Artists
Artists are at the core of our work at Hi-ARTS. What unites this diverse group is that they share similar aesthetics and ideas about the transformative power of art and the importance of community. Our goal is to continuously nurture this spirit at Hi-ARTS. From a creative and artistic perspective, our artists have made Hi-ARTS the organization that it is. Below is a sample list of artists we have recently worked with. Tap an artist's name to learn more about what they do, and hit the archive further down for a look at who else the organization has been involved with over the years.
Luz Lorenzana Twigg
Hi-ARTS CRITICAL BREAKS Artist Luz Lorenzana Twigg is a playwright, dramaturg, doula, and folk herbalist. Her practice explores diasporic identity, ritual, theatre as a living archive, as well as ancestral healing as the gateway for reimagined theatrical pedagogy and praxis.
Maleek Rae
Maleek Rae is a multi-disciplinary artist from Detroit’s Eastside.
As a Hi-ARTS CRITICAL BREAKS Artist, Maleek will develop GUTTAH PART II: ecdysis, the second installment of the trilogy series set in Detroit that reframes life in the hood as one of royalty, spirit, and ceremony. The work employs music and movement to explore Black bloodlines, family, transness, and transformation. During their Hi-ARTS residency, Maleek will focus on developing Part II, deepening music as a foundational ceremonial practice.
Nathan Yungerberg
As a Hi-ARTS Space Grant Recipient, Nathan Yungerberg will have access to Hi-ARTS rehearsal spaces, and conference rooms for the ongoing development of the Untitled Afro-Surreal Project. Situated outside of Hi-ARTS traditional residency format, grantees receive the use of space for creative and administrative development of a body of work at no cost.
The Untitled Afro-Surreal Project is grounded in Afro-surrealism, and draws on narrative, sound, movement, and visual symbolism to explore memory, interiority, and the porous boundary between the real and the imagined.
Nikhil Mahapatra
Hi-ARTS CRITICAL BREAKS Artist Nikhil Mahapatra is a multi-disciplinary writer based in Brooklyn. They write about queerness/race/power/family/non-family/existence/politics, but most of all, where grief and joy meet together, which, as one audience member once said, had “mixed results, but I guess I liked it”.
MODArts Dance Collective
Hi-ARTS SKY LAB Company in Residence, MODArts Dance Collective (MADC) is a Harlem-based, nonprofit multicultural professional dance company founded in 2011 by Founding Artistic Director Leah Tubbs and Executive Director Shaun Tubbs. The company centers Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) artists, while creating space for them to show up as their authentic selves both in and beyond the studio.
While in residence, MADC will continue the growth and development of the Collective Thread Residency, an extension of its annual Collective Thread Dance Festival.