As part of the Boston Public Art Triennial, a new, multi-city, public art experience from May-October that occurs every three years, Castle of our Skins presents a free music and dance performance, featuring percussionist Steph Davis and dancer Jenny Oliver, in conversation with sculptor Alison Croney Moses' This Moment for Joy.
Jenny Oliver
Jenny Oliver is an artist in the Greater Boston area working as a teacher, performer, choreographer and advocate for artistic integrity. She is a trauma informed, culturally responsive kinetic storyteller. She works at the intersection of dance, education, and collective collaboration to elevate issues affecting Black and Indigenous people. As a culturally Black person of Cape Verdean and Native American heritage she believes it's important to address the erasure of Native people and the ongoing systemic injustices towards Black people and is inspired by the ability of dance to catalyze meaningful and effective change in the lives of others. Alongside her work as a choreographer she is on faculty at Tufts University, Emerson College, the Dance Complex and Deborah Mason Performing Arts Center. Most recently she has expanded her collaborative work to include the development of a creative residency with the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics and Boston’s Office of Budget Management using creative storytelling, dance, and fiscal education to engage Boston residents in the city’s budgeting process.
Steph Davis
Steph Davis is a marimbist and cultural activist. Their music engages traditions, epistemologies, and aesthetics from the African diaspora as means for uncovering truthful historiographies, finding creative self-actualization, and reaching for collective liberation.
Hailed by The Washington Post as a "crisp, controlled" performer who “is engaged in deep explorations of acoustic and historical resonance,” Steph tours the U.S. as a marimba soloist and chamber musician. Encompassing African American spirituals, the Black classical tradition, West African gyil music, and contemporary classical music, Steph’s performances push the boundaries of genre while centering African-descended people and cultures. Through their arrangements and commissions, Steph has contributed over 20 works by Black composers to the marimba's solo and chamber repertoire. They have premiered works by Alissa Voth, Damien Geter, and Pamela Z, among others. Steph proudly endorses Marimba One instruments and mallets as a Marimba One Premier Artist.
A researcher and scholar of African American music, Steph is a teaching artist with Castle of our Skins, a Black arts institution. They are also an instructor of music theory at the Boston Conservatory. They have presented performances and masterclasses on marimba and vibraphone at the University of Central Florida, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the Center of Mallet Percussion Research at Kutztown University. Steph has been awarded residencies at the Goethe-Institut Boston, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and Boston Center for the Arts.
Steph received their Master of Music in marimba performance from Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where they studied with Nancy Zeltsman. They also hold a Bachelor of Music in percussion performance from the Conservatory.
Steph resides on unceded land of the Neponset band of the Massachusett tribe, bordertown Boston, MA.