This concert includes the interdisciplinary thesis performance projects of Master of Fine Arts in Dance candidates Duoduo Wang and J'Sun Howard.

Duoduo Wang’s work, entitled "A thread in blood", investigates different orientation strategies of the Chinese diasporic identity and culture in the United States. The work carries lifelong memories and experiences of an old lady who immigrated 40 years ago to Manhattan's Chinatown. The cast of Asian American dancers contribute memories of their own cultural-identical strategies in different chapters of life (Birth, Family, Love, Living, and Death) and also explore the unique boundaries between performance and public spaces. Within a public performance, Wang aims to create an open, protected space in which everyone can express their identity, ethnicity, acculturation strategies, and body statements through physical expression.

​​J’Sun Howard’s "A Particular Embraced Affinity of Veering" is an exploration in understanding how to embody Black Fugitivity, which is radical ways in which Black people subvert time, race, gender, and family history to refuse and flee what society puts on us to navigate systematic racism and injustice. By using movement strategies such as the hold/embrace, circularity, and the fragment, "A Particular Embraced Affinity of Veering" captures the quiet urgency and complexity of deciding to refuse and flee.

This thesis concert is being held in partial fulfillment of the Department of Dance Master of Fine Arts degree requirements. The research for this event is funded in part by the University of Michigan Department of Dance, and the Center for World Performance Studies.