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Ann English Mazzocca Bellecci
choreographer educator performer scholar
Waters Wisdoms
“Waters Wisdoms: Indigenous and Ancestral Practices in the Face of Climate Disaster” is a screendance currently in production centering indigenous American and Africanist embodied epistemologies in contrast to the current climate crisis.
This dance video project, initially commissioned by the Art(S)cience Festival co-directed by Prof. Denise Gillman and Dr. John Nichols at Christopher Newport University, explores sea level rise through the art of dance and the specificity of our local/regional location of the Chesapeake Bay and James/Powhatan River. These movement practices and philosophies, which embrace, respect, and reflect nature, are centered and placed in relation to our local/global history of settler colonialism and damaging ethnocentric and racist practices that have led not only to violence against people but abuse of our lands/seas.
The screendance features CNU alumnae, Kayla Jewette/Iyanifa Faremilekun Oosaseun Ajeosun and Krystal Hurr, who perform and share their perspectives. Art and Film Studies student Henry Engelmeyer received Office of Research and Creative Activity support to serve as director of photography, videographer, and co-editor.