Harlem (2016). Instagram: @arielrenejacksonstudio

Photo courtesy Morgan Johnson

Morgan Johnson (Company Management and Production Coordination) is a New York-based independent arts worker in the realm of staged work and performance. More recently, they have been working on stage productions with BAM, Industry Opera, NYU, and Danspace Project. They have done movement based and devised work with keyon gaskin, Jonathan González and NIC Kay in various projects and Ebony Golden. Morgan spends their time staying connected to the arts by supporting artists and small institutions in all capacities. As things shift in the pandemic, they are thinking of ways to be more of service as the needs of the arts community changes. This year, they have been happy to be in collaboration with PS122 (NYC), Kaneza Schaal, Lilleth Glimcher, and Toshi Reagon and the Parable team.

Photo credit: Cindy Elizabeth

Michael J. Love (Writer, Director/Choreographer, Dancer and 2021-2023 Princeton Arts Fellow and Lecturer in the Lewis Center for the Arts) is an interdisciplinary tap dance artist, scholar, and educator. His embodied research intermixes Black queer feminist theory and aesthetics with a rigorous practice that critically engages the Black cultural past as it imagines Black futurity. Most recently, he was one of four dancers/ choreographers featured in visual artist, filmmaker, and curator Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s multidisciplinary exhibition, The Trace Of An Implied Presence, at The Shed in New York. Love’s work has been recognized by the Austin Critics Table and supported and presented by Fusebox Festival and ARCOS Dance. His writing has been published in Choreographic Practices. Love has collaborated with anti-disciplinary, film-based artist Ariel “Aryel” René Jackson on video and performance projects that have been screened by The Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum in New York; featured in The New York Times Style Magazine’s #TBlackArtBlackLife Instagram series; and programmed by Digital Arts Resource Centre’s Project Space in Ottawa, CUE Art Foundation in New York, the Galleries at the University of Northern Colorado, and the Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington. Love and Jackson were the recipients of the 2021 Tito’s Vodka Prize. Love’s performance credits include the Broadway laboratory for Savion Glover and George C. Wolfe’s Shuffle Along and roles in works by Baakari Wilder. Love holds an M.F.A. in Performance as Public Practice from The University of Texas at Austin and is an alumnus of Emerson College. Instagram: @dancermlove

Photo courtesy Kaleena Miller

Kaleena Miller (Dancer) is a tap dancer, teacher and choreographer based in New York City and Minneapolis. She received a McKnight Dancer Fellowship, a Sage Award, was a finalist for the Jerome Hill Fellowship, and was named one of DANCE Magazine’s 25 to Watch. Kaleena has held residencies at Air le Parc (France), American Tap Dance Foundation (NYC), Southern Theater (Minneapolis), and Everwood Farmstead Foundation (WI). Her work has been presented at the Walker Art Center, American Swedish Institute, Icehouse, First Avenue, Bryant Lake Bowl, and the State Theater in Minneapolis, and at Arts on Site and Symphony Space in New York. She has performed in works by Roxane Butterfly, Joe Chvala, Heather Cornell, Michelle Dorrance, Derick Grant, and Jumaane Taylor, and was a founding member and performer with Rhythmic Circus, including performances at the Edinburgh Fringe, Kennedy Center, New Victory Theater, and on America’s Got Talent. Since 2015, she has been director of Kaleena Miller Dance and KMD2 and co-director of Twin Cities Tap, both in Minneapolis. She has a B.F.A. in Dance from The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and a certification in Deep Listening from the Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Kaleena is thankful for and deeply indebted to her first teachers: Karla Grotting and Char Weiss. Instagram: @kaleenamiller

Photo by Bend the Light photography

Adriana J. Ray (Dancer) is a passionate arts administrator, fundraiser, tap dancer, and tap dance advocate. She has been performing professionally, choreographing, and teaching since 2007. She danced with Tapestry Dance Company under the direction of Acia Gray, performing both locally and internationally. She has also performed with Tri-Tone Productions, Ballet Afrique Contemporary Ballet, Third Coast Contemporary, Sundays on Tap, SOLE Defined, and as a soloist. Adriana has taught at festivals including the True Sound Rhythm Festival, The Beat Dance Convention, Tap Love Tour, Beantown Tap Festival, and in dance schools across the country. She currently serves as Development Director for The International Association of Blacks in Dance, where she plays an integral role in designing and implementing the organization’s fundraising strategy. Adriana holds an M.S. in Arts Administration from Boston University, a B.A. in African and African Diaspora Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and is an alumna of the Tap Program at the School at Jacob’s Pillow.

Photo courtesy Taji Senior

Taji Senior (Post-Show Discussion Moderator) is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and creative worker who is engaged in an embodied and written exploration of Blackness, gender, desire, loss and mythmaking. Her work has been performed at The Tank NYC, The Hammer Museum, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, and The Tulsa Artists Fellowship Performance Series among others. She is currently the Literary Associate and a former 2050 Administrative Artistic Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. Her most recent solo work, amendment, is the 2020 recipient of four B. Iden Payne Awards including Outstanding Solo Performance. She holds an M.F.A. in Acting from UCLA’s School of Theater Film and Television and a B.A. in Journalism from Texas Tech University.