Baye & Asa

Join us for two evenings of cutting edge modern dance as Department of Dance presents the New York City-based duo Baye & Asa.

Baye & Asa is a company creating movement art projects directed by Amadi ‘Baye’ Washington & Sam ‘Asa’ Pratt, who met when they were 6 years old. The duo states, “The physical aggression in our choreography is a symptom of our political rage, and a yearning to personally implicate ourselves. We use our choreography to create political metaphors, interrogate systemic inequities, and contemporize ancient allegories; we build theatrical contexts that celebrate, implicate, and condemn the characters onstage.”

Baye & Asa have presented their work at The Joyce Theater, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jacob’s Pillow, Pioneer Works, Guggenheim Works & Process, and the American Dance Festival. Named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2022, they were recipients of Dance Magazine’s 2023 Harkness Promise Award. Baye & Asa have created works for The Martha Graham Dance Company, BODYTRAFFIC, and Alvin Ailey II.

Their program at UMBC will feature two works:

• Suck it Up: Commercial images promise status, offer solutions to inadequacy, and breed entitlement. Internalized deficiency has created a culture of resentment. Suck it up: a duet confronting the violent fallout of male insecurity and entitlement.
• Second Seed: Second Seed is a short film responding to D.W. Griffith’s 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation. Griffith’s film is an assertion of White Supremacy, and a veneration of the KKK. Our works confront the myth of Griffith’s “helpless white minority,” and the cult of white-victimhood’s enduring impact on American polity. Second Seed is our collision with this American artifact.

$10 general admission, $7 for UMBC students and seniors.

Two performances in the Dance Cube — click on the event to reserve seats.
Thursday, October 16, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, October 17, 7:30 p.m.

The Dance Cube, located on the third floor of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building, is easy to visit, with plenty of free parking. Please visit here for additional information.

This event is supported in part by the Arts+ initiative.