Let 'im Move You

Let 'im Move You is a series born from the artistic relationship between jumatatu m. poe and Jermone “Donte” Beacham, J-Sette artist and choreographer. The series features primarily duet performance works, though the latest performance work in the series is a work for 7 dancers and a DJ. The work was initiated by the artists' search for satisfaction and subversion within J-Sette’s team-oriented call-and-response structure.

Click around to learn more about each iteration in the series.

rhythm, pattern,
attention, agitation

A STUDY (2013)

team, math, insistent rhythmicity, nakedness, megalomania

THIS IS A FORMATION
(2019)

guerrilla street interventions performed in Black
neighborhoods

INTERVENTION
(2016)

labor, African-American exceptionalism, booty

THIS IS A
SUCCESS (2016)

This is a Formation

premiered in 2019 at The Painted Bride Art Center (Philly)

In this fourth performance work in the Let 'im Move You series, This is a Formation looks at joy, assembly/militancy, and formalistic ideologies from J-Sette and minimalism.

terrestrial

in development

...humans as earth and Black humans as having a long, continuing terrestrial history that far precedes—and will outlive—the past five centuries of white supremacy’s specific oppressions.

We ensure to choose safe routes, explored areas and known wild life locations

Homejumatatupoe2023-03-17T07:29:30-04:00

How to be a fabulous creature…. How to delight in being this magical beast…

How to delight while also resisting/refuting/ignoring the historical creaturification of this body, my body, this black, male body… How to be a flying, spitting, fucking, magic-making creature – a centaur – a fairy – a queer ass fairy…

suitcase

Projects

Recent live performance work

Learn

BIG BODY: Experimental J-Sette Performance Workshop, Tension Continuums, The Switching, Umfundalai

Press

people write about stuff i’ve done

Read how people respond to my work

come see me

Digging in the Crates — Crate #4

April 20 @ 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm EDT

Digging in the Crates — Crate #5

May 25 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm EDT

Digging in the Crates — Crate #6

June 29 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm EDT

Digging in the Crates — Crate #7

July 27 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm EDT

Digging in the Crates — Crate #8

August 31 @ 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm EDT

Digging in the Crates — Crate #9

September 28 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm EDT

makinimakes

Salt (2015) Saturday, March 30, 2024 6:30 - 7:45p

Salt (2015)

Saturday, March 30, 2024
6:30 - 7:45p ET
livestream conversation with Tayarisha Poe (documenter of the original performance)

***********
yearlong admission to all crates is available for subscribers at any level to my Patreon, or you can get tickets and passes from the Digging in the Crates website at the link in my bio
***********

Throughout the year, I will be Digging in the Crates, excavating the archive of my collaborative performance works, and having conversations with the folks who helped to make it. We will livestream the work as we watch and talk about the work, the process of making it, the relationships that brought the work into movement.

Come watch with us!
Get the directors’ commentary!
Feel how what came before is braided into what comes next!

Meet you there!

FLATLAND 2010 (2011) Saturday, February 24, 2024

FLATLAND 2010 (2011)

Saturday, February 24, 2024
6:30 – 8:30p ET
livestream conversation with Shavon Norris (original cast member)

******
yearlong admission to all crates is available for subscribers at any level to my Patreon, or you can get tickets and passes from the Digging in the Crates website at the link in my bio.
*****

Throughout the year, I will be Digging in the Crates, excavating the archive of my collaborative performance works, and having conversations with the folks who helped to make it. We will livestream the work as we watch and talk about the work, the process of making it, the relationships that brought the work into movement.

Come watch with us!
Get the directors’ cut commentary!
Feel how what came before is braided into what comes next!

Meet you there!

Crate #1 Let ‘im Move You: This Is a Success (20

Crate #1
Let ‘im Move You: This Is a Success (2016) and Let ‘im Move You: A Study (2013 / 2016 revision)

Saturday, February 3, 2024
6:30 – 8:30p ET
livestream conversation with William Robinson (original cast member)

******
yearlong admission to all crates is available for subscribers at any level to my Patreon, or you can get tickets and passes from the Digging in the Crates website at the link in my bio.
*****

Throughout the year, I will be Digging in the Crates, excavating the archive of my collaborative performance works, and having conversations with the folks who helped to make it. We will livestream the work as we watch and talk about the work, the process of making it, the relationships that brought the work into movement.

Come watch with us!
Get the directors’ cut commentary!
Feel how what came before is braided into what comes next!

Meet you there!

stay tuned…

Hey y’all, need a tax preparer? I just joined t

Hey y’all, need a tax preparer?

