Suga’: A Live Virtual Dance Performance

A Story of Resistance & Resilience

Suga’, is an immersive experience that features live dance performance as volumetric video in social virtual reality space. The journey transports us through the historical reality of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and  the establishment of the sugar industry, which has had a lasting legacy on our world today. Suga’ weaves together movement, family stories and cultural heritage to imagine virtual environments as a site for healing and reclamation of spaces that were historically filled with pain and injustice. The performance takes place in Mozilla Hubs and utilizes low-cost hardware and open-source software that allows artists to perform from their own living spaces.


The experience can be viewed via web browser and does not require VR headsets. 

Trigger Warning: Some scenes contain sensitive content that may be triggering to some individuals.

View Recorded Experience in Mozilla Hubs

Best Experience Tips

For best access we recommend using a desktop or laptop computer. Please use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers for the best experience. 

Access Information:

If using Google Chrome, you may enable automatice captions in your browser. Here is a link to the spoken text of the performance:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IvOZWBC1tpfaprX7DY4xQ4et7jQpfhll70TJDFEzD0c/edit?usp=sharing

Performance Credits:

Artistic Director, Performer: Valencia James

Technical Director: Thomas Wester

Head of Production: Simon Boas

Technical artist: Holly Newlands

3D Artist: Marin Vesely

Experience Guide, Visual Artist: Sandrine Malary

Rehearsal Director, Sound/Visuals: Terri Ayanna Wright



Music credits:

 Ori

Composed by: Stefan Walcott


Bajan Folk Medley

Composed by: Nicholas Timothy 

Arranged by: Stefan Walcott

Performed by: 1688 Collective 


SOL 528 Trio PUR 

Composed by: The Real Horst



Spatial data credits:

CyArk 2019: Annaberg Plantation - LiDAR - Terrestrial , Photogrammetry . Collected by CyArk , Trimble . Distributed by Open Heritage 3D. https://doi.org/10.26301/vv0h-dq68


Made possible throught the support of Eyebeam and The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University. 

Artists

Valencia James

Artistic Director, Performer

Valencia James is a Barbadian freelance performer, maker, and researcher interested in the intersection between dance, theatre, technology, and activism. She believes in the power of the arts to inspire change. Valencia’s work explores how emerging technologies like machine learning and computer vision might enhance creativity in her contemporary dance practice and vice-versa. She has presented her work at several international forums such as the 2015 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires and TEDxGoteborg. She has been a 2020 Rapid Response Fellow at Eyebeam, where she co-founded the Volumetric Performance Toolbox, a project that responds to the global pandemic by envisioning live online 3D dance performance as a new way for artists to connect to audiences from their living spaces using minimal equipment. Currently she is a Spring 2021 Remote Resident for Open-Source Software Art Tools at Carnegie Mellon University.


ThomasWester_portrait.jpg

Thomas Wester

Technical Director

Thomas Wester co-founded Glowbox, a spatial interaction lab based in Portland, Oregon. Through Glowbox, he builds shared reality experiences that blend physical and digital to connect people to ideas, nature, and each other. He has worked with The Royal Shakespeare Company, Library of Congress, Hermès, Microsoft, Nike, MoMA, MFA Boston, and exhibited at Tribeca and Sundance.

simonboas_headshot.jpg

Simon Boas

Head of Production

Simon Boas investigates technology, culture, and aesthetics through socially engaged art and design, often working under the collective moniker Midgray. His work has been exhibited internationally through SIGGRAPH, Eyebeam, the Institute of Network Cultures, Neural, and Digicult. His art and research have received awards from the Oregon Arts Commission and the University of California. He holds a M.F.A. degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is currently based in Portland, Oregon, where he works as a creative technologist and educator.

HollyNewlands_headshot.jpg

Holly Newlands

Technical Artist

Holly Newlands makes games and other playful experiences. Their work has been exhibited at festivals including Currents Virtual, A MAZE. / BERLIN, XOXO, and IndieCade. Holly recently graduated from the University of Oregon’s art and technology program with a B.F.A. They currently reside in Portland, Oregon, where they work at Glowbox as a technical artist and developer.



MarinVesely_portrait.jpg

Marin Vesely

3D Artist

Marin Vesely is a Los Angeles-based artist and designer with a passion for technology, activism, and collaboration. Marin's work has been exhibited internationally in Brazil, Norway, and the United States.



Sandrine screenshot.png

Sandrine Malary

Experience Guide, Visual Artist

Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Sandrine Malary is part of a new generation of Haitian artists

who maintain close ties to their motherland and its culture. She has a degree in Psychology

from the George Washington University, which she uses to relate to her community and to

parent. She is a mother of 4 children. Two home-birthed in Ayiti and two in Oakland, CA. With

self-sustenance as a life approach, Sandrine has homeschooled her kids, built a home garden

and created home-based on-line businesses as an artist and educator. Keeping her roots

strong, she dances Haitian folklore, teaches Kreyol and her art is very inspired by Vodou. Much

of her focus is to uplift, not just Ayiti, but women, black people, and our planet. Sandrine

advocates for green, sustainable living with a focus on health and wellness. You can often find

her walking local trails with her group “Sistas on the Trail”, creating therapeutic copper jewelry

for www.houseofalouba.com, or working on her upcoming vegan cookbook.



