Come and go as you please and engage in whatever capacity you feel comfortable – make a root, enjoy a meal, participate in and/or listen to the conversation.

Since 2017 Edisa Weeks has been hosting Roots Parties which are a making-a-conversation space. People are invited to join Edisa in the journey of making 1,865 roots for the installation and performance of 3 RITES: Liberty. 1865 represents the last year of legalized chattel slavery in America. 

A roots party is like a mash-up between  a sewing bee and barbershop talk. Come to make roots, come for the food, come for the conversation. 

The Roots Party conversations are about engaging people in a shared dialogue on how liberty is protected, promoted and accessed in their community and America at large. The Roots Parties started from a desire to understand why the Declaration of Independence guaranteed liberty as an inalienable right, and if America is embodying and living up to that guarantee.

This engagement of Edisa Weeks / DELIRIOUS Dances is made possible in part through the ArtsCONNECT program of Mid Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

This presentation was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.