Malcolm-x Betts

Malcolmx Betts (he/him/his) @malcolmxbetts Project Title: Darkwater: Black Utopias  Project description: The performances “Black Utopias” embody Afrofuturism, Black mortality, and the African-centered ritual of ring shouts. The aim is to explore new somatic strategies and frameworks that dismantle historical trauma while generating new visions of the future from collaborators and audience members in real time. I aim to create a deep sense of community through experimentation, using real-time computer remixing, projection mapping, video coding, and image detection. The performances will feature dance, somatic exercises, archival elements, spoken words, and video. Artist Bio: Malcolm-x Betts is a New York based visual and dance artist who believes that art is a transformative vehicle that brings people and communities together. His artistic work is rooted in investigating embodiment for liberation, Black imagination, and directly engaging with challenges placed on the physical body. He has a community engagement practice allowing artistic freedom and making art accessible to everyone. Betts developed and presented work at La MaMa Umbria International in Spoleto, Italy. La Mama NYC, Gibney Dance Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The Bronx Museum and Dixon Place. Betts showed excerpts of Midnight Glow: Kinfolk at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), Movement Research at Judson Church and Draftworks at Danspace Project. Kinfolk Vol 2: Butch Queen was persented by Judson Arts in November 2021. Betts worked on Bronx Speaks with the Bronx Musuem with undocumented immgrants. Performed in works by Snoogybox (Andy Kobilka), Nile Harris, Moriah Evans and Alex Romania. Betts was a 2018 Artist and Resident with Movement Research.

(LINK IN BIO) Hello, My name is Malcolmx Betts. I'm a multidisciplinary artist working in the mediums of dance, performance, painting, photography and video. I'm born and raised in New York City. All of my family lives in the Bronx. For years it's been difficult finding housing that I can comfortably use as a live/work space. I'm a freelance artist surviving from gig to gig and at times are in a financial crisis to the point I can't supply basic needs from myself. I wanted to start this gofundme to help secure housing for myself. I'm currently working as a program director of Judson Arts’ Black Aesthetics programming the new container for arts and justice-making housed within Judson Memorial Church. I'm looking for other employment opportunities and financial supportive work. I'm going to sign a lease next Tuesday (February 20th) to move into a 500sq ft work in studio located in the Bronx. Along with my own studio It also has two shared bathrooms and a shared kitchen. Starting March 1st I'll be living in the space. The monthly rent is $1650 a month. My goal is to raise $15,000 to secure a year of rent. This is a huge opportunity for me because I would be living in my own space. I would be able to live, work, dream, manifest. I also have a desire to use the opportunity to have gatherings where I can share my practices with people or even have them over for dinner or studio visits. Deposit: $1650 Monthly Rent: $1650 If..... 3000 people donated $5 (Goal will be reached) 1500 people donated $10 (Goal will be reached) 150 people donated $100 (Goal will be reached) 100 people donated $150 (Goal will be reached) 15 people donated $1,000 (Goal will be reached) Please consider supporting me. Any amount donation is appreciated. thank you, Malcolmx Betts

Niggas at Sundown Choreographed and performed by Malcolm-x Betts in collaboration with @nileharris Andy Kobilka, @ariaztro Sound Design by Andy Kobilka projection and visual images by @jean_sonderand Photography by Maria Baranova, Courtesy New York Live Arts @photo_by_baranova @nylivearts

Co-presented with Poetry Project Friday, May 22 at 8PM in the Parish Hall at St. Mark’s Church Malcolm-x Betts and Okwui Okpokwasili are both interdisciplinary artists who work in and around dance. Each of them, in their own ways, makes performances that articulate the expansive vision of the Black radical tradition, while simultaneously grounding that vision in everyday intensities of desire, grief, love, and rage. They both approach movement as a site of textual experimentation and language as a bodily material, working at the limit of what seems possible, approaching scenes of abandonment with abandon. For this shared evening, co-presented with Danspace Project, Betts and Okpokwasili will have an opportunity to highlight the presence of writing in their respective practices, each reading from new and in-progress works. 📷: Photo of Okwui Okpokwasili by Michael Avedon

