Performances

reVERSE-gesture-reVIEW

A person casting a shadow raises a black flag.

SLIPPAGE Presents

reVERSE-gesture-reVIEW

In this unique performance, Thomas F. DeFrantz and SLIPPAGE explore the provocation of Kara Walker’s Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) with shadowplay, dance and image subtraction technology.

Wondering at the place of Black women’s presence in the landscape of the Civil War, SLIPPAGE will reverse and review the potent imagery that Walker has created in response to the exhibition of prints on view at the Nasher. How can the physical gestures of dance expand the ways we might look at these visual works of art? How can dance open up interpretation and suggest even more revisionist histories of the African American presence in the visual archive of the Civil War?

Two Black women dancing.
Two Black woman dancing, one with a scythe.
Two Black women dancing.

Performance Dates

  • Jan. 26 & 27, 2017 (Nasher Museum of Art)
  • April 27 & 28, 2018 (UNC-Chapel Hill)

Performance Materials

Read Duke Magazine’s Feature

Performer Brittany Williams crouching in the production of reVERSE-gesture-reVIEW.
A woman raises her arms, and another performer is on the floor below her.
Two performers face opposite directions with their arms extended.
Two performers with a shadow and projection behind them.