I just joined the Philly Tax Prep for Artists collective, and am now preparing taxes alongside some very caring colleagues. This follows formal and informal consultancy around taxes, budgeting, and business management that I have done with artist entrepreneurs for some years now. Let me help you through this moment, and beyond!

Link in bio for a direct link to book an appointment with me, or you can sign up for Philly Tax Prep for Artists’ mailing list (phillytaxprepforartists.com/contact-us ) and book with me or any of my caring colleagues. You don’t need to be Philly-based. Hit me up for more info

ALSO (because sometimes people don’t know), if you feel comfortable doing your taxes on your own, the IRS Free File has free options for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income is $79,000 or less to prepare and file their own federal (and often state) taxes online with limited guidance. If you search IRS Free File, you’ll find information on this

Come tomorrow, Taji will have been an Earthling fo

Come tomorrow, Taji will have been an Earthling for 6 months. I have the privilege of going on a long walk with him most mornings, and I watch his face, his skin, as it absorbs the information from these seasonal shifts, each of them he is experiencing for the first time. It is a wild feeling to be in such a new relationship with this little one, and to feel that relationship’s depth surpass that of people that I have known for much longer.

As I have been engaging with information on Gaza, I have been careful to protect myself from watching on-the-ground videos of what is happening. Reading about it is horrific enough, and sometimes while looking at Taji’s little face, I’ll get flashes of images like the one that I accidentally scrolled onto last night: a father kissing the eyelids of one of his three recently killed children… I believe she had been crushed in the rubble of the aftermath of a recent Isra3li airstrike. Sometimes, I wonder if Taji can tell when my hug of tenderness shifts to one of desperation in the aftershock of one of these image flashes. I wonder if he can interpret my apology in the look I give him afterward, my promise that I will always be there for him, my skepticism of promises of always when I know the danger of the world… and the reality that we have been born into — and continue to live in — an imposed nation-state that is built on and continues to bolster the world’s g3n0cides… and the hatred that they seed.

Taji has been with me in the studio while at the very beginning of my study of Intore, the Rwandan court dance. The Rwandan warrior dance. I was 12 in 1994 during the Rwandan g3n0cide. Now, at 41, I read updates on the Congolese g3n0cide provoked by Rwandan-backed M23 (and fueled by diplomatic manipulators from the US to Europe to Isra3l…). As my body meets this form, this exquisitely ornate form, I try to remain conscious of how information is passed down through posture, through gesture, through physical form. I feel the body of the conqueror and the conquered within me as I meet this form. Maybe parenthood has me dwelling on what gets passed down, and how.

Hope he’ll be proud of what I’m passing him.

1:18pm, June 1st 10 lbs, 4.7 oz 23 inches This li

1:18pm, June 1st
10 lbs, 4.7 oz
23 inches

This little person. I call this little person ‘Taji. This little person will call me (m)zazi.

You can’t tell from the pics how loved this little one already is… it’s so much more than what could be described in any earthly estimation, and even the stars don’t offer the right metrics to be able to measure love that expansive

You can’t tell from the pics how strong this little one is… and pic #3 of Taji and Mommy (my dear friend, Emily) won’t show you how incredibly strong Emily is, how much of a champion she is. but… 48 hours of a very intense labor… this welcoming has been monumental

You can’t tell from the pics how big this little one is… my parents have been calling this little one “the sumo wrestler” and “the bodyguard”…

We are so happy you’re here, ‘Taji. 13 days after what we’d been told to expect. But, right on time.

I’m so in love y’all.

If you are not in the Google photos shared album and think you should be, text me. I blame (1) your spam inbox, or (2) my slippery baby brain for neglecting to send you the invitation.

If you want to offer a welcome gift, https://www.babylist.com/list/emilyandjumatatu

Pic 1 — Taji’s footprints foregrounded with mine in the background

Pic 2 — Taji’s hand holding my pinky in a meteorite ring

Pic 3 — Mommy/Emily (@em.en.las.estrellas) kissing Taji’s head in bed

Pic 4 — wall image in Taji’s room with mdw ntr writing by my dad (painted in by me), and a quipu-inspired string poem above the image

It’s already been 2 weeks and a couple days sinc

It’s already been 2 weeks and a couple days since the conclusion of Wildin’ In, and in the midst of scrambling to get some other things organized, I haven’t posted anything about it since. But, I have been swelled up by gratitude since then… buoyed by gratitude and floating in a lake of ecstasy. The workshops were really sensational, and I am so grateful to have had the companionship of all of the workshop participants, in both Philadelphia and in Durham. The proposals that I was making were not easy. Perhaps simple, but not simplistic. And they demanded both a spirit of abundant play, and the dedication of a disciplined rigor. I thank y’all for trusting me to navigate us, and for opening yourselves to the delights that you were able to encounter. I feel so passionately about the importance of deep imagination work, how central that is to the work of collaborating toward the worlds that better support our living, our loving, and graceful leaving. Thank y’all. If you missed it, I know we’ll do it again. Not sure yet when.

