Joya Powell + Courtney Henry

Created in West Palm Beach, Florida and further educated in NYC, Courtney Henry received her BFA graduating Magna Cum Laude in the Class of 2011 at Fordham University/The Ailey School. Before graduating, Courtney was offered a contract with Alonzo King LINES Ballet, where she danced for seven years becoming a Principal Dancer with the company, touring and performing all over the world. In 2018 she flew to Berlin, Germany where she was a guest soloist with Richard Siegal’s “Ballet of Difference”. Her work has been featured as a performer and critical contributor in Dance Magazine, Pointe, DIYDancer Magazine, among others. Courtney is an awardee of the Princess Grace Foundation – USA and Chris Hellman Dance award, a YAGP ‘Stars of Tomorrow Gala’ Alumni, and a Goethe Institute Research Beneficiary, The University of the Arts President’s Award for Innovative & Creative Research. https://www.courtneyhenry.org/ + https://www.instagram.com/co__...

A multiethnic Harlemite, Joya Powell is a Bessie Award-winning Choreographer and Educator passionate about community, activism, and dances of the African Diaspora. Throughout her career she has danced with choreographers such as Paloma McGregor, Nicole Stanton, and Katiti King. In 2005 Joya founded Movement of the People Dance Company, dedicated to addressing injustices through multidisciplinary immersive Afrofuturist dance. Her work has appeared in various venues including: BAM, Lincoln Center, SummerStage, La Mama, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Dance Complex, Movement Research @ Judson Church, BAAD!. Recent awards include: Angela’s Pulse’s North Star Arts Incubator, CUNY Dance Initiative AIR, The Unsettling Dramaturgy Award. She is a collaborating member of Dance Caribbean Collective and Radical Evolution Theater Company, as well as a co-director of Angela’s Pulse’s Dancing While Black 10th anniversary season. Joya is a Professor of the Practice in Dance at Wesleyan University. https://linktr.ee/mopdc + https://www.instagram.com/ayoj...

Courtney and Joya started their collaborative time-traveling visionings while completing their MFA’s at The University of the Arts, where they co-conjured their research as action aka thesis.

[ID: Courtney and Joya, two very tall BIPOC women, have their backs to the camera. They lean into each other shoulder to shoulder. Courtney wears a dark blue jumpsuit with a mustard headwrap, and Joya wears a black jumpsuit and a black and white headwrap. Strings of lights wrap around both of their bodies.]