Kiara Mickens

About 

Returning to the Source is key. In a society that thrives on exploitation and weak mind conditioning, remembering our true purpose within it is one of the most powerful things we can do. The Black Woman, the most powerful being on this planet, has been drained and outsourced of this power in this country for centuries and it is time for her to take it back! This piece is a representation of the cyclical nature that conditioning subdues the Black Woman to and how breaking these cycles leads to her liberation and to her throne. The Divine Feminine has returned.

Creating a final dance piece was a requirement to fulfill my B.A. Degree in Dance from Smith College; so I decided to utilize this requirement as an opportunity to take an excerpt from the current place I am in in my self journey and communicate it through this art form.  Source Return as well as the rest of the senior dance concert was made possible, in part, by the Sharonjean Moser Leeds Endowment, a generous fund created by Sharonjean (Smith College ’67) and Richard Leeds for the Smith Department of Dance.

Overview

Source Return
Choreography by Kiara Mickens  in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers: Kiara Mickens, Di’Anna Bonomolo, Shelby Wilson

Music: Sinnerman By Nina Simone

Spoken Word: Arrival By Kiara Mickens

Costume Styling: Kiara Mickens Tailoring: Emily Dunn
Masks: Emily Springer
Broadcast Engineer: Sean Buenaventura
Lighting Design: Amber Tanudjaja

Performances

April 16th, 2021

April 17th, 2021

Acknowledgements 

I would like to give all praise to the most high and thank the Creator for being an endless and limitless source and driving that endless and limitless source through my creative process. I thank my guides, angels and ancestors for guiding me along the way of this creative process also. I thank my family and parents for consistently supportimg me through everything. A big thank you to Chris Aiken and Angie Hauser who have helped and guided me through the conception and birth of this piece the entire year. Thank you to everyone else within the Smith and Five College dance department for guiding, leading and pouring into me for the past 4 years to get me to this point. Rodger Blum, Lester Tomé, Shakia Barron, Mike Vargas, Melinda Buckwalter are just some of the many amazing people who helped me along the way, thank you for always supporting my shenanigans! I want to thank my dancers for joining me on this journey as short notice as they did and making this piece everything I dreamed and making the process even more fulfilling, I love ya’ll and am blessed to have been able to work with you.  I also want to thank God for me! I am so proud of the growth of this young woman and and the trust and triumph it took to complete not only a crazy 4 hard, long years, but a piece that perfectly depicts the journey and the point I am at in it now. I am beyond grateful, thank you to everyone!