Studio Series: Sovereign Shoulders

Two M.F.A. in Dance Thesis Performances 

Choreographed by Iyalochá Nadia Milad Issa and Annie-Laura Irizarry Peréz

"Trazando Taíno," choreographed by Annie-Laura Irizarry Peréz, is a choreographic exploration rooted in the ancestral practices of the Indigenous Taíno peoples of the Caribbean. The piece is divided into four phases of the areíto ritual, treating the body as a living archive—an embodied practice through which memory and collective presence are activated. Trazando Taíno recollects and demystifies fragments of Indigenous culture disrupted by colonial erasure.

"Weight of Faith," choreographed by Iyalochá Nadia Milad Issa, is a series of dance eulogies that reify and rehumanize all lives lost due to the threat of religious intolerance, the threat of disembodied mourning, collective protest, and healing. Paying special homage to Billie Holiday, those suffering the loss of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and other church arson catastrophes, and our personal loved ones who have now transitioned into the ancestral realm.