Dancer
Choreographer
Performance Artist
Cultural Practitioner
Teaching Artist
uwazi (name as my pronoun) is a celebrated Black queer, interdisciplinary performance artist from Houston, Texas. uwazi holds a BFA in Dance Performance and a BA in African and African Diaspora Studies with an emphasis in Black Performance Theory and Black Queer Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. uwazi also holds an MFA in Dance from the University of the Arts and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate and Teaching Fellow in Dance at Temple University.
uwazi has performed and worked under the artistic direction of choreographers Kevin Wynn, Steven Iannacone, Dorrell Martin, Elijah Gibson, Stephanie Martinez, Harrison Guy, Iquail Shaheed, and Charles O. Anderson. uwazi has also serves as a research consultant, sound designer, and dramaturg to Tommie-Waheed Evans and his company, waheedworks.
uwazi models a choreographic and pedagogical practice reflective of Black trans and queer cultural and archival practices. This practice exudes an intentional authority over elements like space, body, identity and sound to exhibit a simultaneity of engagement, refusal, and protest. uwazi is deeply invested in building worlds that open our capacities for intentional dialogue and transformative justice, while unraveling the complexities of Black queer intercorporeality and Black modes of being.