The Memory of Miss River, two-channel version presented at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art as part of the 2024 Louisiana Contemporary Exhibition
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The Memory of Miss River, 2023 - present
The Memory of Miss River is a video installation and moving image portrait of the Mississippi River. Here the River is imagined as an untamed mythical dual-spirit who holds the endless memory of the most important waterway in the American South. Prompted by the River's wildness and now engineered constraints, a series of gestures informed by the Mississippi River's movements (carrying, holding, diverting, flooding, draining) were choreographed and performed for the camera along the River in New Orleans. Drawing parallels between water bodies, spiritual bodies, and physical bodies, these corporeal river dances serve to symbolically incarnate the contested and celebratory aspects of the River's history and memory.
CHOREOGRAPHY: Rebecca Allen // TEXTILE DESIGN: Leah Floyd // COSTUME DESIGN + FABRICATION: Renee Johnson (Afrimodiste) // DANCERS: Rebecca Allen and Jaeda Barrett // Direction, camera, and sound: Cristina Molina