Maya Simone is reaching back to move forward.
New York City-based interdisciplinary artist Maya Simone Z. (they/he/she) creates performance-based work that centers emotional and spiritual connections between ancestral memory, the body, and the Black diaspora’s collective capacity to dream. They examine how brain-body-spirit connections manifest in private and civic life for Black and queer folks in both national and transnational contexts. They are particularly interested in how these tensions affect Black kinship, relationships and communities as we collectively navigate the specter of Capitalist white supremacy.
Maya Simone draws on Black movement and dance traditions, multimedia experimentation, Afro-futurism, poetry, devised theatre, and deep listening to develop work. Through a Black queer, non-binary lens and drawing on Anthropological research methods, they consider the many ways that Black folks connect to spiritual and embodied ways of knowing.
Their artistry is a means to witness and honor their family’s legacies of farming, Church going, and storytelling. Mediums they employ include movement and choreography, writing, sound, installation, video, and performance. Utilizing and interweaving these forms, Maya cultivates intimate moments that make space for learning/unlearning of embodied trauma by centering joy, pleasure, and liberatory transformations.
Photo by Whitney Browne