Cheri L. Stokes

CRITICAL BREAKS2024

Jan 10

Cheri L. Stokes (she/her), born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, received her M.F.A. in Choreography and Performance from Florida State University in 2017 and her B.A. in Dance Studies with a K-12 North Carolina Dance Teaching Licensure from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2005. Her performance background spans genres of West African, Afro-Contemporary, Contemporary, and Hip-Hop dance forms. Her choreographic research examines the ways in which facets of social vernacular dance forms, specifically Hip-Hop and Dancehall, have influenced her contemporary practice and art-making.

Cheri’s latest work, Da Block was featured in the MODarts Collective Thread Festival (2021), the STooPS Bed-Stuy Art Crawl (2021), and SummerStage at Corona Park (2022). She is the recipient of the Silent Partner’s Grant (2021), the Stephen Petrionio Retreat and Restore Dance Residency (2021), the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Producing Fellowship (2022-23), the Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grant (2023) and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA 2024). She has served as a guest teaching artist at several universities including, Florida State University, Austin Peay State University, Elon University, Western Kentucky University, and University of Tampa.

Additionally, Cheri’s expertise includes over ten years of dance education and six years of arts administration and creative producing. She has had the pleasure of rehearsing and assisting notable choreographers such as Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Okwui Okpokwasili (2016 MANCC Residency in Tallahassee, FL). Presently, Cheri is part of the Urban Bush Women family serving as the Associate Producer of Special Projects.

While in residence, Cheri will work on the development of Around the Way Gurl, a movement investigation that highlights and celebrates the cultural significance and the contributions of women in Bed-Stuy have made to Brooklyn and Hip-Hop culture during the 1980s and 90s.

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About Around the Way Gurl

Utilizing Block Party Dance vernacular as a movement investigation Around the Way Gurl highlights and celebrates the cultural significance and the contributions women in Bed-Stuy have made to Brooklyn and Hip-Hop culture during the 1980s and 90s. Around the Way Girl includes ensemble and solo work, video projection, and a live DJ.

“Using auto-ethnography to inspire movement and text, this work will examine the ways in which the duality of femininity and masculinity, intergenerational movement aesthetics, innate movement patterns, generational and community values, and Hip-Hop culture have all influenced my identity and the women from my community during that era.”

Around the Way Gurl is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.