ARTIST TALK: Artist as Athlete with Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and Dell Howlett 

Sat. February 12th from 7-8pm 
Beauchamp Carr Room // Woodruff Arts Center 
Free 

Join us for an artist talk with Toni Stone director Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and choreographer Dell Howlett that explores the relationship between athletics and theater. The talk focuses on the creative team’s approach to creating, and re-imagining, a Black athletic form rooted in a racialized history of the Negro Leagues, where Black athletes served dual roles as athletes and entertainers. The conversation will highlight the unique choreography the team developed to stage baseball and the physical training and conditioning the actors underwent to embody players on the Indianapolis Clowns. 

This talk is free to the public. Please note that those attending the evening performance of Toni Stone will need to reserve their tickets in advance. 

Tinashe Kajese-Bolden –  (Director) is an award-winning director, actor and producer. She is the BOLD Artistic Director Fellow at Alliance Theatre and driven to create stories that celebrate our differences while building community. Tinashe is a Princess Grace 2019 Award Winner for Directing, and Map Fund Award recipient to develop her devised new work  All Smiles  for Theater for the Very Young, centering the experience of children on the autism spectrum. Recent theatre directing credits include  School Girls (Or the African Mean Girls Play)  (True Colors Theatre),  Ghost  (Alliance Theatre), Native Gardens  (Virginia Stage Company),  Pipeline  (Horizon Theatre), Nick’s Flamingo Grill  (World Premiere at Alliance Theatre),  Eclipsed (Synchronicity Theatre, Best Director Suzi Bass Award). Up next: Candrice Jone’s  FLEX  at Theatrical Outfit. As a director and actor, she has worked On and Off Broadway, including Imperial Theatre, Primary Stages, 59E59 Theaters, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and regionally at Yale Rep, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Cincinnati Playhouse, Geva Theatre, CTG’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, among others, as well as recurring roles on TV/Film (Suicide Squad, Marvel’s “Hawkeye,” CW’s “Valor,” “Dynasty,” HBO’s “Henrietta Lacks” and currently filming Season 2 of Ava Duverney’s “Cherish the Day”). She proudly serves on the ARTS-ATL Artist Advisory Council. “My mission is the pursuit of what connects our different communities and how we create art that serves that.”

Dell Howlett – (Choreogrpaher) Dell Howlett is a New York-based, Virginia-born choreographer/director. Select credits include: Stick Fly (Plays in the House), R&H Cinderella (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Guys and Dolls (Ford’s Theatre), Paradise Square (Associate to Bill T. Jones, Berkeley Rep), Guys and Dolls (Guthrie Theater), The Wiz (Ford’s Theatre, Helen Hayes Nom.), Wig Out! (Studio Theatre, Helen Hayes Nom.), The C.A. Lyons Project (Alliance Theatre, Suzi Bass Award Winner), The Legend of Georgia McBride (Marin Theatre Company, BATCCA Nom.), YoungArts Presidential Scholars Show (Kennedy Center), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (The Acting Company), Broadway Inspirational Voices (Foxwoods Theater), Is Anybody Listening? (Sheen Center). Dell is a full-time professor and Associate Head of Dance at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts in the Department of Drama’s New Studio on Broadway. He dedicates this work and every work to his muse, his husband Aaron.