Image credit: M. Carmen Lane

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Performance and conversation with M. Carmen Lane, Sidra Leigh Bell, Sophia Parker and Mark Eric

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On the opening night of UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe, audiences are invited into Irresistibly Alive, a rare and unreplicable performance conceived by artist M. Carmen Lane and choreographer Sidra Leigh Bell. Choreographed and performed in collaboration with dancer Sophia Halimah Parker in intricate costumes designed by Mark Eric, the work summons ancestral presence through movement, voice, and ritual.

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Taking its title from Toni Morrison’s call “to be unstoppably, irresistibly alive,” the activation asks: what are the gestures of freedom? Within the larger meditation of UNBOUND on cosmology, memory, and Black speculative futures, this work becomes both anchor and catalyst—collapsing time and space into a moment of collective witness, where the body itself becomes a portal.

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Following the invocation, the four collaborators—Lane, Bell, Parker, and Eric—will join in an intimate conversation about the making of the work and its place within the exhibition.

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The performance is fleeting, yet its reverberations endure: costumes, film, and altar will remain in the gallery as offerings, echoing Yoruba Egungun regalia, where cloth and reflection keep ancestors near. A second, distinct iteration will take place in spring 2026.

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(for C.R.M.)

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Please note: the performance space is intimate, and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. This program is free and open to the public.

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About the Collaborators:

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M. Carmen Lane is a two-spirit African American and Haudenosaunee (Mohawk/Tuscarora) contemporary artist, writer, and facilitator based in Cleveland, Ohio. Their work explores Black/Indigenous identities, two-spirit and non-binary masculinities, intergenerational grief, and settler colonial behaviors within human systems. Drawing from the personal histories of their Afro-Indigenous family, Lane examines Indigenous displacements, Black fugitive migrations, and the intergenerational traumas of removal—probing how loss, land, and kinship shape identity and belonging.

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Lane is the founder and director of ATNSC: Center for Healing & Creative Leadership, an artist-led incubator and exhibition space for socially engaged Indigenous artists and artists of color. Their projects and residencies include the FRONT Triennial, EFA Project Space, Everglades National Park, and the Joyce Awards. In 2022, they received the Art Matters Foundation Award. Lane’s solo exhibition í:se (Be Our Guest/Stolen) extends this practice, offering critical reflections on settler colonial frameworks while envisioning liberation, safety, and new forms of home.

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Sidra Leigh Bell is a celebrated choreographer, dancer, performance artist, and the founder and artistic director of Sidra Bell Dance New York, an internationally acclaimed company recognized for its innovative and progressive approach to dance theater. With a career spanning more than two decades, she has created over 100 original works for major institutions including Ailey II, ODC/Dance, The Juilliard School, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Derek Fordjour Studio, and New York City Ballet, where she made history as the first Black woman to choreograph for the company.

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Bell is also a respected educator. She was formerly a Master Lecturer at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and has held academic appointments at Harvard, University of Oklahoma, and Barnard. Her pedagogical method, Contemporary Systems—an interior & material approach, is internationally recognized and has been featured in Dance Magazine and Dance Teacher Magazine. She is the creative director of MODULE, a New York–based immersive laboratory for movement and theater artists.

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Her collaborations extend into fashion and media, including Interview Magazine, T Magazine, and Cero Magazine. In 2025, she will receive the prestigious Yaddo Artist Medal alongside Langston Hughes and Jill Viney, honoring her fearless exploration of form, identity, and innovation in contemporary performance. www.sidrabell.com, www.sidrabelldanceny.org

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Sophia Halimah Parker is a dancer and dramaturg from Berkeley, California. She has collaborated with and performed works by Sidra Bell Dance New York, Kayla Farrish, and Alexa West, among others. Most recently she collaborated with Bell at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a performer and dramaturg for “G R A P H” during the exhibit “Flight Into Egypt”. She is an MFA Candidate at Columbia University.

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Mark Eric, a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, he is a costume and fashion designer based in New York City, where he trained at the Fashion Institute of Technology. After designing for several New York City fashion houses, he discovered his passion for costuming for the stage. He enjoys bringing his couture fashion sensibility to his design, often employing artisanal techniques when creating his signature costumes. He has designed costumes for Robert Battle, Darrell Grand Moultrie, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Rennie Harris, Robbie Fairchild, Stefanie Batten Bland, Andrew McNicol, and Marguerite Donlon to name a few. He has costumed works for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, BalletX, Ballet Hispanico, and Ailey II, among others.

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This program is presented in conjunction with the current exhibition Unbound: Art, Blackness & the Universe, on view October 1, 2025 - August 16, 2026.