Amirah Sackett

In collaboration with the BU Dance Program and The Dance Complex, the BU Arts Initiative is excited to host internationally recognized hip-hop dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Amirah Sackett, in-residence (virtually) at Boston University on October 19-23, 2020.

Public Programs:

Hip-Hop Dance Workshop with the Dance Complex
Monday, October 19 at 7-8PM (EDT)
Participants will have the opportunity to explore the physical movement elements of hip-hop culture, as Amirah teaches the foundational movement styles of top rocking, breaking, popping, and tutting. Develop a better understanding and appreciation for hip-hop history and culture in this action packed workshop.
This event was not recorded | Registration Required: RSVP

Dance & Spirituality: Panel Discussion
Wednesday, October 21 at 4-5:30PM (EDT)
As spirituality is explored in dance across cultures, we are honored to have Amirah joined by  Shreelina Ghosh (Assistant Professor, English, Gannon University), Ty Defoe (Writer and Interdisciplinary Artist) and Carrie Preston (Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality, and Director of Kilachand Honors College, Boston University) for this virtual panel discussion. Read more about our panelists below.
Post Event: Watch on YouTube | Registration Required: RSVP

Lecture & Demonstration
Thursday, October 22 at 8:30-9:30PM (EDT)
As a culmination to her residency at BU, Amirah will discuss the misconceptions about Islam and Muslim Women, and share her personal experiences participating in hip-hop culture around the world and the reasons she began melding her Muslim and American identities in her work. Additionally, she will share a live performance of her work, including her new work combining the poetry of Rumi with the sound design of Chicago DJ, Nevin S. Hersch, and the cinematography talents of Tunisian filmmaker, Ahmed Zaghbouni.
Post Event: YouTube Link TBA | Registration Required: RSVP

About Amirah Sackett:

An internationally recognized hip-hop dancer, choreographer, and teacher, Amirah Sackett explores and embodies her Muslim American identity through combining hip-hop movement and Islamic themes. She is widely known for her creation of the choreography and performance group known as, “We’re Muslim, Don’t Panic”, which reached viral video fame after being featured on POPSUGAR Celebrity, The Huffington Post, AJ+, and Upworthy. Sackett was honored to be a TEDx speaker, guest lecturer at Harvard University, and a cultural diplomat with the U.S. State Department in Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Kuwait.

Spirituality & Dance Panelists:

Ty Defoe (Giizhig), Oneida and Ojibwe Nations, is an writer and interdisciplinary artist, and Grammy Award winner. Ty aspires to an interweaving approach to artistic projects with social justice, indigeneity, indiqueering, and environmentalism. Ty’s global cultural arts highlights: the Millennium celebration in Cairo, Egypt; Ankara, Turkey, International Music Festival; and Festival of World Cultures in Dubai. Awards: First American in the Arts, Global Indigenous Heritage Festival Award, a Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence, Jonathan Larson Award. Works created and authored: River of Stone, Red Pine, The Way They Lived, Ajijaak on Turtle Island, Hear Me Say My Name, among others. Ty is an artEquity facilitator, co-founder of Indigenous Direction (with Larissa FastHorse), member of All My Relations Collective—  Devised Theater Working Group at the Public Theater building GIZHIBAA GIIZHIG | Revolving Sky at Under the Radar’s Incoming!).  Publications: Casting a Movement, Pitkin Review, Thorny Locust Magazine, Howl Round, and Routledge Press. Degrees from CalArts, Goddard College, + NYU Tisch. Movement Direction: Mother Road,Dir. Bill Rauch (OSF), Manahatta, Dir. Laurie Woolery (OSF + Yale Rep), and Choreographer for Tracy Lett’s The Minutes (Broadway). Appeared on the Netflix show; Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Broadway debut in Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, Dir. Anna Shapiro. Lives in NYC + loves the color clear. He|We, www.allmyrelations.earth, tydefoe.com

Shreelina Ghosh practiced the 2000- year old Odissi dance under eminent Odissi exponent, Guru Aloka Kanungo since the age of four. Shreelina has performed widely across India and the USA. Her choreographic work includes Panamami Buddham, Vayu: Visions of the Wind, Vyom: Mind of the Aether, and Shivaaradhana. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric and Writing from Michigan State University and is currently Assistant Professor of English and Director of Composition at Gannon University. Her research interests mostly center at the intersections of cultural and digital rhetorics, and performance. Her current research examines the use of technology as a tool of online and hybrid learning and explores the relationship between traditional and online pedagogic and performative practices.

Carrie Preston serves as Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and the Arvind and Chandan Nandlal Kilachand Professor Director, Kilachand Honors College at Boston University. Her research and teaching interests include modernist literature, performance, and dance, feminist and queer theory, and transnational and postcolonial studies. Her book, Modernism’s Mythic Pose: Gender, Genre, Solo Performance, was released in Oxford University Press’s Modernist Literature and Culture Series in 2011 and received the De La Torre Bueno Prize in dance studies. She is currently working on a book called Participate! Race and Gender in the Audience for Interactive Theater.