By Allison Seidel

Dance artists Amadi “Baye” Washington and Sam “Asa” Pratt performed at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Thursday, October 13th — giving audiences a taste of their upcoming project “HotHouse” as part of the Arts Citizenship Talks series.

Premiering in January 2023, HotHouse is a “commentary on confinement” which explores themes of injustice, isolation and righteous anger through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pratt and Washington, who choreograph jointly under the moniker Baye and Asa, performed two different excerpts from the project.  

They were subsequently joined by School of Public Health professor Jennifer Roberts, who led a discussion of the project and the issues reflected within it.

The intimate atmosphere of the Cafritz Foundation Theater allowed both artists to speak candidly about the pandemic’s impact on their art and the ways in which they present themselves to the rest of the world.

Both artists said that the pandemic “revealed all the ways our system is failing.” They used the time that they had during the first months of the pandemic to look into how they could use their dancing to portray topics that have long been ignored. 

Pratt explained that their choreographies are “conversions of all these pandemics.” They referred to systemic failures within the government and the increase in social injustice within the United States as the pandemic fluctuated. The choreography was also a way to “play with status and power,” in a time when that was a main topic of conversation. 

Professor Roberts thought that the choreography “helped to explain the range of emotions, from anger and frustration and fear, to hope, togetherness and community, of many issues that we are facing today that are related to climate, health, social, and racial injustices.” 

Roberts also spoke of her emotions during the show. “I felt all the aforementioned emotions, but I also felt gratitude, because I am a lover of dance,” she said. “I was grateful to have my emotions triggered by the beauty of their movement.” 

Roberts mentioned the main differences between the two choreographies as well. In the first piece, “you could see and almost feel their fatigue, which was almost symbolic for the pandemic fatigue many of us are experiencing,” she said. 

According to Roberts, the second piece featured “a faster tempo, rhythmic with a great deal of synchronized movements.” She also said that “felt more hopeful” after viewing the second choreography. 

Noelle Solis, a sophomore psychology major, attended the show on October 13th. Though she did not know what to expect going into the show, given how personal the choreography was, she was pleased with how it went. “It was really cool how they incorporated art and dancing with actual, like, political issues,” Solis said. 

Grace Hartnett, a sophomore student on the nursing pathway who also attended the show, explained that as someone who isn’t “an arts person,” the show provided a new perspective for her. She mentioned that it was interesting to see how “an artist interprets the pandemic.” 

Hartnett said that although we have all witnessed the struggles that came from the pandemic, she “had never thought about how it would be portrayed in art.” 

Featured image: The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at night. Photo by Joel Lev-Tov.