Love Notes

Created in partnership with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and published in print and online in March 2021, Love Notes is a love letter to the Dayton community wrapped up in the beauty and elegance of bodies in perpetual motion. In Love Notes, we danced together and explored our relationship to our community through a production that is one part love song and two parts visual story-telling. Deeply inspired by stories, archival, and photographic narratives of love, family, and kinship we collected from across the region, guest choreographers premiered short dance works dedicated to the complex facets of love. This segment presents an auditory snippet of the digital experience which included a collection of moving narratives, performances, photography, and poetry that asked audiences to feel the nuanced emotions and grand feelings of love for the place we call home. All poetry readings below are by Shonna Hickman-Matlock.

• I Self

• II Ancestors

• III The Moon

• Seli’s Love

• haiku

• Prologue For A Time Travel Novel

• new knowing

• 03:15:47

• Can you believe it? (a testimony)

• Chicago II

• Smog Longing