Suffrage PRoject: Expanded
Suffrage historically means ‘a short intercession or prayer.’ The Suffrage Project: Expanded is just that, a prayer for a more perfect union that considers the universal right to vote as paramount to a healthy democracy. In the next 4 dances, 4 company dancers explore their own histories and heritages.
Má’s Journey
Company dancer April Tra created this solo to acknowledge the sentiments and life experience of her mother in Vietnam before coming to the United States as a refugee. The solo blends time periods as April depicts both her mother as a young woman and herself today. This is just one part of a journey that is taken by so many refugees across centuries. Má is now a U.S. citizen, and can enact on her right to vote and participate in society right alongside her grown children.
UNending
Jordan Daley, who’s currently quarantining Virginia a place fraught with the painful history of slavery in America, considers the continual surpression of the black vote 150 years after Black men were granted the suffrage in the United States.
Mohtaran’s Story
Company Dancer, Ashley Akhavan, honors her Iranian heritage by sharing the story of Mohtaran, a Persian woman in the early 1900’s who began a women’s suffrage movement in Persia.