MEMORY FLEET: STAY IN THE CIRCLE Will Come to the Kelly Strayhorn Theater
Performances are on Friday & Saturday, April 24-25.
Dancer and choreographer Jasmine Hearn will return to Kelly Strayhorn Theater (KST) with their dance-theater performance Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle on Friday & Saturday, April 24-25. Co-commissioned by KST, the work is a tribute to Black mothers and mentors and a love letter to Pittsburgh. Jasmine's engagement with KST also includes a movement workshop Spectrum of Strength on Saturday, April 18, and a Citizens Community Dinner on Monday, April 20, both open to the public.
Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle is a dynamic, dance-driven performance fueled by original music and poetry. Weaving together stories of labor and rest, it imagines the past, present, and future of Black people who mother and mentor. Rooted in Jasmine's personal history and shaped by Black histories of Houston, Pittsburgh, and New York City, the performance unfolds through a series of embodied “recipes”—intimate yet expansive—that disrupt traditional ideas of dance and reveal how movement holds memory, story, and meaning.
Jasmine performs with Anqwenique Kinsel, Melike Vivastine Konur, Bekezela Mguni, Ursula Payne, Staycee Pearl, and Alisha B. Wormsley to form an interdisciplinary collective that retells shared memories and stories using dance and embodied sound.
Jasmine Hearn has a rich history with KST, dating back over a decade. “Jasmine was the very first resident when we launched KST's Freshworks program in 2013 – our robust creative residency for emerging artists and collaborators based in the greater Pittsburgh region that continues to this day, launches careers like Jasmine's that shape the field. We've been honored to support Jasmine since then and witness their career take off,” says KST Co-Executive Director Joseph Hall, who founded Freshworks.
Memory Fleet first premiered in Houston, TX, where the artist was born and raised. It now travels to Pittsburgh, where Jasmine graduated from Point Park University and landed their first professional dance contract with as a company member with Dance Alloy Theater, KST's predecessor organization. Pittsburgh became the first place where they were connected with queer family while at local dance parties SAPPHO and volunteering with organizations such as New Voices PGH.
Next is New York City for the June production Memory Fleet: Beloved, Let's Cross co-presented by New York Live Arts and the Chocolate Factory Theater. Jasmine reflects, “each place has a different way of celebrating the teachers who I have learned from and continue to be inspired by. This city of rivers has loved on me in a way I could not have imagined .”
Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle is part of the continually expanding, episodic, migrating project Memory Fleet led by Jasmine Hearn. Memory Fleet is a performance and archive project that preserves shared memories and stories, building on their earlier work Memory Keep(H)er, a dance solo created to preserve the oral narrative of Jasmine's grandmother, which first developed in residency at KST in 2015.
On Saturday, April 18, audience members can join the Spectrum of Strength workshop at KST's Alloy Studios led by Jasmine Hearn to get a taste of the artist's choreographic practice of identifying personal experiences that can be woven into collective dance “recipes”.
The Citizens Community Dinner on Monday, April 20, welcomes guests to join Jasmine in a conversation about their life and the work trajectory of archiving matrilineal relationships across time and geography. Audience members enjoy a free buffet dinner with one complimentary drink ticket.
As audiences visit Kelly Strayhorn Theater during KST Presents performances, they can experience visual art exhibition, Practices of Holding, in the KST Gallery, featuring members of Sibyls Shrine, a national network, residency program, and collective of Black artists who m/other, of which Jasmine is a member. Curated by Jessica Gaynelle Moss, the exhibition honors ancestral and living matriarchs and is presented in conjunction with Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle.
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