André M. Zachery
André M. Zachery (he/him) is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist of Haitian and African American descent and is a scholar, researcher, and technologist with a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University and MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts from CUNY/Brooklyn College. As the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group his practice, research, and community engagement artistically focuses on merging of choreography, technology, and Black cultural practices through multimedia work. André is a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Gregory Millard Fellow in Choreography and a 2019 Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Choreography.
His works through RPG have been presented domestically and internationally, receiving support through several residencies, awards, and commissions. These have included the LMCC Arts Center on Governors Island, Dance/NYC Coronavirus Relief Fund, CUNY Dance Initiative, Performance Project Residency at University Settlement, ChoreoQuest Residency at Restoration Arts Brooklyn, 3LD Art & Technology Center, HarvestWorks and a Jerome-supported Movement Research AIR. Awarded grants have been from the Brooklyn Arts Council, Harlem Stage Fund for New Work, and a Slate Property SPACE Award. Commissions have come from the Brooklyn Museum, Five Myles/BRIC Biennial, and Danspace Project.
RPG has earned mentions and favorable reviews from publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Culturebot, Infinite Blogspot, Futuristically Ancient, Hyperallergic, the Brooklyn Rail, the Daily News, and AFROPUNK. As a technologist André has collaborated with various artists through RPG, the design team of 3LD Art & Technology Center, and The Clever Agency on design installations, immersive media productions, film productions, film editing, projection mapping, and performance collaborations.
André has worked on major projects across artistic mediums as a choreographer, media designer, and consultant with artists such as Daniel Bernard Roumain, Cynthia Hopkins, Davalois Fearon, Dance Caribbean COLLECTIVE, Arin Maya, Rags & Ribbons, The Clever Agency, Kendra Foster, Manhattan School of Music, Burwell & Sasser and Spike Lee.
As a scholar, he has been a member of panels, led group talks, facilitated discussions, and presented research on a myriad of topics including Afrofuturism, African Diaspora practices and philosophies, Black cultural aesthetics, technology in art and performance, and on expanding the boundaries of art making within the community. He has been a panelist and presented his research at institutions such as Duke University, Brooklyn College, University of Virginia, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. André has taught at Brooklyn College and been a guest faculty member at the dance programs of Florida State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, The Ohio State University, and the University of California Los Angeles.
André will be working with Hi-ARTS through a SKYLAB Residency on his project, Against Gravity: Flying Afrikans and Other Urban Legends. This project will be an evening-length multimedia solo performance unpacking the lives, tragic deaths, and mythologies of Fred Hampton, Harold Washington, and Ben Wilson. Fred Hampton was the chairman of the Black Panther Party and was assassinated in December 1969 by the Chicago Police. Harold Washington was the first Black Mayor elected in the most segregated city in America in 1983 but died of a heart attack at his desk a week after re-election in 1987. Ben Wilson (Benji) was the number-one high school basketball player in America. He was shot and killed in an act of street violence the day before his senior season in Chicago.
This solo is intended to problematize the iconography of these three men: a Black power revolutionary, a post-Civil Rights era Black politician, and a superstar Black athlete. While there are many discussions on what Black masculinity can be, this project is considering how my personal narrative has intersected with specific figures from the place where André was born and raised. Through performance, he will explore how the experiences contained in my body are enmeshed in the weight of the histories of these specific Black male figures from Chicago. This project seeks to unpack how their lives and deaths created a mythology that cast certain expectations and pressures on André and possibly others who identified as Black men that came of age in the city. Starting with self-inquisition at three different time periods, this work will urgently question the expectations faced by himself and those who still navigate this briar patch within this triangulation of three iconic Black men.
Image courtesy of André M. Zachery