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evolution x performance archive
Blue Ink : a night with Jillian Walker
It’s sacred space. It’s an elegant lecture and calling down. It’s a performance of invitation, declaration, reclamation. It’s dramaturgy of the spirit. Join Jillian for a night of soul-singing that samples from an array of her original works; including selections from her ancestor-revering epic, SKiNFoLK: An American Show.
Joe’s Pub
Recorded : 3 Nov 2019
Songs of Speculation
Songs of Speculation
Songs of Speculation (excerpt) is a lecture that explodes into multi-form performance, calling on the body, time, and the power of music to reclaim histories forgotten or lost. It is a response to the call of Black feminist scholar Hortense Spillers’ evolving paper, “To the Bone: Some Speculations on Touch,” which considers the life and experiences of Sally Hemings; and also deeply explores the concept of Black female subjectivity and life.
The work is woven with and interrupted by original songs performed on a looper pedal; allowing for the recording, layering and amplification of live vocal composition channeled through the spirit of ancestor and muse. This instrument (much like the black feminist), is meant to be taken seriously and handled with great care. The aim of this work is to reanimate hope through the remixing of history–critically speculating and fabulating until it begins to create a future that embraces the radical possibility of living and loving beyond what has been historically prescribed to Black women.
written and performed by Jillian Walker
designed and engineered by Ben Williams
co-produced by Jillian Walker and Ben Williams
WINNER of the inaugural “Audio Unbound” award in the 2020 Third Coast International Audio Festival
recorded at The Collapsable Hole NYC 2019.
Jillian Walker’s SKiNFoLK demo | Soul Session Lounge Mix
Music and Lyrics by Jillian Walker and Kasaun Henry
Musical Director, Co-composer & Arranger, Kasaun Henry
Drums, Bryce Collins
Bass, Jason Smith
Special thanks to The Bushwick Starr and The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, NYC.
recorded at the Black-owned, Lounge Studios, Manhattan, NY.
Sept 2021.
Some of us Are Fugitives Shouting Over Our Shoulders
Live on Instagram one night, somewhere in the midst of the pandemic.
3 Nov 2021
Mami Wata Song
recorded on the edge of Broad Creek
near tobacco . pine . terrapin
and the birthplace of Frederick Douglass.
27 June 2020
A Maker’s Profile
“My relationship with singing goes all the way back to The Little Mermaid. 1989/1990, whenever that came out….”
Jillian talks about her process of creation in a quintessential New York profile.
Shot by : JB
filmed: 11 Dec 2019
Jillian on the Starr Talk podcast
conversation recorded in a dressing room oon Cambridge, NY at the end of a working residency with the ensemble of SKiNFoLK: An American Show. You’ll hear about the development of the show, which began in 2016 as part the Bushwick Starr’s Starr Reading Series, as well as memories of the Midwest, family, music, unpacking ‘show + tell’, and intentions around audience exchange.
Available Tickets: 27
Last Date: 15 June 2017
THE POWER OF PROVERBS & THE TRADITION OF ORAL STORYTELLING
conversation with Dael Orlandersmith, Martha Redboneand Jillian Walker, moderated by Brennie Tellu, exploring how the power of proverbs and oral storytelling has inspired and/or informed the artistry of each of these gifted theatremakers and how these narratives have shaped their experiences as Black women.
27 June 2020
Art monster : The Revolutionary
conversation recorded in a dressing room oon Cambridge, NY at the end of a working residency with the ensemble of SKiNFoLK: An American Show. You’ll hear about the development of the show, which began in 2016 as part the Bushwick Starr’s Starr Reading Series, as well as memories of the Midwest, family, music, unpacking ‘show + tell’, and intentions around audience exchange.
Columbia School of the Arts
17 April 2018
Amita Swadhin, Adaku Utah, Jillian Walker, on Black x Brown Femme Labor
Curated x Facilitated by Kirya Traber for Hi-Arts.
27 June 2020
The Orange essays
Released : 8 June 2021
Jillian on the SLC performance podcast
soon In bookstores
SKiNFoLK : an American show
an ancestor-revering epic.
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