Co-presented with Danspace Project Malcolm-x Betts and Okwui Okpokwasili are both interdisciplinary artists who work in and around dance. Each of them, in their own ways, makes performances that articulate the expansive vision of the Black radical tradition, while simultaneously grounding that vision in everyday intensities of desire, grief, love, and rage. They both approach movement as a site of textual experimentation and language as a bodily material, working at the limit of what seems possible, approaching scenes of abandonment with abandon. For this shared evening, co-presented with Danspace Project, Betts and Okpokwasili will have an opportunity to highlight the presence of writing in their respective practices, each reading from new and in-progress works. Friday 5/22, 8pm in the Parish Hall at St Mark's Church poetryproject.org/events

Always in-process: processing expanse, discovering entries into “less”, incrementalizing to define prayer and praise and change. Hungry for homes within, and externalized autonomy; desire chasing wellness, by any means. Carceral, genocidal conditions make it a non-negotiable, and activated rest wholly generative. Thankful @malcolmxbetts could be in-lab with me on this day transmuting feltness and faith. What an incredible village I’ve found myself metamorphosing inside of…excited to share some stitchings next week with Tsunami, Dedrick, and Kiera at @baxarts . In the meantime, if you’re going to be in Venice for the Biennale, come see Saidiya Hartman and Sarah Benson’s “Minor Music at the End of the World” May 5-7 at Teatro Goldoni. Our feet hit the ground, and we take off. Come fly into the (afro)future with us.

fly baby fly with @genggrizzly @mollylieber at @danspaceproject

💛 Read a review of Shared Evening: Dominica Greene + Malcolm-x Betts at Danspace Project written by Asia Stewart in IMPULSE Magazine! “Danspace Project’s double-bill of new works by Malcolm-x Betts and Dominica Greene lives in the coda, considering everything that emerges after the end. Inside the sacred space of St. Mark’s Church, both performances question how to defy the constraining logic of linear time to persist in the here and now.” -Asia Stewart 📷: Photos by Rachel Keane

fly baby fly with @genggrizzly @mollylieber at @danspaceproject 📸Photos by @themomentthat

Thank you to everyone that came- my family got to see the show all on different nights. My aunt brought my cousin’s friend opening night. I wrote some text long time ago for Michael ————————————- Text for Michael: I don’t remember how young I was but when you died I felt a rumble in my body. and I was overcome with sadness. An emptiness that I would never get a chance to fully know you. Waking up in night sweats.— as I live in my 30’s I ask myself if I would the same fate. I’ve mistaken death and love many times before but not like this. We would often travel across the rushing waters, and I felt the heavy of your skin when you pressed your body against mine. Under the midnight glow we embraced each other. This childhood memory creeps itself into my mind of times when I was abandoned to fend for myself. I would often dream of a world where my Black innocent body could fine space and freedom to exist in this world. ———————- Thank you @mollylieber and @genggrizzly for diving deep into this very new and familiar work. So honored you both shared and poured into me. It was an honor to share the night with @draminica and @garrettallenn and @faireyyyyyyyyyy felt so grounded with all you being there. Big thanks to Nico and Kristen the Danspace production team. Small but strong. Really thankful for you both! And @seta_c_m @jhussietaylor @danspaceproject for believing in my work at the moment- and really pushing me to trust the process and the rigor and the work. Over and out, - Mal

‼️ Tonight (12/12) and tomorrow night (12/13) are your last chances to see Shared Evening: Dominica Greene + Malcolm-x Betts at Danspace Project! “endlessend” by Dominica Greene traverses two overlapping realms, where denial and inspiration contend amorphously. Coping with the dwindlings and kindlings of life, it discovers hope in nature’s most fundamental elements. Can you comprehend the end? “fly baby fly” is for Malcolm-x Betts’ older cousin Michael who died of AIDS. “It’s the end of the world; a year after Michael’s death a harp falls from the sky.” 📷: Photos by Rachel Keane