Marguerite A.M. Hemmings is a Jamaican Philadelphia-based artist who specializes in emergent, improvisational and social movement styles and technologies. They focus on one’s own body, one’s own way of moving, adapting, healing, releasing, protecting, changing, and connecting to the unseen. They are a master of body ceremonies and a curator of vibes. They are researching the subversive role of dance and music throughout the African Diaspora and channels these strategies throughout their work using body, text, social/public media, and moving image. Hemmings’ work is also embedded in alternative pedagogy and social practice/research and they have worked at University of the Arts in the School of Dance, Arizona State University, Princeton University, and many afterschool programs and community centers.
Marguerite has received grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, Harlem Stage, University Settlement, Dancing While Black, Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Center Initiative, Arizona State University’s Projecting All Voices Fellowship, Abrons Arts Center, Headlong Performance Institute, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts to further their research. They’ve received a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer in Eva Yaa Asantewaa’s Skeleton Architecture as well as directed and performed in the Bessie nominated piece, ‘we free’.