Monday, September 29, 2025 | 5:00 pm
Director present

Orishas ride the tide. Trees speak in tongues. Flesh and bone, moving with the breath of ancestors and the pull of root systems older than written word. The body leans in. Our breath collective. The land holds us.
land.scape notes on exile is a poetic journey of rediscovery and return that routes us through shifting landscapes. We follow the reflections of a seeker, who is mystically guided by Oshun, the venerated orisha of water and destiny. This meditative video poetry short stems from an ongoing project titled “Metamorphic Return to Fusion”, which incorporates two original short poems, written and read by the director. This work is inspired by personally lived experiences, the writings of Édouard Glissant, especially “Poetics of Relation”; the essay “Reflections of Exile” by Edward Said; and the unrelenting daily courage of journalist, Bisan Owda.
.
Who is the logwood tree? Dominican botanists, students and even hair stylists offer some wild explanations as to who is the logwood tree (Haematoxylum campechianum) as a person. This leguminous tree from Central America was historically used for textile dyeing. Today, it grows wild in Dominican Republic and is commonly used by women to dye their hair.
.
‘Nesting’ is a choreographed performance by Fana Fraser, imagining a mythic Black femme figure emerging from the Black Atlantic at dawn. Interweaving the nesting journey of the leatherback sea turtle with Yoruba, Bengali and yogic influences, Fraser channels ritual movement, voice and sound to embody diasporic memory, multispecies kinship and a vision of hope across time and terrain.
.
Marianne and Pétion live in Haiti and wait impatiently for a call from their son in the USA. As silence sets in, their fears and worries grow, revealing the fractures in their own lives. The promise of the American dream now seems to elude them, as the line between hope and reality becomes increasingly blurred.
.
When a woman enters a place of worship, she can’t leave until she takes part in all the rituals and dances of her diverse ancestors, in an horizontal reality.
.
A young Haitian-American disconnected from his culture learns how to dance Konpa to impress his crush.
.