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During the 23-24 season, the NC Dance Festival will feature nationally-celebrated Wideman-Davis Dance company, for a 4 day residency in Greensboro from September 27-30.
Wideman Davis Dance, based in Columbia, SC and directed by Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis, is committed to revealing social and political issues through an African American perspective, making work that is inspired by and engaged with current issues including race, class, gender, and location. During their residency in Greensboro, which has been supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Wideman-Davis Dance will engage multiple community groups in workshops around themes of history, memory, family legacy, migration, and how art and culture are threaded through every aspect of our lives. To culminate the visit, the NC Dance Festival will screen the short film, “We Dance,” followed by a lively conversation between Wideman Davis Dance and the audience.
The artists of Wideman Davis Dance, Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis, will lead an intermediate/advanced level dance technique workshop for students ages 13+. The class addresses the dancing body with a linear and curved movement vocabulary that challenges physicality and rhythmic dynamics.
Wideman Davis Dance invites local professional artists of all disciplines to engage in conversation and explore how their art practices connect to their communities. Thaddeus Davis and Tanya Wideman-Davis use their experience as two dance artists working and creating in southern Black communities to guide participants into greater understanding of how to live into your values through your artistic practice, and hone the skills you have to connect with your community. Through this workshop, artists will clarify what they believe and what kind of contribution they want to make in the world.
We Dance is a love story, deconstructed and distilled into its most elemental ingredients. Dreams. Memories. Family. And environments. Through stunning visuals and vivid poetry, Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis take us from Chicago to Montgomery, from New York to the point where their lives meet and become one. Along the way, they honor and signify on Black American art, poetry, and literature. They offer commentary on the importance of movement and migration to Black American identity, lived experience, and consciousness. And they show how all of our stories are kept, in the places we’ve been, and in the food we eat, and in the dreams that we so steadfastly chase.
A Film by Ethan Payne and Bryan Foster, produced by Wideman Davis Dance.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with those present about their experience of the themes of memory, family, food, and legacy.
Accessibility Details
Accessible parking for the Greensboro Cultural Center is available in the Church St. parking deck, close to the paved sidewalk from the parking deck into the building.
Ground floor entrance to the building has a push button that opens an automated door.
Elevators are available to access 2nd and 3rd floors of the Cultural Center.
Restrooms including accessible stalls are available on each floor, although restroom doors are not automated.
Seating for artist workshop and film screening is flexible and can accommodate wheelchairs or other mobility devices. Please contact Anne at 336-370-6776 in advance so that we may plan appropriate seating.
Printed performance details are available in large-print.
Please contact Anne at 336-370-6776 for information about any additional accessibility questions or accommodations.
COVID safety: masks are optional but welcome.
Tanya Wideman-Davis is the Co-Director of Wideman Davis Dance and is on faculty as Associate Professor at The University of South Carolina in the Department of Theatre and Dance and African American Studies. With an extensive career as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, she completed her Master of Fine Arts from Hollins University/ADF (2012). Tanya has danced with many world-renown companies, including Dance Theatre of Harlem, The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, Spectrum Dance Theater, Ballet NY, and as guest artist with Ballet Memphis, Cleveland San Jose Ballet, and Quorum Ballet Amadora, Portugal. Wideman-Davis has received multiple honors and grants for her work with Wideman Davis Dance and individually including: 2023 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Grant, 2022 Mellon Monuments Project Grant, 2022 Alternate Roots: Partners in Action Grant, 2021 South Carolina Arts Commission Fellow, 2021 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Grant, 2021 International Association of Blacks in Dance COHI/MOVE Cohort Grant, 2019 South Arts Momentum Grant, 2019 Alternate Roots Artistic Assistance: Project Development Grant, 2018 NEFA National Dance Project Grant, 2017 USC Provost Grant, 2013 Map Fund Grant, and 2011 Jerome Robins New Essential Works Grant. She has received international acclaim as “Best Female Dancer of 2001-2002” by Dance Europe magazine. Tanya’s academic, choreographic research and lectures examine race, gender, femininity, identity, and location. She has contributed a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet titled Dance Theatre of Harlem: Radical Black Female Bodies in Ballet. She has a preprint chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Black Dance Studies titled, Choreographers in the Commons Sipping Coffee co-authored with Dahlia Nayar and Thaddeus Davis.
Thaddeus Davis is Co-Director of Wideman Davis Dance and Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. His research, performance, creative, and community practices center on Southern Black experiences. His work questions spaces and environments that affect the intersection of gender, class, race, technology, and media’s ability to shape perceptions. As Co-Director of Wideman Davis Dance, he has received multiple honors and grants for his work, including the 2022 Mellon Monuments Grant, 2022 Alternate Roots: Partners in Action, 2022 and 2019 National Endowment for the Arts, 2021 International Association of Blacks in Dance: COHI | MOVE Comprehensive Organizational Health Initiative, 2018 National Dance Project Grant, 2017 Provost Grant to support the creations of a research team for the development of Migratuse Ataraxia, 2013 Map Fund Grant to support the research and development of Ruptured Silence: Racist Signs and Symbol, Jerome Robins New Essential Works Grant (2011), University of South Carolina Arts Institute, Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Reading/Dance Collaboration, Balance: Homelessness Project (2009), Canvas: The Master Class (2010), Cultural Envoy to Portugal, U.S. State Department. He has a preprinted chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Black Dance Studies titled, Choreographers in the Commons Sipping Coffee, co-authored with Dahlia Nayar and Tanya Wideman-Davis.
Dance Project is a non-profit resident organization of the Greensboro Cultural Center, made possible by a significant in-kind contribution from Creative Greensboro, the City of Greensboro’s office for arts & culture.
Dance Project is a non-profit resident organization of the Greensboro Cultural Center, made possible by a significant in-kind contribution from Creative Greensboro, the City of Greensboro’s office for arts & culture.