queeringborders: Marikiscrycrycry | February 2018

The first volume of queeringborders focuses on choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe, who is currently based in the UK and makes work under the alias Marikiscrycrycry. Operating with an expansive and emotional choreographic proposition, their work is about the socially radical practice of imagining new worlds; dances that motorise the conditions necessary for possibility and futurity; performances that double as survival rituals; and texturising the affective and infective material left behind from maintained racial and gender violence. Their identity has been central to their work, and they frequently recall, renege, and reify their experiences of being Black, Vincentian/Caribbean-American, gender non-conforming, femme-ish, Queer, immigrant with a felt transgenerational history of displacement.

Video credits: Filmed by Xavier de Sousa and Marikiscrycrycry for performingborders. Edited by Rosie Powell Freelance.

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Marikiscrycrycry is the choreographic alias of London-based choreographer and dancer Malik Nashad Sharpe (b. 1992, New York). Operating with an expansive and emotional choreographic proposition, their work is about the socially radical practice of imagining new worlds; dances that motorise the conditions necessary for possibility and futurity; performances that double as survival rituals; and texturising the affective and infective material left behind from maintained racial and gender violence. Their work integrates Black pessimism, minimalism, abstraction, nonessentialist transgenderism, cybernetics, amongst many other aesthetical and ontological concerns, with the excavation of various dance and choreographic systems. Their identity has been central to their work, and they frequently recall, renege, and reify their experiences being Black, Vincentian/Caribbean-American, gender non-conforming, femme-ish, Queer, immigrant with a felt transgenerational history of displacement. They have performed their work in various venues across the UK, USA, and Canada, and have been supported by Arts Council England, Canadian Council for the Arts, a-n, Fierce Festival, Hackney Showroom, Chisenhale Dance Space, Live Art Development Agency, and Marlborough Theatre and Pub. They’ve also taught workshops and courses around their dance practice at University of Illinois (USA), Glasgow School of Art (UK), Otion Front Studio (USA), The Workroom (UK), Gibney Dance (USA), Goldsmiths University (UK), CLOUD at Danslab (NL), Leed Beckett University (UK), and will be teaching a course at the School of New Dance Development (NL). www.maliknashadsharpe.com

Featured image credits: Xavier de Sousa