Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
Live Feed In-Process – Chameleon
Through a sequence of fabric and sound manipulations designed to obscure and reorganize how the Black body is witnessed and expressed in confined environments, Chameleon (The Chelsea Installments) examine the shapeshifting, illegible, and fugitive realities of Black diasporan people. The work explores how minoritarian communities record & affirm their existence through actions and protests that archive personal freedom narratives as a way to subvert culturally charged fields of systemic oppression, loss, and erasure.
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is a Nigerian American poet, curator, and performance artist originally from Detroit, MI. He is a 2019 Red Bull Arts Detroit Writing Fellow, 2018-2020 Live Feed Artist at New York Live Arts, a 2019 DiP Resident Artist at Gibney, a 2019 National Dance Project Award recipient, a 2017 Princeton Arts Fellow, a 2017 Jerome Foundation Artist in Residence at Abrons Arts Center, and a 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Fellow. He lectures, speaks, and performs internationally. His previous works #negrophobia (nominated for a 2016 Bessie Award) and Séancers have toured throughout Europe, appearing in major festivals including Moving in November (Finland), TakeMeSomewhere (UK), SICK! (UK), Tanz im August (Berlin), Oslo Internasjonale Teaterfestival (Norway), Zurich MOVES! (Switzerland), Beursschouwburg (Belgium) and Spielart Festival (Munich), among others. He was an inaugural graduate member of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) at Wesleyan University, where he earned his MA in Curatorial Studies. Visit: jaamil.com or @jaamilkosoko to learn more.
The Live Feed creative residency program is a laboratory for the development of new commissioned work directed toward our theater. This informal workshop showing offers a sneak peek into the artist’s process and ideas before they hit our stage. Taking place within the intimate working space of the Live Arts studio, each showing is followed by a discussion with the artist moderated by special guests and Live Arts staff.
The Live Feed program is supported in part by by Rockefeller Brothers Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Partners for New Performance.
