{Kandace James}💫

I imagine us growing grass through our throats or our backs. Heart against heart, finding rhythm. Be still, be still. Begin to breathe. Our love is breath in the lungs. I will build a house here on our heartbeat and bone. Our love is heartbeat and bone. Thank you for your love. ✨We said yes to each other💍✨ Thank you @jayefrances_imagery for capturing our love Thank you @automicgold for our gorgeous rings

HEAVEN IS SOMETHING TO KEEP YOU WARM 🚪✨ It always starts with a poem. In my first year at @kennesawstateuniversity I took a class with @jennysadreorafai I wrote a poem about my granny teaching me about fireflies - How they were enslaved folks that escaped. In my first year @cmudrama , I turned that poem into a one-act play about little Black girls catching fireflies together. I used that image of fireflies, that maternal relationship, that passed down ancestral knowledge to create the choreopoem, Heaven is Something to Keep You Warm. It captures all the joy, the breath, the sun, the grief - All in a kaleidoscope of Black freedom. I want to thank - Dramaturgy, Sound, and my day one on this choreopoem: @amourannie Directed by: @tatbarawri Costumes by: @claireeeduncan The brilliant Lighting: @lkennedi Stage Directions & Acting Liaison: @imhilaryward AD/SM by: @addiesaltz PM: @madisongold23 Crew: @notreynaldoquintana and @corde_blue Set by: @tatbarawri and @cemartine.z Dynamic photos by: @so.ho.productions And to the actors: @kiaramlee @savannahlee_thatsme @vicky.yvonne @leylanfdavis @clark_the_shark_ Thank you for bringing this to life. Thank you for your encouragement, vulnerability, laughs! I write for you 🤎 Link to the video of Heaven Is in my bio 💫 Hope to make #ntozakeshange proud #playwright #graduate

Lately: reading, writing poems again, and designing a deck of cards.

2025 in review

What if Utopia is just meeting ourselves Double exposure by @gooblens

march 📷 on film by @gooblens

lights and shadows

Y’all, I’m 30! 30 represents fulfillment of God‘s plan. The age of spiritual growth. It is the point of my Saturn return, my purpose star. And I feel it. For my 30th birthday, I went on my first ever solo trip to Iceland. I was having dreams about being here, staring at a mountain. It felt fitting, when I was barely one, my mom was stationed here for a year, stood where I now stand. I was called here. This has been really nerve-racking for me to travel out of the country alone, but I needed to do it. A woman I met on the trip said, “Iceland is rugged and raw”. That’s how I will live out my 30th, raw. No mask, no fear, just pure expression. Here’s to 30!

Proof of life🤌🏾

Give it a name. Call it breath— Name it the way it feels when something with wings: a flock of birds, a butterfly, burst through a soft sky. Don’t name it an altar, name it the hands that build them. The hands that can pull down the sun.

Thank you, Carnegie♥️ After a BA, MA and now a MFA, I can say I’m officially done! I can no longer say my occupation is my education. Thank you so much to everyone who supported me, made me laugh, listened to me cry and rant. Thank you to my parents, grandparents, family, friends and partner for your endless support and encouragement. For those wondering what’s next for me, the answer is simple & abundant: Creating endless art representing queer Black women, and telling the stories of my family. @carnegiemellon @cmudrama

My mama & granny always said I had a big angel around me, keeping me safe. I always knew it was true. As I’ve grown, I realized I have many angels & ancestors around me, guiding me, loving me, lighting my path like fireflies in the night. This is ✨29✨ for those who came before, and will come forth.