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Terri Ayanna Wright

Rehearsal Director, Sound/Visual Effects

Terri Ayanna Wright (multimedia artist) hails from Baton Rouge, Louisiana by way of Houston, Texas, and has called New York City her home since 2011. She is an honors graduate of the Ailey/Fordham BFA Program, with a major in dance and minor in computer science. Immediately after graduating, Ms. Wright toured internationally as a company member with Ailey II, where she was completely enthralled by the wide-range of live production teams, theaters, and audiences from city to city. She has since been granted opportunities to choreograph and teach all over the world, most notably as an Ailey Extension Instructor in Italy for Orsalina28's Summer Intensive. After performing with Carolyn Dorfman Dance for two seasons, Ms. Wright joined The Met Opera, as an ensemble dancer in Porgy & Bess, choreographed by Camille A. Brown. Through this experience, she began exploring the many facets of live production, beyond the performance act itself. She is a recent honors graduate of Parsons with an MFA in Design & Technology, which has allowed her to expand her storytelling capabilities through the marriage of dance, digital video, and visual effects.

Image Citations

Annaberg sugar mill 

CyArk 2019: Annaberg Plantation - LiDAR - Terrestrial , Photogrammetry . Collected by CyArk , Trimble . Distributed by Open Heritage 3D. https://doi.org/10.26301/vv0h-dq68


Artwork in Forest scene

Bain, Sugar mill in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1916 accessed June 9, 2021, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sugar_mill_in_Bridgetown,_Barbados_in_1916.jpg

 

Brady, Matthew, Scourged back 1863, Accessed June 29, 2021, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71185842

Clark, William, "Planting Sugar Cane, Antigua, West Indies, 1823", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed June 9, 2021, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1115

Clark, William, "Sugar Boiling House, Antigua, West Indies, 1823", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed June 29, 2021, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1108


Dogfacebob, Bussa Emancipation Statue, Barbados, Sculptor: Karl Broodhagen

Accessed June 9, 2021  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54215276


Malary, Sandrine, “Representation of Breffu”, 2021,  Original artwork for Suga’- A Live Virtual Dance Performance.



Valentine, William Dobson, Sugar cane cutters in Jamaica, 1891, Published in U.S. in 1893. Ward, Charles James. World’s Fair, Jamaica at Chicago, An Account Descriptive of the Colony of Jamaica. New York, W. J. Pell, printer.  Accessed : June 9, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Valentine_and_Sons_-_Cane_Cutters,_Jamaica,_1891.jpg.

Verdier, Marcel, "Whipping of a Fugitive Slave, French West Indies, 1840s", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed June 30, 2021, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/3107

Unknown author, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, leader of Haitian Revolution - Peinture murale à Port-au-Prince, Accessed June 9, 2021,   https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13401352


Unknown Author, "Slaves Working on a Plantation", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed June 9, 2021, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1037



Unknown Author, "Animal-Powered Sugar Mill, Martinique, 1835", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed June 29, 2021, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1036


Unknown Author, "Iron Mask, Neck Collar, Leg Shackles, and Spurs, 18th cent.", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed June 9, 2021, Source: http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1298


References

BBC, 2021.  Britain and the Caribbean, accessed June 8, 2021,  https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zjyqtfr/revision/3

Butler, Octavia. 2004. Kindred, Beacon Press, Boston.


CyArk, Annaberg Sugar Plantation exhibit, accessed June 9, 2021, https://cyark.org/projects/annaberg-sugar-plantation/in-depth


Desir, Dowoti. 2020. Redlining a Holocaust Memorials and the People of the Afroatlantic: Wòch Kase Wòch. Lulu Publishing Services.


Johnson, Elizabeth Ofosuah. 2018. The story of Breffu, a female slave from Ghana who led a massive slave revolt to take over the West Indies in 1733, accessed June 8, 2021,

https://face2faceafrica.com/article/the-story-of-breffu-a-female-slave-from-ghana-who-led-a-massive-slave-revolt-to-take-over-the-west-indies-in-1733


Norton, Holly. 2018. Breffu: a slave, a rebel, a fighter – and a woman almost invisible to history, accessed June 8, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/20/breffu-a-slave-a-rebel-a-fighter-and-a-woman-almost-invisible-to-history


Stuart, Andrea. 2012. Sugar in the Blood. Vintage Books, New York. 

Show Dates

A limited number of live performances will take place in Mozilla Hubs on the following dates: 


Thurs. 5th Aug. 

4pm- 4:30pm  PDT

5pm-5:30pm PDT 


Friday 6th Aug. 

11am- 11:30am PDT

12pm-12:30pm PDT 


Sign up here to join the live performances.

A link to the performance will be emailed to registrants only on the day the show. A limited number of places are available for the live performances. The recorded 3D experience will be made available from August 7th on this webpage.