Life & Work with Tamara Williams of University City in Charlotte

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tamara Williams. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Williams is a native of Augusta, GA, where she began her dance training at Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School. Tamara participated in Georgia’s Governor’s Honors Program for dance during the summer of 2001, attended Philadanco’s summer intensive in 2004, and experienced Chicago during the summer of 2005 studying at Deeply Rooted Productions. She spent two years in the Dance Repertory Theatre at Florida State University under the direction of Lynda Davis. She earned her BFA in Dance from Florida State University and is a certified GYROTONIC(R) Trainer, Reiki Practitioner, and Capoeirista. She received her MFA in Dance from Hollins University in collaboration with The American Dance Festival, The Forsythe Company, and Frankfurt University in Frankfurt, Germany.

Tamara’s performing career includes work with Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, David P. France Dance Company, Errol Grimes Dance Group, Millicent and Company, Angela’s Pulse, Maverick Dance Experience, and UB2 (Urban Bush Women’s Apprentice Company). She performed works by prestigious choreographers such as Donald McKayle, Theo Jamison, Kevin Iega Jeff, Jawole Zollar, Rosangela Silvestre, and Fred Benjamin. She also performed at the Ringling International Arts Festival in Sarasota, FL, DanceNow/NYC Dance Harlem, The Houston Black Dance Festival, Rialto Center for the Arts, the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, Dance Charlotte!, April Meetings in Belgrade, Serbia, and at Espacio Xisto, Escola da Danca, and Bira Reis in Salvador, Brazil.

Tamara’s choreography has been performed nationally at the 2006 ACDFA Southeastern Concert in Tallahassee, FL, Dance Charlotte!, the Amalgamate Artist Series, the JT Lotus Choreographer’s Showcase, The Boogie Down Series at BAAD!, the DUMBO Dance Festival, DCA’s Women in Dance Series, the Cool NY Festival, Dixon Place, WAXworks, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, the Smack Mellon Gallery, the Actor’s Fund Arts Center, Fertile Ground Series at Green Space, and many others. Her work has been performed internationally at the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade, Serbia; the Voltahalle in Basel, Switzerland; The National Museum of Trinidad & Tobago; Espacio Xisto in Salvador, Brazil; the Rex Nettleford Conference|Edna Manley College in Kingston, Jamaica; and at Performatica in Puebla, Mexico.

In June 2012, Tamara produced an evening dance performance entitled The Makings of You, with Tamara LaDonna Moving Spirits, Inc. and special guests Laurie M. Taylor/Soul Movement and Francine Ott at Dance New Amsterdam. In October 2013, Epic Narratives, An evening of dance, visual art, theater, and social commentary, was produced. In February 2015, Tamara presented Moving Spirits to Enlightenment, part of the RESPOND series, at the Smack Mellon Gallery in Brooklyn. This event featured Moving Spirits, Inc., Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, Andre M. Zachary/Renegade Performance Group, El Puente students, and Brooklyn Friends School students in response to police brutality to Black Lives. In May 2015, Tamara produced Dancing in the Parks: Bushwick Community Festival, which presented prestigious dance companies, artists, and community programs, including Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance, Sydnie L.Mosley Dances, Rakiya Orange, Ruka White, Arts & Literacy, and the Beacon Center for Arts and Leadership.

Tamara has trained intensely in Bahia, Brazil, in Silvestre Technique, samba roots, and African-Brazilian dance. Her book, Giving Life to Movement: The Silvestre Dance Technique, explores the historical and cultural connections of the Silvestre Dance Technique as a movement practice created by Rosangela Silvestre. Her article, “Reviving Culture Through Ring Shout,” explores the evolution of Ring Shout traditions and is published in The Dancer-Citizen Journal. She has a chapter in the monograph Fire Under My Feet: Historical Perspectives on Dance in the African Diaspora. Lexington Books will publish her second book, The African Diaspora and Civic Responsibility, in 2022.

Tamara was a 2012 recipient of the Artist Residency Fellowship at the Dance & Performance Institute in Trinidad. She was a 2013 recipient of the Harlem Stage/Aaron Davis Hall Fund for New Work grant and a 2014 & 2016 Community Arts Fund Grantee by the Brooklyn Arts Council. She was the 2014 Lecturer/Emerging Artist-in-Residence at Penn State University- Altoona. Moving Spirits, Inc. was the 2015 Company-in-Residence at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Leadership in Jamaica, Queens. Tamara was also a 2015 and 2017 Turkey Land Grove Foundation recipient who participated in two seven-day dance writing residencies in Martha’s Vineyard. She was a 2015 Fall Space Grant recipient, awarded by the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. 2016 Tamara was awarded the 2016-17 CoA+A Faculty Digital Making Grant from the College of Arts + Architecture at UNC Charlotte. She has received several UNCC mini diversity grant awards and a Chancellor’s Diversity Challenge Fund award.

