Sage Ni’Ja Whitson
IVR_6
Transtraterrestrial Premire at EMPAC
Troy, NY, April 6 and 7, 2023
Working with ARS Red Rig. Photos by Maria Baranva and Alvis Mosely
Sage Ni’Ja Whitson’s (2019 Grantee) Transtraterrestrial is a new live performance installation designed to amplify the dark. In dialogue with Yorùbá Cosmology, Astrophysics, and research on the “blackest black,” the work centers the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy through a Black, Queer, and Transembodied lens.
The live performance installation is a prequel and a premiere of Whitson’s Creative Capital Project, The Unarrival Experiments. It takes an audience through an otherworldly dive into the dark. Led by space conductor, Trans Trappist the Extraterrestrial, this work traverses the dark as an ancestor, embodied transgender technology, and cosmic intervention.
About the Artist
Ni'Ja Whitson Presents at the 2019 Creative Capital Artist Retreate
Receives National Performance Network Creation Fund Award
2021 Technical Resident - Center for Performance Research
Ni’Ja Whitson is a gender-nonconforming/transmogrifying artist, performer, and writer who brings together experimental and African Diasporic practices to highlight themes of gender, sexuality, race, and spirit. As a performer and interdisciplinary artist collaboration is key for Whitson—they have worked with artists notable in experimental form such as Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Daniel Alexander Jones, Baba Israel, and Dianne McIntyre.
Whitson is a United States Artist Fellow, a Creative Capital Awardee, a Camargo Fellow, and a Hedgebrook Fellow. The artist is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of California at Riverside and is the founder and artistic director of The NWA Project.
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