Artists Reach Out: Greg Purnell and Tendayi Kuumba

Dear friends,

Welcome to Artists Reach Out: reflections in a time of isolation. I dreamed this series of interviews out of grief for my work both as a documenting arts writer and curator of live performance. In this time of social distancing, we are called to responsibly do all we can to safeguard ourselves and our neighbors. It is, literally, a matter of life and death.

But there's no distancing around what we still can share with one another--our experiences, thoughts, wisdom, humor, hearts and spirit. In some ways, there are more opportunities to do so as we pull back from everyday busyness out in the world and have time to honor the call of our inner lives.

So, let me introduce you to some artists I find interesting. I'm glad they're part of our beautiful community, and I'm eager to engage with them again (or for the first time) in years to come.

--Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Greg Purnell and Tendayi Kuumba

Greg Purnell
(photo: AngieMLV Photography)

Tendayi Kuumba
(photo: Hayim Heron Photography)

Greg Purnell is a Brooklyn-born and -bred barber, visual artist, writer and all around creative. He has cultivated and refined his multi-medium artistry and sense of vision through barbering, which has provided a beautiful reservoir of inspiration and people from vastly different walks of life and cultural backgrounds. Greg has been featured in the 2015 BRIC Stoop Series Barbershop Stories: it's all about hair and BRIC TV's Brooklyn Made series. Other features include Afropunk, BAM, OkayAfrica and Nike collaborations, and webseries feature in I Don't Camouflage by Aiko Tanaka. He embodies various practices such as sound designer, lighting designer, director and music creator for various solo and collaborative works. Past choreographic/creative works include collaborations with Tendayi Kuumba, Courtney Cook, Urban Bush Women, The Illustrious Blacks, and MVMNT PHLSPY.

Currently, Greg is the Founder and primary visionary of artistic lab/creation space The Golden Ratio Project, where he has developed his own brand of barbering utilizing aesthetics, art, music and storytelling to create a personable therapeutic experience. He recently self-produced the art exhibition 33, commemorating his 33 years of barbering in collaboration with his visual artistry. Greg Purnell believes all forms of art and expression are united by our dreams, and it is through technique and passion that our dreams become realities.

International singer, songwriter, and choreographer Tendayi Kuumba is a Spelman College graduate with a BA in Drama with a Dance Concentration. Her training as a youth ranges from Buffalo Inner City Ballet, Ballethnic, Callanwolde Fine Arts, and Moving in the Spirit. As a Brooklyn transplant, her choreographic roots embody a long throughline of musical exploration, vocal portals, response of the body and storytelling. Her past choreographic works have been on multiple platforms including Danspace, HiArts, Harlem Stage and BRICLab.

Frequent collaborators include Greg Purnell and Courtney Cook. She has worked with choreographers Marjani Forté-Saunders, ASÉ Dance Theater Collective, Nathan Trice/ Rituals Performance Project, Jim Findlay's "Electric Lucifer" workshop and Philadelphia Operas’ We Shall Not be Moved, directed by Bill T. Jones. In 2018, she toured as one of two backup singer/dancers on the American Utopia World Tour of the Talking Heads leading man and Grammy Nominated singer/songwriter/recording artist David Byrne and has gone on to make her debut in David Byrne's America Utopia on Broadway.

In other spaces, she's generating and co-creating artistic collaborations and spaces such as The Golden Ratio Project, in Brooklyn, NY alongside Greg Purnell. Recent projects include U.F.O (Unidentified Fly Objects): Stardust Melanin under the Gibney New Voices: Spotlight residency Spring 2020 and Danspace Project's Platform 2020: Utterances from the Chorus in collaboration with Greg Purnell. As well as being a mindful member of the Voice/Body Danspace platform, a creator within 100 Years/100 Women with Urban Bush Women, and a practitioner in Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Borns’ Sitting on a Man’s Head.  She  gives thanks and blessings for life, love, breath, and the pursuit of happiness through creativity.

Kuumba and Purnell in collaboration
(photo: AngieMLV Photography)

Do you have a current or planned project whose progress is affected by the pandemic?

Yes, we were a part of other productions at Danspace that were canceled. We ended up turning our production that was set to premiere at Gibney into a digital sharing instead. Also Greg's scheduled art exhibition in Soho was canceled.

