When: Thursday, February 21 2019, 6:10- 7:30pm
Where: 509 Knox Hall
Transgender lives, loves and histories often get left out of the “family album,” and fall between the pages of recorded history. What does this mean for the oral history field? Who are we missing? Without investing in trans leadership, the oral history field will replicate and perpetuate the exclusion and erasure of transgender and gender-nonconforming people committed by other fields and institutions. What does this mean for the future of the field?
Sean Dorsey is the US’ first acclaimed transgender contemporary dance choreographer. He creates his works through community residencies – activating trans, gender-nonconforming and LGBTQ communities in telling their truths. Most recently, Dorsey created a trilogy of full-length dance-theater works that reveal buried, forgotten or censored parts of trans and queer history.
The third work in this trilogy, THE MISSING GENERATION, gives voice to trans and LGBTQ longtime survivors of the early AIDS epidemic. Dorsey created the work after recording 75 hours of oral history interviews with trans and LGBTQ survivors.
Dorsey will speak about the embodiment of community memory, centering trans stories, and the process of creating, performing and touring THE MISSING GENERATION to 20 cities across the US.
Sean Dorsey is a San Francisco-based transgender choreographer, dancer, writer and advocate. He has toured his work to 30 cities across the US and internationally. Dorsey has been named "San Francisco's Best Dance Company" (SF Weekly), and has been awarded four Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and the Goldie Award for Performance. He has created two evening-length works based on extensive oral history projects he conducted.
Dorsey is also the founder and Artistic Director of Fresh Meat Productions. Fresh Meat Productions invests in the creative expression and cultural leadership of transgender and gender-nonconforming communities. Fresh Meat creates and commissions new work, presents performing arts programs, conducts education and engagement, and advocates for justice and equity in the Arts.
Now in its 17th season, Fresh Meat's year-round programs include the annual FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL of transgender and queer performance, Sean Dorsey Dance's local and touring performances, FRESH WORKS! commissions for trans/queer artists of color, national LGBT community residencies, and TRANSform Dance – the nation’s first national education and advocacy program for Trans equity in Dance.
Blog posts by current OHMA students about this event: