(RHY)PISTEMOLOGY! (OR, TO KNOW THROUGH THE RHYTHM)

Michael J Love

Part III: (RHY)PISTEMOLOGY! (OR, TO KNOW THROUGH THE RHYTHM), the third installment in Michael J. Love’s The AURALVISUAL MIXTAPE Collection, sees the tap dance artist and an ensemble of collaborators map the foundational Black histories of techno and house music onto improvisation and choreography that envisions an ‘elsewhere’ of liberatory possibilities. Love and dancers Benae Beamon, Jeffrey Clark Jr., Kaleena Miller, and Adriana J. Ray work through an original electronic music soundscape by rhythmanalyst DeForrest Brown Jr. and traverse a multimedia installation by anti-disciplinary artist Ariel “Aryel” René Jackson. With these components, (RHY)PISTEMOLOGY! stands as an embodied testimony of the wealth of cultural knowledge stored in Black American forms of movement and music and the generative, life-giving potential available to those who engage in the labor necessary to honor and carry such forms forward.

Written, Choreographed, and Directed by Michael J. Love

Multimedia Video and Sculpture Installation by Ariel “Aryel” René Jackson

Soundscape and Music Composed and Performed by DeForrest Brown Jr.

Original Cast Members include Benae Beamon, Jeffrey Clark Jr., Kaleena Miller, and Adriana J. Ray

Company Management and Production Coordination by Morgan Johnson

A week of development and a work-in-progress version of (RHY)PISTEMOLOGY! was supported and presented by the Princeton University Arts Fellowship program, the Princeton Atelier, and the Princeton Program in Dance at the Lewis Center for the Arts in February 2023.