The Brutal Joy by Justine A. Chambers

Beauty is not a luxury, rather it is a way of creating possibility in the space of enclosure, a radical act of subsistence, an embrace of our terribleness, a transfiguration of the given. It is a will to adorn, a proclivity for the baroque, and the love of too much.
–Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

The Brutal Joy unfurls Black vernacular line dance and sartorial gesture as intellectual discourse, reverie, and devotion to Black-living. As a scored improvisation for dance, light, and sound, The Brutal Joy explores these diasporic practices as knowledge reservoirs and outward facing, physically dialogic activations that allow for actualizing oneself at present in a dance of future possibilities. The performers’ attention oscillates between compositional structures of the riff, the vamp, and the break, while attending to the mutually dependent processes of individuation and ritualization. Gesture, gait, gaze, rhythm, textural sound, shadow, and light are the materials for proposing “What if?” and “Now what?” as provisional questions towards imagining otherwise. Centering dance and attire as relational and living counter-archives, the work considers movement and personal style as tools for self-determination and the collective reclamation of Black humanitarian value.
Choreography and performance: Justine A. Chambers
Sound design and performance: Mauricio Pauly
Lighting design and performance: James Proudfoot
Dramaturgy: Vanessa Kwan
Garments by: Old Fashioned Standards
Hair by: Liam Murley

All entrances to the Studio Loft are accessible.  Wheelchair accessible seating locations are available where patrons can remain in their wheelchairs or transfer to theatre seats.  Accessible seating will be arranged upon arrival.  Courtesy wheelchairs are available upon request, call 720.865.4200 upon arrival. You will need to provide them with the make, model, and color of your vehicle, as well as your location.  They will then contact the House Management team to meet you with a wheelchair.  Wheelchair accessible parking is located in the DPAC Garage on levels 3, 4, and 5; there is also curbside drop off at 14^th Street between Curtis and Champa.