dance | performance
I am committed to creating work in and with my community that is rooted in social justice, born out of resilience and made in spite of the obstacles facing artists (and people) of color. My inquiry is grounded in an embodied practice, primarily as a movement-based artist, that seeks answers within bodily knowledge, collective memory and historical study. While grounded in a hybrid of movement forms- contemporary modern dance and dances of the African diaspora- I take an interdisciplinary approach that includes experimentation with text, video, projection mapping, sound design, creative coding, oral history and community based practices.
My artistic process is anchored in exploring how we access alternative/collective memory to rectify historical traumas. I investigate the ways our relationships to place impact the ways in which our bodies navigate and occupy space in order to cultivate a sense of bodily safety. I aim to facilitate artistic experiences that bring people together in order to resist and defy the attempts at erasure of marginalized bodies and their histories.
about me
Alethea Pace is a Bronx-based multidisciplinary artist and a 2023-2025 Civic Practice Partnership Artist in Residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A recipient of the 2021 Dance Magazine Harkness Promise Award, her first solo performance work, trying to sweep back the ocean with a broom, was created with support from Pepatian’s Open Call Residency and was performed at BAAD! (2016) and New York Live Arts (2017). Her second evening-length work, Bring Me Flowers, was developed with support from residencies including New York Live Arts’ Fresh Tracks, Dancing While Black, 92Y Harkness Dance and premiered at Pregones Theater in 2018.
As a dancer, Alethea has performed with a variety of choreographers and was a member of Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre for eight years. She collaborated on numerous multimedia community-centered arts works including Angela’s Pulse and the Laundromat Project. She was awarded the BRIO award and CUNY Dance Initiative in 2019 and is currently BAAD!’s Muse Artist in Residence.
Alethea trained at Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center in the Bronx. She has a BA in Urban Design from NYU where she completed her thesis project on the history of Bronx housing and an MFA in Digital and Interdisciplinary Arts from the City College of New York.
Photo by Whitney Browne
work
Here goes the neighborhood.... (2019-PRESENT)
...a universal reminder of the wealth of knowledge we have in our bodies, histories and communities
...a multimedia performance installation that includes movement, text, video, photography and audience interaction
...an invitation to reclaim space
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Bring me flowers (2018)
An offering to the Bronx, a glimpse into the memories that fill the absence of a place faced with forgetting, erasure, transformation and possibility. An invitation to reclaim space and re-empower community.
Created with support from Dancing While Black, New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Residency, New Dance Alliance Satellite Residency and Pregones/PRTT Step Up Residency.
Being is what I have been (2017)
A site specific exploration of the power dynamics of visibility and invisibility using the language of photography. A live stream camera positioned on the side wall captured video that was projected inside, giving the audience multiple vantages points.
Created for the opening of the En Foco Nueva Luz fellowship.
trying to sweep back the ocean with a broom (2016)
An investigation of racial ambiguity and crossing the color line through the lens of the Rhinelander case of 1925, in which a mixed race woman was accused of defrauding her white husband by passing as a white woman. Text by Urayoán Noel.
Created with support from the Open Call Residency, a collaboration between Pepatián and BAAD!.