Dionna specializes in physical theater and work is informed by the black experience both on and off the stage. She began her training in acting with Fred “Rerun” Berry and African Dance with Bokandeye African-American Dance Theater in her hometown, New York . After relocating to Delaware where she studied drama performance and pantomime at Cab Calloway School of the Arts, she founded a mime ministry in 2005 at her home church. Her work comprises writing and performing contemporary work though literal and abstract movement. She has trained with NaZu & Co., Urban Foli African Dance company, In-Flight Theater (Aerial), Tara Cariaso (Character & Mask), Brian Francoise and Dody DiSanto (Mime & Clown) and Kolleen Kintz (Clown). She was a teaching artist for Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, Unchained Talent, Concepts by Cash, Dance & Bmore and other community programs in Baltimore City. She has also been a guest artist for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and former Emily P. Bissell Hospital in Delaware, benefit concerts, churches and has made random appearances in the park! Theater Credit: The Laramie Project, A Raisin in the Sun, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, The Bluest Eye, Poof!, Euripides’ MEDEA, The Tale-Tell Heart (50 Fest—Centerstage), Basic Animal (Mondo Festo—EMP Collective), Double Consciousness (Baltimore Annex Theater) and host of student performances at Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre.
BALTIMORE, MD –
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”
— W.E.B. DuBois.
February 2016 Annex Theater’s award-winning Knee Play series returned with Double Consciousness. This performance installation is a journey of building self – cycling through the moments, minute and monumental, that form our identity. Double Consciousness is experienced through the lens of a young woman becoming – from child to adult, a woman both Nigerian and American, finding herself through a house of smoke and mirrors. This 5-movement performance plants itself at the intersections of Womanhood, Family and Being Black in America, growing outward into part memory play, part healing ritual, part revelatory dance.
Directed and devised by Dionná Fletcher, Double Consciousness is a physical theater performance and installation at Annex Theater in their downtown storefront home at 219 Park Ave. The piece cycled over the course of each night. Audiences were invited to come and go as they please, allowing the performance to wash over them and take them in further. Double Consciousness ran four times a night February 25-28, 2016. The performance featured Dionná Fletcher, Jasmine Weaver, Quiera Monet Bryant, Dominic Gladden, and Ricardo Blagrove. http://www.BaltimoreAnnexTheater.org
ABOUT THE KNEE PLAY SERIES
Since 2013, Annex Theater has commissioned a yearly series of solo-driven performance pieces showcasing Annex Theater company artists and favorite regular collaborators. The Knee Play series champions works of personal artistic exploration and high-risk experimentation in a supportive environment. This season’s Knee Play Series features Dionná Fletcher and Mason Ross.
Dionna Ndlovu 