Erv Works Choreography Reel
Erv Works Reel - Featuring performances from Dance Lab NY, Thelma Hill Performing Arts Residency, The University of Illinois Partnership with State Farm Center, The Joyce Theater, Global Black Pride Festival and more.
Possible: Imagination is the Root of Change (Excerpt)
Performed by Dimensions Dance Theater of Miami, this piece is part of a larger collection of work in conversation with the system of incarcerated African Americans in America. This piece tells the story of Keith Lamar, an inmate at the Ohio State Penitentiary falsely accused of murder. The accompaniment is a custom score that Keith and Music Director Albert Marques created from the Freedom First Album.
DONOR
The name of the game is loss: loss of loved ones, loss of love, loss of opportunity, and loss of self. The piece maintains its identity in the in-between spaces of loss. Donor is about seeing the world around you without being able to interact with it or yourself, fighting to regain self-awareness, and navigating heartbreak.
NARCISSUS
“Loving one’s self is great in theory but the practice is significantly more challenging. Environmental factors such as home life, community, ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity all play roles in how we approach the person that looks back in the mirror. The creation of this piece explores this narrative via character work and movement study.” "NARCISSUS" - partly inspired by Greek mythology and the negative connotations that people perceive coming with self-love. And partially inspired by the flower itself and the beautiful side of that same coin.
Performed at the Ailey Studio and commissioned by Accent Dance NY.
Veiled from the Womb (Excerpt)
Choreographed by Will A. Ervin Jr. thanks to the Sol El Bario Residency spearheaded by Maria Torres O'Connor and sponsored by New York Theatre Barn.
Musical Accompaniment: How I Love by Arturo O'Farrill
Veiled from the Womb, explores memories of erasure. The grandson of an African American Grandfather and Puertorican and White grandmother, Wills aunts, mothers and siblings were not allowed to learn Spanish or the cultural heritage of his grandmother. As a result, the piece explores brief glimpses of that culture and its suppression as well as what it may have been like were he to have been exposed.
Knock Knock
A virtual graduation present to self, a celebration of black queer joy, and an ode to the music and dance genres that have made Will the performer he is today.
Performance of A Live Performance (excerpt)
Explore with us how the development of community and movement through memory strengthens bonds, furthering human innovation.
The problem encountered is some memories feel so important; humans believe a perfect recording is etched in their minds. In twelve months, up to fifty percent of the details of any specific memory are no longer accurate. But because it lives in the body, it always translates to movement one way or another.
According to many scientific studies, our most significant memories, which form the foundation of our life story, are not perfect recordings. Memories are unreliable because they're more like live performances playing and pulling together from brain segments involving sense, touch, emotion, place, and facts forming inaccurate moments.
I argue that the purpose of memories, while significant at its fundamental level for survival, is more profound, serving to form the foundations of personality and who we (plural and singular) are.