That's My Phenotype!
Launching her filmmaking Debut, Choreographer CiCi Kelley Explores The Dynamic Personalities Of Black Womanhood From Past To Present, in Relation To Social Politics, Commercialism, and Reclamation.
Warning, adult language will be used & brief nudity
ATLANTA, GA- Hailing from the intersection of Boulevard Lorraine and Venetian Dr., between two of Southwest ATL’s, aka “the S.W.A.T.S.,” most notable thoroughfares of Cascade and Campbellton Rd., Choreographer CiCi Kelley utilizes her deeply rooted vernacular of Afrocentric Jazz Dance movement, in synergy with Atlanta Influences Everything (Bem Joiner, aie.life) social dance styled choreography and gestural devices, to further explore who she is as a black woman through black performance theory and the concept of Diasporic Spidering (Black Performance Theory, Thomas DeFrantz, Anita Gonzalez).
“Diasporic Spidering is a philosophical sort of method or way to understand how we as black people share information across time and space. How do we catch a move or drop a beat and know that it’s going to land in someone else's consciousness, and to help someone else's spirit across town, or across the country, or across the planet…. So diasporic spidering is a way for us to account for how we listen to music from South Africa, or music from Algeria, and understand it to be in relationship to music from Detroit or Los Angeles”
– Thomas DeFrantz, Duke SLIPPAGE laboratory,
NorthWestern University.
Celebrated as a renowned dancer, choreographer, and producer with over twenty years of career highlights (Beyonce, MTV, Toni Braxton, Phazes Of Love), in addition to being a professor in dance at the illustrustrious HBCU, Spelman College within the Department Of Dance Performance & Choreography, Kelley tapped into her ancestral roots to create a performance documentary style film that will feature members of Spelman Dance Theatre, interviews from Author and Professor Emeritus at Temple University Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild, 2017 Outstanding Research in Dance award from the Congress of Research in Dance, Thomas DeFrantz, and a plethora of colorful, audacious, powerful, sensual, and beautiful displays of how the ethnographical essence of blackwomanhood always survives in spite of societal constructs, co-option, and appropriation.
“I’m honored that this work has manifested itself through me. I started this process through publishing my first book during my graduate studies at The University Of The Arts, “Le corps d’une femme noire américaine” in the spring/summer of 2021. Drawing inspiration from the radical attitudes & behaviors or Generation Z; as a Millennial myself, I felt lodged in between the old school traditions of my parents generation to be outspoken however with a heavy hand of respect for your elders, to the electric spark of immediate accountability and agency that I witness within my students that are 20 years younger then me. I utilized these muses as my springboard to take a very deep dive into blackness as culture and performance, to the stereotypes of black womanhood that are confusingly feared and celebrated at the same time within pop culture. Truthfully, I chose to reclaim all my Phenotypes regardless of how society perceives them to be…”
–CiCi Kelley
Spoken with the very identifiable Atlanta accent, That’s My Phenotype! will begin its screening installation during Spelman College’s Research Day (college only), and for public viewing on April 29th, 2022 at 7pm on the campus of Spelman College in the Camille Olivia Hanks Academic Center Cosby Auditorium, located at 350 Spelman Ln Atlanta, GA 30314. To view, guests are asked to register for tickets at www.cicikelley.me, and adhere to all College COVID-19 protocols. Ticket registrations will open April 15th, 2022 at midnight!
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follow her creative journey via social media:
IG: @cicikelley
LinkedIn: Cicely Kelley, MFA
Le Corpse De femme Noir Américaine. Author: Cicely A. Kelley, MFA