A artist panel, including School of Dance Director Duane Cyrus, will discuss “Preserving the Legacy of Black Storytelling Through Art” at ALIVE! on Feb. 6 at the Marroney Theatre, in collaboration with the Black Faculty Speaker Series.
In addition to the panel, the School of Dance Ensemble will perform “Three Rooms,” with choreography inspired by the painting of Allison Miller.
The feature guests include:
- Edwin A. Bodney, spoken word poet | IG: @edwinbodney
- Duane Cyrus, director, School of Dance | IG: @cyart4 | Faculty Bio
- Kristen V. Carter, executive producer, educator | IG: @kristenvcarter | Artist website
- Damon Davis, mixed media artist | IG: @damondavis | Artist website
- Elizabeth Denneau, visual artist, art educator | IG: lizz_denneau | Artist website
- Adia Jamille, textile artist | IG: @adiajamille | Artist website
- Moderator: Adiba Nelson, coordinator, MLK Student Space | IG: @adibanelson | Artist website
Bios
edwin bodney is a Black, Queer, non-binary artist, award-winning educator, and nationally recognized poet from Los Angeles. As someone living with M.S. and the rest of the world’s chaos, they strive to remind all vulnerable communities of their joy and laughter. bodney and their work have been featured in platforms and publications like Button Poetry, Platypus Press, The Exposition Review, The Advocate, Lexus, TvOne, Amazon Prime, UW-Madison, and many others. Their full-length book of poetry, “A Study of Hands” (2017) is available through Not A Cult Media. bodney is one of the co-hosts of Da Poetry Lounge, one of the country’s largest and longest-running, non-profit poetry venues. bodney works supporting LGBTQ+ students at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Duane Cyrus is director of the School of Dance at the University of Arizona and a founding member of the North Carolina-based collective, Theatre of Movement. A graduate of the Juilliard School (BFA) and University of Illinois at Urbana (MFA), he is an award-winning artist, educator, curator, and producer committed to interdisciplinary art projects, collaboration, and career sustainability for artists—producing his work on national and international platforms. He has performed with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Martha Graham Dance Company, and Disney’s “The Lion King” (original London cast) among others. Cyrus is the co-author and editor of “Vital Grace: The Black Male Dancer” a photographic essay co-authored with Joanne Savio. Cyrus, a 2018 Bessie Award nominee, is a recipient of the Princess Grace Foundation Award for Emerging Artists, Coleman Entrepreneurship Fellow, and two-time North Carolina Arts Council Choreography Fellow. He also holds a Not-for-Profit Management Certificate from Duke University; and Anne Fulton Carter Business Plan competition winner. Cyrus was a professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for 17 years and former member of the UNCG Entrepreneurship Cross Disciplinary Advisory Board. He currently serves on the board of Blue Lotus Artist Collective and the School of American Ballet’s Alumni Diversity Advisory Board.
Kristen V. Carter is an award-winning television executive producer, filmmaker and educator from Newark, New Jersey. Her production credits include The Voice, ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood and, most recently, the PBS concert special GOSPEL Live! Presented by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., featuring John Legend and Erica Campbell. She also wrote and directed the acclaimed short film “First Date,” airing on Aspire TV and Kweli TV. Beyond entertainment, Carter is deeply committed to mentorship and community elevation. She is the founder of Trust Your Magic™, a transformational brand, workshop series, and podcast centered on self-actualization and purpose-driven action. Carter currently serves as site director and adjunct professor for Hofstra University’s Hofstra LA Semester program, a 16-week immersive experience that allows communications students to live, work, and study in Hollywood. In this role, she provides professional development guidance focused on life skills, networking confidence, and career readiness. Carter is the recipient of numerous honors, including Black Film Space’s Savant Award, the San Francisco Black Film Festival’s First Time Filmmaker Award and the Hanks-Miller Screenwriting Fellowship. She is a proud graduate of Hofstra University.
Damon Davis is a post-disciplinary, Emmy Award-winning artist who works and resides in St. Louis, Missouri. In a practice that is part therapy, part social commentary, his work spans across a spectrum of creative mediums to tell stories exploring how identity is informed by power and mythology. His first solo exhibition, “Darker Gods in The Garden of Low Hanging Heavens” opened in St. Louis and appeared at Art Basel Miami in 2018. Davis has work in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Saint Louis Art Museum. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts and the San Diego Contemporary Museum of Art. Filmmaker Magazine selected Davis and Sabaah Folayan as part of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2016” for their work co-directing the critically acclaimed documentary “Whose Streets?” chronicling the Ferguson uprising of 2014. In 2020, critic Ben Davis cited Davis’ project All Hands On Deck, which captured the hands of people who shaped and upheld the Ferguson movement, as one of the “100 Works of Art That Defined the Decade.”
Elizabeth Denneau is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and art educator based in the Sonoran Southwest. She earned her BFA in Art and Visual Culture Education and teaching certification from the University of Arizona, and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artistic practice is rooted in research and manifests through ornate, maximalist installations that interrogate historical systems tied to respectability politics, white supremacy, and capitalism. Her work explores the complex dualities of these systems—how they both sustain and dismantle communities. Her most recent project, “The Covenant Project,” responds to the legacy of redlining in the Southwest through restorative art-making and collaborative community gatherings. She is the recipient of the 2024 WESTAF BIPOC Artist Award, the Andy Warhol Foundation with MOCA Tucson’s Nightbloom Artist Grant, and the Arts Foundation for Southern Arizona’s 2024 stART: New Works Grant. She is also the co-founder of the Southwest Black Artists Collective and The Projects, an art space in Tucson, Arizona—both dedicated to amplifying and supporting Black creatives across the region.
Adia Jamille is a fiber artist with a “seed to art” practice. She works exclusively with natural dyes and pigments, growing most of them herself. Her work focuses on the ways Black Americans continue to preserve the legacies that our ancestors maintained despite all odds. By utilizing traditional techniques she pays homage to those who came before and preserves ancestral knowledge. Her work is a reminder of the ways that we can begin to recenter the Black American experience when viewing and considering our history, and the different ways in which we become “our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”
Adiba Nelson is the author of “Ain’t That A Mother,” the memoir that Essence, Bustle, Ms. magazine and Shondaland all hailed as a “must read.” The children’s book “Oshun and Me” was hailed by New York Public Library as one of the best of 2025. Another children’s book, Hazel’s Best Day is forthcoming. Nelson is also the subject of the Emmy winning documentary “The Full Nelson.” She is also the senior coordinator for University of Arizona’s Martin Luther King Student Space, a disability rights activist, executive producer and creative consultant on the TV series based on her memoir (currently in development), semi-retired performer and very tired mom!
Related:
- Lizz Deanneau guests on the Race/Remix podcast: Reworking the Ruins of Racism
- Adiba Nelson feature by Arizona Arts Live for the “Monuments” installation
- Arts Hero: Duane Cyrus, inspiring tomorrow’s dancers
The ALIVE! panel discussion is supported by the University of Arizona College of Humanities, Africana Studies, MLK Dream Space and Arizona Arts’ School of Dance, School of Theatre, Film & Television and Arizona Arts Live.
