VCUarts The Anderson, in collaboration with the VCUarts Department of Dance + Choreography, is pleased to present a prerecorded broadcast at 7pm on September 16 of a Facets of Esoterics performance. Facets of Esoterics is an installation and series of performances by Sinclair Emoghene that took place at The Anderson Aug. 18 through Sept. 3, 2020. The link to the video: https://youtu.be/-27vGvLsiCM
Facets of Esoterics centers racial equity and embellishes the idea of dance as installation. The performance considers social locations and the impacts of the privileged in relationship to the marginalized. The dance is derived from Nigerian social, ritual, and occupational dances.
Sinclair seeks to trace and reclaim the values of his traditional dance history embedded in his practice as an African dancer within the framework of the US educational system. In Facets of Esoterics, he uses object-metaphors and site-installation in demonstrating what privilege looks like to a marginalized group through dance abstraction. The objects or props within this work are directly uprooted from Nigerian cultural dances where they might have different symbolic meanings. For example, the Yoruba Ondo Omi Obitun dance of fertility uses china plates (porcelain) in the climax of the dance performance, but Sinclair has converted the plates into an object-metaphor of abstraction to speak directly to the notion of white fragility.
For more about Facets of Esoterics and Choreographer Sinclair Emoghene, visit: http://www.sinclair.dance/ and https://arts.vcu.edu/community/news/sinclair-emoghene-facets-of-esoterics-aug-18-sept-8/.
Photo by Ray Warren.