As someone who grew up in the American South and had a Black mother who constantly reminded me of my Blackness through afro-haired babydolls and religious affirmations, my perception of self has always been one of the intimate present. A Blackness so vivid I wasn’t aware of any other understanding of it. For most of my childhood, I walked streets once drenched in the blood, fear, and trauma of my distant relatives only a few generations before me. There was always something both intensely powerful and otherworldly about how much the past was beneath the soles of my feet, seeping up into the air and changing the atmosphere entirely. Now, as an emerging choreographer based in New York’s Harlem neighborhood, yet another historic center for African American racial solidarity, I chose to dive deeper into Afro-diasporic narratives as a way to connect to my childhood and lost ancestry. I see this route as a way to pave a clearer understanding of how the future of my Blackness and narratives of BIPOC folks are shaped by how we interpret past histories and experiences. Through this continued research, I want to understand the ways in which I can tackle the evergrowing post-displacement Black narrative. By this, I mean the many Black stories told by Black folk during and after the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and European Colonization, which make up most of our understanding of Black consciousness presently. These histories are the core of why I create dance performances, as I aim to produce, intersectional (; within Academia, Womanhood, Desire, Blackness, Movement, and Spirituality), genuine, fact-centered work that adds purposeful commentary on dull and radical social conversations. Most, if not all, of my choreographic and performance work is informed by reaction. Whether by myself or an audience, I have been deeply invested in curating scores and movements that formulate intentional narratives and allow viewers to feel disgusted, ecstatic, nostalgic, and invested– among many limitless other feelings. Archival examples and references are also exciting to incorporate. Within my most recent works, I heavily utilized academic, urban, and oral sources as an entry point into heavily emotional and triggering themes (ex. alienation, liberation, digitalization, mutilation, and futuristic landscapes). This approach has built multi-layered/ dimensional performances, ranging from classical contemporary dance to experimental film, that offer audiences multiple entry points despite their knowledge of the themes and histories I presented.