Dancer Jennifer Harge explores black women’s emotions in new project

ontemporary dancer Jennifer Harge’s body of work encompasses movement, performance art and black culture. Through her collective Harge Dance Stories, she explores the stories surrounding black bodies.

Her newest venture, the (Her)stor(ies) Project, is a performance piece she and four other dancers began working on through a research grant at The Carr Center. The project has evolved into an evening-length dance performance exploring how grief, pleasure and protest impact black women.

“I was thinking about how I was handling grief and whose grief I was holding onto. People who I felt connected to through being black,” Harge says. “I was thinking how black women historically have had to handle grief, and whose grief they were responsible for.”

The contemporary dances in the performance will oscillate focus between two subjects: pleasure and grief.

“For us, we were thinking about how we access pleasure as black women. And a lot of that comes from sisterhood and fun, dancing in the bathroom with my cousins, getting ready for a party or like shedding everything, taking the grief off of us,” Harge says.

The (Her)stor(ies) Project runs 8 p.m. April 13-15 at Light Box Detroit. Tickets are available here. More at hargedancestories.com.