Tamara has received two Faculty Research Grants which have supported her in-depth study and investigation of Ring Shout Dance Traditions and Òrìṣà dances. The Kaatsbaan International Dance Center commissioned Tamara to create a new work for Moving Spirits, Inc. in 2018; the latest work premiered during her Kaatsbaan UpStream Residency in the Hudson Valley, NY. Tamara has received several Culture Blocks grants from the Mecklenburg County Arts & Science Council. The funding supports Moving Spirits’ ongoing free African diaspora dance workshops throughout the Charlotte community. She is a College of Arts + Architecture faculty recipient of the 2019-2020 Board of Governors Teaching Award. Tamara was commissioned to create a new work for Juneteenth in 2020 by The National Center for Choreography (NCCAkron) through an invitation by Cara Hagan. In 2021, Tamara became an Arts and Science Council Emerging Creative Fellowship recipient to continue her research into Ring Shout traditions in the low country of the United States. In 2021, Tamara was awarded a Cultural Visions Grant from the Arts and Science Council to support the first annual LAVAGEM FESTIVAL! in Charlotte, celebrating African diaspora and Indigenous communities through Black Brazilian arts, history, and culture. In 2022, Tamara was presented the Jan Van Dyke Legacy Award by the North Carolina Dance Festival. Tamara has taught master classes in New York City, San Diego, San Antonio, Atlanta, Tallahassee, Charlotte, Altoona, Trinidad, Mexico, Brazil, and Jamaica. She offers free master classes to the general public through Moving Spirits, Inc. She has worked as a Program Director for the Arts and Literacy Program in Brooklyn and is dedicated to continuous work in underserved communities. Tamara is an associate professor of dance at Charlotte, the University of North Carolina.

It wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Adequate funding and financial support is always a challenge.

As you know, we’re big fans of your work. What can you tell our readers who might need to be more familiar with it?
I founded Moving Spirits Inc. in NYC in 2011. Moving Spirits, Inc. is a contemporary arts organization dedicated to performing, researching, documenting, cultivating, and producing arts of the African diaspora. Africanistic aesthetics heavily influence our company’s repertory. Our work blends modern, ballet, African diaspora dance forms, and contemporary West African dances. The creative arts should be used to bring awareness to injustices and obstacles impacting our communities. Moving Spirits’ artists dedicate themselves to evolving social change through dance performances and community engagement.

Moving Spirits, Inc., a prominent artistic ensemble, has graced numerous esteemed venues in New York City. Notable performances include Harlem Stage, the Amalgamate Dance Series, JT Lotus Choreographer’s Showcase, The Boogie Down Dance Series at BAAD!, Dixon Place, WAXworks, Performing in the Streets Series, Making Moves Festival, the Cool NY Festival, Demitasse Cafe at Dancewave, the Fertile Ground Series at Green Space, the Smack Mellon Gallery, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and the DUMBO Dance Festival. Expanding their artistic reach beyond NYC, the organization has performed at Dance Charlotte! in Charlotte, NC, the RAD festival in Kalamazoo, MI, Alternate Roots in Atlanta, GA, the Gullah Geechee Community Day in Conway, SC, the Ohio Dance Festival in Columbus, OH, and Casa SoMovimento in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

Demonstrating their commitment to artistic excellence, Moving Spirits, Inc. conceived an awe-inspiring dance titled “The Makings of YOU,” featuring a captivating collaboration with the esteemed Laurie M. Taylor/Soul Movement company. This performance unfolded at Dance New Amsterdam in June 2012. Subsequently, in October 2013, Tamara LaDonna Moving Spirits retook center stage with their second annual concert titled “Epic Narratives: An Evening of Dance, Visual Art, Theater, and Social Commentary.” In a poignant homage to Black lives tragically lost to police brutality, Moving Spirits presented the evocative event “RESPOND: Moving Spirits to Enlightenment” in 2015. Additionally, the company orchestrated “Dancing in the Parks: Bushwick Community Festival” in the same year, an enchanting evening of performances in public housing projects. Notably, during the 2016 season, Moving Spirits embarked on a transformative two-week residency alongside the esteemed Brazilian artist Rosangela Silvestre. This collaboration resulted in the enthralling production “Walking Elements,” masterfully choreographed by Silvestre and Artistic Director Tamara Williams. Such achievements garnered the attention of the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in 2018, leading to an esteemed Kaatsbaan UpStream Residency in the picturesque Hudson Valley, NY.

In the spring of 2021, Moving Spirits, Inc. was bestowed with the honor of a commissioned dance film by the National Center for Choreography, curated under the discerning guidance of Cara Hagan. Amidst the profound challenges posed by the pandemic, Moving Spirits, Inc. undertook the remarkable endeavor of filming and performing ÌBÀ OBÌNRIN. This profoundly evocative piece subsequently transformed into the appropriately titled contemporary piece Sacred Women. This transformative work is a poignant homage to the rich tapestry of Ring Shout traditions. To bring this artistic vision to fruition, Moving Spirits has been fortunate to receive invaluable support in the form of commissioning, funding, and patronage from esteemed entities, including the Black Spatial Relics, Alternate Roots, Kinetic Works Choreographers Residency Project, the Croft Residency, the Global South | New South Research Initiative, and the Opportunity Fund. Such collaborative partnerships have nurtured the realization of this groundbreaking artistic endeavor, enabling the preservation and revitalization of cultural heritage while charting new territories of artistic expression.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
In addition to being a Dance artist and educator, I am also an author and community activist.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.movingspirits.org
• Instagram: movingspiritsinc
• Facebook: Moving Spirits Inc

Image Credits
Image 1- Ohio Dance Festival, Image 2- International Human Rights Arts Festival, Image 3- Jeff Cravotta