CLAPBACK is about the power of black asses to shed our colonial oppressions, transcend the expectation of dying young, and shift the earth’s gravitational field and jettison evil trolls.

Working across dance performance, sculpture, and educational forums “as ways to consider political issues of race and gender,” the event will feature the institution “as a white, blank surface, which niv Acosta aims to mark by means of his choreographic action, moving across – and against – his audience.

niv Acosta is a dance artist, educator, black Dominican, transexual, queer native New Yorker. He attended the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance (NYC), American Dance Festival (Duke Univ.) and CalArts (Dance BFA). In 2010 niv received an Art and Social Change Grant from The Leeway Foundation with which he presented two solo works titled “denzel” and “denzel prelude” at Studio 34 in Philadelphia. niv’s work and thought leadership has been featured in many publications including Performance Journal, VICE, Brooklyn Magazine, Apogee Journal and more. His performance work has shown at various spaces nationally including The Kimmel Center (Philly), Human Resources (L.A.), MOMA PS1, Studio Museum, New York Live Arts, New Museum, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Danspace Project among many. niv has collaborated with artists Deborah Hay, André Singleton, Monstah Black, A.K. Burns, Andrea Geyer, Ralph Lemon, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Larissa Velez-Jackson.

Presented by ICA Gather, a new programming series that presents special programs that are collaboratively produced in partnership with area community and campus groups.

This event is free and open to the public. Register here.

This performance is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Bring Your Own Body: transgender between archives and aesthetics, curated by Jeanne Vaccaro with Stamatina Gregory and on display at the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College October 21 – December 11, 2016. Presented in partnership with the Leeway Foundation.