University at Buffalo (UB)
Presenting IACE Lecture: "Release+ Reframe: Ancestral Aesthetics, Collective Elevation" with Eniola Dawodu
Published October 28, 2019
The International Artistic & Cultural Exchange Program / I.A.C.E. of the UB Department of Theatre & Dance presents
The IACE Lectures: Eniola Dawodu, "Release+ Reframe: Ancestral Aesthetics, Collective Elevation"
Sponsored by the Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies , Department of Theatre & Dance, and HI Performance Research Workshop.
Wednesday November 20, 2019 @ 5:00 pm
Alumni Arena 195, North Campus
Lecture free and open to the public. A reception will follow
“I create echoes through time and space; the beauty, value and majesty of my ancestors and our stories. We are infinite. Our power, excellence, wisdom and legacy continue to grow with time and through natural order.”
With this ethos, Eniola Dawodu will share her creative research and explorations across costume, garment, and sculpture. Moved to release boundaries and reframe her practice with intention and attention to materiality rooted in the ancestral, she will speak to the narrative potency of ancestral African dress practices and the cultural significance of honoring one's personal truth.
Eniola Dawodu is an artist and costume designer engaged in the cultural archiving of narratives via African textiles and aesthetics of self-presentation. With reverence to foremothers, Dawodu reimagines garments of power as masques within which space is held for the latent proclamations of ancestral African experiences. Her research and creative practice privilege traditional dress practice; the mythology, motif, and methodology, as potent conduits for cross-generational communication, situated in the liminal and powerfully charged with legacy and history. In alliance with master artisans via ancient techniques, past and present-day collapse into cross-dimensional expression. Woven memoirs unite; a foundation within which truths are expressed. Dawodu is a British-born Nigerian