Briefly, tell me about how you got involved in the arts and in your particular practice.

Greg's beginning as a barber from age 12 opened many other artistic outlets. His particular practices include as visual art, writing, and music.

Tendayi has performed as a dancer from age 3 and vocalist from age 7.  Various dance schools, performing art schools, and mentorships have informed her practices.

In a more specific way, what are you practicing? And what are you envisioning?

Collectively, we are diving into different art forms and practices to create a multimedia experience--specifically looking at how dance, music, storytelling, visual art, mixed media, and technology intersect. We're envisioning a more full-bodied experience that can translate across multiple platforms. Also, how we can create these experiences and stories with the social and technological changes occurring in today's world?

How does your practice and your visioning align with what you most care about?

We most care about the healing of our people and community. Our practices consist of questioning the what and whys of the world we live in. They represent ways of addressing voids that exist and broadening perspectives and connections.

How does your practice function within the world we have now?

We are remaining open to different forms of artistic expression. Our practices give us ways to adapt in the ever so changing climate we're in. We are immersing ourselves in learning and understating our connecting to technology and how we can use it to push deeper into our art making.

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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Imprinting (Dan)space: Tendayi Kuumba and Samita Sinha

Left: Tendayi Kuumba (photo: Angie Vasquez)
Right: Samita Sinha (photo: Aram Jibilian)

A shared evening of new work by Tendayi Kuumba and Samita Sinha
Danspace Project
April 25 and April 27, 2019

collective terrain/s is a collective research process into sounding in the body. How does the body open up possibilities for voice and resistance? What resonances in the voice and body exist beyond language?

 --from Danspace Project

As part of an evening organized by collective terrain/s, composer and vocalist Samita Sinha--with numerous collaborating vocalists of cultural diversity--creates a force field of sonic energy to surround an audience informally positioned at the center, not the perimeter, of the performance space. Infinity Folds is vocal music in motion, a lovely, luscious gift that makes you the focus of a meditative sonic bath and massage, your aura tingling. It's marvelously coordinated as the circle of vocalists shape and move breath--moans and drones, trills and low roars--into the outer air, using softly-adjusted bodies as tuning devices. You absorb the circling and circling soundscape that builds, pulses, overlaps, presses towards listeners and then ebbs, flares in spots, sometimes drops away entirely. Set in the sacred and justice-conscious space of St. Mark's Church, this loving ritual feels and sounds so right. You might never want it to end. [Performed by Regina Bain, Rina Espiritu, Fana Fraser, Yingjia Lemon Guo, Chaesong Kim, Risha Lee, Okwui Okpokwasili, lily bo shapiro, Samita Sinha, Sheena Sood and Helen Yung]

Somewhere in the midst of U.F.O.:(Unidentified Fly Objects), made and performed by Tendayi Kuumba in creative collaboration with Greg Purnell, an intermittent projection flashes against an upper corner of the church's wall. It images a patch of cloudy sky lit up by the glow of lightning. Kuumba's formidably quirky self-presentation gives way to something simply majestic, and you realize: this unpredictable, kinda scary woman is lightning. Folding, writhing, recoiling, she lights up the night with pure energy coursing through every stretch of her without impediment. The piece--accompanied by Purnell, seated at a desk, working a soundboard and providing a strong, rumbling ostinato--also features Kuumba's vocals. In body and voice--and soul--she is jazz.

We already whole, she sings. Even through the rain/somehow we always maintain.

We already home.

Purnell sings with her.

Can't break my soul.

Now hear that!

Choreography: Tendayi Kuumba
Creative concepts, lighting, dramaturgy, set design and songwriting/musical composition created with collaborator Greg Purnell

collective terrain/s is organized by Lydia Bell, Jasmine Hearn and Tatyana Tenenbaum. To learn more about collective terrain/s's activities and the series' publication--designed by collective please--click here.

A shared evening of new work by Tendayi Kuumba and Samita Sinha concludes tomorrow (Saturday) with a performance at 8pm. For the best effects, come a bit early to get a prime seat in the center, though you can also sit along the church's risers. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project

131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue), Manhattan

(map/directions)

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

******

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