Public Program

Artists-in-residence Rabéa Ballin and Joshua Rios will each discuss their artistic practices, and address the questions Collective Presence curator Ashley DeHoyos asked them to consider when she invited them to participate in this project: How do forced or imposed changes like war, colonization, environmental crisis, and natural disasters change the landscape? And, what are current land politics affecting black, brown, and indigenous communities? Rabéa Ballin’s work has explored culture through the lenses of drawing, painting, and sound while using research and inquisitive practices to unearth hidden histories. Ballin currently lives in Houston’s Historic Third Ward and is a professor of Fine Art at Lone Star College. Joshua Rios is an educator, media artist, and writer whose projects deal with the histories, archives, and futurities of Latinx subjectivity and US/ Mexico relations as understood through the intersections of modernity, postmodernity, and neo-colonialism. Rios’s projects highlight moments of intercultural contact and co-belonging.

WITH LISA E. HARRIS Threshold is a deep listening and creative sound workshop with a durational performance led by Lisa E. Harris. Participants are invited to join Lisa in an improvised repetitive mantra, ragas, anthems, and movements. Like rings on a tree trunk or grooves on a record, we are creating tradition through revolving sound and response. This event is free and open to all, no previous performance experience required. Lisa E. Harris is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and composer. Her work focuses on the energetic relationships between body, land, spirit, and place using voice, theremin, movement, text, and new media to explore healing in performance. Harris co-founded the creative arts collective Studio Enertia, together with new media artist and curator Alisha B. Wormsley. Threshold is presented in conjunction with the curatorial project, Collective Presence, on view at through April 14, 2019.  

WITH RAUL ORLANDO EDWARDS & REINALDO COSTA Heritage in Motion is a performative workshop series that allows participants to experience the richness that is the Latin diaspora through the lenses of dance and movement. From the Soul to the Dance Floor is the second event of this four-part program. Led by Raul Orlando Edwards and Reinaldo Costa of Strictly Street Salsa, participants will engage in a percussive and uplifting class, guided by fundamental movements related to religious music and dances. From the Soul to the Dance Floor will illustrate how particular spiritual movements have influenced popular dance and culture. This event is free and open to the public. No experience required. Participants are encouraged to wear comfortable shoes and clothing for freedom of movement. The class is approximately 2 hours. Raul Orlando Edwards is the Executive Director for Arts of Tolerance at Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for Religious Studies. He is also the creative entrepreneur behind Strictly Street Salsa, FLAMART (Featuring Latin American Music and Art), and Houston’s Afro-Latin Festival Reinaldo Costa is a dancer and teacher who works closely with Edwards at Strictly Street Salsa and with the Afro-Latin Festival. He has studied and performed across North America, including […]

Please join DiverseWorks and Paraspace Books co-founders S Rodriguez and Sara Balabanlilar for a screening and discussion of Simon Rittmeier’s short science fiction film, Drexciya (2012). Drexciya tells the story of a German man called Thomas who works as a trafficker for European refugees seeking a better life in Africa. One day his ship sinks and he finds himself the only survivor, washed up on the African shore. He tries to reach the next megacity: Drexciya, an advanced high-tech world. Somewhere in the desert, he is stopped by a huge light fence. At the end of his rope, a group of young Africans stumbles across him: Sisay, Kanchebe, and Dylis. After a while, they decide to take him along. Yet their mission also seems to be a strange one. They are looking for an almost forgotten place. Lost in the wide desert they come to know each other – speechless, strangers in their own land. The film's title comes from an afrofuturist origin myth created by the Detroit-based electronic music duo, Drexciya. According to the liner notes of their 1997 album The Quest, Drexciya was an underwater country populated by the unborn children of pregnant African women who were thrown off of […]

SALSA - A TALE OF DISCOVERY, BLOOD, RHYTHM, AND IDENTITY Heritage in Motion is a performative workshop series that allows participants to experience the richness that is the Latin diaspora through the lenses of dance and movement. Salsa: A Tale of Discovery is the third event in this four-part series conceived by Raul Orlando Edwards. This performance lecture will explore the history, social background, and musical development of Latin culture's most widely recognized music and dance: SALSA! Participants will be invited to engage in an interactive and dynamic conversation about the many influences that are present in salsa dancing - including Cuban, European, African, and more. This event is free and open to the public, advance reservations are not required. Raul Orlando Edwards is the Executive Director for Arts of Tolerance at Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for Religious Studies. He is also the creative entrepreneur behind Strictly Street Salsa, FLAMART (Featuring Latin American Music and Art), and Houston’s Afro-Latin Festival. Reinaldo Costa is a dancer and teacher who works closely with Edwards at Strictly Street Salsa and with the Afro-Latin Festival. He has studied and performed across North America, including Cuba and Mexico. Heritage in Motion is presented in conjunction with the curatorial […]