Wideman-Davis Performs Migratuse Ataraxia

In January 2020, Klein Arts & Culture hosted the showcase event of the Alabama Dance Festival: the world premiere of Migratuse Ataraxia, a site-specific dance performance researched, choreographed, and performed by The Wideman-Davis Dance Company. Over 270 young dancers and the public experienced the performance, which memorializes the lives of enslaved individuals by shifting the rules of representation in antebellum domestic spaces. For six consecutive nights, audience members lined the walls in the Klein-Wallace House as the performers moved from room to room for vignettes reinterpreting the narratives of these spaces. Afterward, the audience and dancers gathered for a community meal and facilitated dialogue. The Wideman-Davis Dance Company is led by co-artistic directors Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis, faculty at the University of South Carolina.