Date of Award
Spring 6-3-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Digital Media
First Advisor
Mark Cetilia
Second Advisor
k. funmilayo aileru
Third Advisor
Ebony L. Haynes
Abstract
This thesis offers a performative methodology to engaging with the worlds and ideas that these words have generated in the form of a glossary. The list of words include: Ancestor, Anointing, Attune, Breath, Conjure, Conversion, Dance, Erotic, Ephemera, Ethervism, God, Girlhood, Hallelujah, Imagination, Improvisation, Jazz, Knowledge, Love, Liturgical, Magic, Memory, Performance, Prayer, Remnant, Repetition, Ritual, Root, Sacred/Secular, Silence/Stillness, Sound, Spell, Spirit, Testimony, Water, and Witness. Personal reflections, contemplations and expansions from other writing, and passages that come out of Black feminist thought, Black girlhood studies, and Black performance theory exist here simultaneously. This glossary demonstrates the theory, theology and lineages that are integral to my artistic vision, how I will always consider Spirit in what I do. The dance is in embodying and manifesting that in which defies definition. I believe this is present in our bodies, our lives, what we create, who we emanate, our research, that in which we hold close, our beliefs, and so much more.
Recommended Citation
Smalls, Kamari A., "Instances of the Spirit (Glossary)" (2023). Masters Theses. 1025.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1025
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Africana Studies Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons, Liturgy and Worship Commons, Women's Studies Commons
Comments
View exhibition online: Kamari Smalls, Pretty's Forest