Immersive exhibit celebrates Nikki Giovanni's life and poetry

We've been working on this project called the Nicky Giovanni Immersive Experience and we're so thankful to Nicky Giovanni and her partner Virginia Fowler for their permission to let us use the poetry in this way. So we have motion graphics and embodied motion that was captured with motion capture as well as music that was composed for this that aligns with different recordings of Nicky Giovanni speaking to poetry at different times in her life. and we've selected six different poems that will be on display for this December 9th event. Megan hired me to make the graphics for Nikki Giovanni, so there were six different poems that we focused on. One of them was quilts that I contributed to, and I just went in and stitched the memories for her and was just setting the scene, basically. When I think about my thought process on how to connect the words to movement, especially embodying and working with Nikki Giovanni's work, I connect my own relationship to those words and the rhythm. For instance, if she misses about home, what does home make me want to do with my body? And I start to find what are some gestures or movement that can either abstractedly or clearly convey the message of the work itself. Very early in my time here, I got to know how important Nikki Giovanni was to the community. The exhibit today is just so satisfying in the sense that it gives you a feeling that you're with her. And the thing that was most impactful for me was hearing her voice over a period of decades. That headed a dimension that you actually can't get live, so that was very special. So new to the Cube this year is a projection system that we are calling CHIPS, which is the Cube High Immersion Projection Systems. It's a 17-foot on-each-side square, almost a cube within a cube, which allows for some really great shared immersive experiences. One of the nicest pieces of feedback we got was, it felt like sitting in a room with Nikki. And to me, that would be such the ultimate goal of just giving someone the opportunity to feel like you're here with Nikki Giovanni's words and her poetry. And our team has been so thankful to be able to be a small part of that. On a rainy day when I'm sitting in a tree looking for a friend, I hope you'll be the one standing at the root, holding out your arms to gently catch my fall.