Black & Indigenous People’s Virtual Dance Festival at Freshly Re-Opened Pier 62

SEATTLE — If you could sum up 2020 with a dance, what would it be? An amazing selection of artists and cultural groups shares their answers to the question of our times, on Thursday, Nov. 12, 6 p.m., at “Reflections”, a virtual dance festival. This online event celebrates Indigenous and Black performing arts and culture. The backdrop of “Reflections” is also the unveiling of the waterfront’s stunningly rebuilt Pier 62. The featured emerging artists and cultural practitioners dance metaphorically using the waters of memory, the pier, and the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic as their backdrops. We ask our audience to share “what the water holds” for them, too, over social media and during the streamed program.

The Library has teamed up with Friends of Waterfront Seattle, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and Seattle Art Museum to create this unique virtual dance festival that focuses on Native American and African American art and cultural preservation via dance. You are encouraged RSVP at the Reflections Dance Festival Facebook event page (the program is free and open to everyone).

“Reflections” will feature the following performers:

Cipher Goings: 19-year-old tap dance sensation featuring local R&B singer Talaya
Kimisha Turner: multi-disciplinary artist whose “I AM” is a project celebrating Black women and is shared with support from Seattle Art Museum
The Muckleshoot Canoe Family: This Coast Salish tribe honors their ancestry with songs for the Salish Sea
Mackenzie Neusiok (Coharie): Moves fluidly through contemporary jazz choreography and a tribute to missing and murdered Indigenous women
Nia-Amina Minor: Dancer/choreographer shares a meditation on the African Diaspora with vocals by Eva Walker of The Black Tones

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Reflections is made possible with support from The Seattle Public Library Foundation.

Friends of Waterfront Seattle (“Friends”) is the nonprofit partner to the City of Seattle responsible for helping to fund, build, steward, and program the park – today and into the future. In addition to raising $110M by 2024 to fund park construction, Friends will provide funding and manage the programming and operations of the future Waterfront Park through a joint-delivery partnership with Seattle Parks & Recreation. Park construction has begun following the Viaduct’s removal and the first piece of the park — Pier 62 — is now open. Visit www.waterfrontparkseattle.org for details.

SEATTLE ART MUSEUM As the leading visual art institution in the Pacific Northwest, SAM draws on its global collections, powerful exhibitions, and dynamic programs to provide unique educational resources benefiting the Seattle region, the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. SAM was founded in 1933 with a focus on Asian art. By the late 1980s the museum had outgrown its original home, and in 1991 a new 155,000-square-foot downtown building, designed by Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates, opened to the public. The 1933 building was renovated and rededicated as the Asian Art Museum in 1994, and it reopened on February 8, 2020 following an extensive renovation and expansion. SAM’s desire to further serve its community was realized in 2007 with the opening of two stunning new facilities: the nine-acre Olympic Sculpture Park (designed by Weiss/Manfredi Architects)—a “museum without walls,” free and open to all—and the Allied Works Architecture designed 118,000-square-foot expansion of its main, downtown location, including 232,000 square feet of additional space built for future expansion. The Olympic Sculpture Park and SAM’s downtown expansion celebrated their tenth anniversary in 2017.

From a strong foundation of Asian art to noteworthy collections of African and Oceanic art, Northwest Coast Native American art, European and American art, and modern and contemporary art, the strength of SAM’s collection of approximately 25,000 objects lies in its diversity of media, cultures, and time periods. www.seattleartmuseum.org

The Seattle Public Library brings people, information and ideas together to enrich lives and build community. We support universal access to information and ideas, and form strong partnerships with community organizations to offer art that is accessible to all. www.spl.org