Dance Place presents 2022-2024 Artist in Residence (AIR) Ronya-Lee Anderson’s Black Madonna and Miss Amerika.

Black Madonna and Miss Amerika is an investigation of socio-political happenings in conversation with the positioning of the Black female icon in the church, on the stage and in the streets. It is cinematic in nature, employing a familiar series of still and moving images tied to a complex historical canon. Black Madonna and Miss Amerika tackles the tension between the public and private; the doing and being of the Black female iconic body. The work confronts the worship of the Black female body in popular culture; worship undone in the political and economic treatment of that same body. Using popular culture, live music, comedy, interviews and portraiture, equal attention is given to the various aspects of production, including, but not limited to sound, costuming, projection design, and of course, movement. Black Madonna and Miss Amerika is interactive in nature, inviting the audience to engage with the world created in the space through sound, sight, smell, touch and taste.