Forté-Saunders is a Mother, choreographer, performer, community organizer and a three time Bessie award winner. She is a 2023 United States Artists Fellow and recently presented the restaging of heralded choreographer Blondell Cummings’s solo Chicken Soup, re-imagined for Danspace Project’s 50th Anniversary. In 2024, Forté-Saunders also celebrated her choreographic debut with the New York Metropolitan Opera, El Niño. She is an awardee of the prestigious Dance Magazine Harkness Award (2020) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fellowship. She is a founding member of the collective 7NMS, alongside composer and husband Everett Saunders and an anti-racist organizer & facilitator, with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Humbly, Saunders defines her work by its lineage, stemming from culturally rich, vibrant, historic, loving, irreverent conjurers!

Marjani in white shirt, pants and apron walking away from a brown paper grocery bag. One heel is lifted as her hands cling to her clothes. A moment from Blondell Cummings' Chicken Soup @ Danspace Project. Photo by Rachel Keane.
ID: Marjani in white shirt, pants and apron walking away from a brown paper grocery bag. One heel is lifted as her hands cling to her clothes. A moment from Blondell Cummings' Chicken Soup @ Danspace Project. Photo by Rachel Keane.