And, the Queer Slow Jams in both cities were so sweet. Thank you to all who came out, and who collaborated the parties into existence. And, yes, they were both sweet, but that Durham Jam!!!! May all parties be that tender and sexy! Bev at Rofhiwa told me that people keep asking when it’s going to happen again. Soon 🙂 Thank you to DYNAMISM (@thisheretree) for trusting the slow. And, Janelle Monae’s “Lipstick Lover” came out JUST a few days too late! We would have slowed it down and lit that song all the way up on the dance floor. I would have ended the night with lipstick all over my neck… or having left it all over someone else’s 🙂

I’m happy to be in a calmer moment now, to be able to dance a bit with Gladys, and await a new little person’s entrance into the world

ID: Gladys (my branch companion) and I (in a pattern shirt with amethyst around my neck) smiling into the camera in a boomerang motion effect, with a shiny psychedelic filter on top of our brown skins

I’m beyond excited these days 🙂 Racing (slowl

I’m beyond excited these days 🙂

Racing (slowly) down an epic to-do list before I meet a very special new person, but super excited nonetheless.

If you do not know this about me, I recently moved to Durham, NC from Philly for a variety of reasons. The most major of those reasons was so that I could move in (for a while) with one of my dearest friends so that we could start a co-parenting project together. Emily (@em.en.las.estrellas) and I have been friends since our first year in college 80 years ago, and she is one of a very, very, very short list of people that I could envision parenting with. I am so happy that we will be collaborating in this beautiful project together, with such a strong foundation of friendship, love, and rigor. Thank you, Emily, for having the idea, and for believing that I could do this with you.

At this point, we are waiting for any day now to meet this new little person who will be living in this sweet little room. This little video may be as close as I get to posting this little person on social media for maybe the next 16 or so years… but we’ll see. If you know me like that and you wanna be in the album where we will undoubtedly post around a million photos of the little, lemme know.

And just to be clear, while we are in deep partnership together on this project, Emily and I are not together in a romantic or sexual partnership. I am still very much single and outchea if you cute and incredible 🤣

If anyone wants to talk further about how we are going about constructing our queer lil family, lemme know, too. We don’t have a whole lot of models like ours to look toward, so we would love to be in further community about tricks of the trade, and are here for QT folks who are looking for other examples.

Thank you to all who have contributed to this little baby room so far. What’s still to come on the walls are a Gall Orthographic world map, indigenous maps of Africa and the Americas, a special people tree of collaged pictures, and a couple things hanging from the ceiling.

Registry open @ https://www.babylist.com/list/emilyandjumatatu

See y’all in 18 years 🤷🏾‍♂️
💜

_move_you_

Hey y’all, hope you are getting and giving goodn

Hey y’all, hope you are getting and giving goodness. This is coming late, but… On April 3rd, 2023, we — Donte and Makini (jumatatu) — were awarded a shared Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. The award is a $75,000 prize given to artists in recognition of their existing body of work, and the promise of work to come. You can learn more about the award at @herbalpertaward

Both privately with award administration and during our award speeches, we drew attention to the fact that we would each receive half of the award that almost all other recipients had received throughout the history of the once-in-a-lifetime award, a result of our having been nominated collectively (and rightfully so) within a format trained to locate and celebrate the sole individual genius.

We were totally blown away when our colleague awardee Park McArthur (carriedandheld.net) reached out to us with an overwhelmingly generous gesture. Park offered to share her full award with us, ultimately resulting in the three of us combining the amount of the two awards — $150,000 total — and splitting that amount three ways. We are incredibly grateful to and inspired by Park for her generosity, which allowed us to increase the amount of royalties that we distributed to the amazing team of collaborators we have had for this work over the past decade.

We will each individually comment more later on the experience with the award, and with the larger machine of philanthropy. For now, much love, y’all, and continued congratulations to all the other awardees!

The video posted is the clip of our work we intended to use for the award reception, but Makini sent the wrong link 🤦🏽‍♂️

Queer Slow Jam - spinning the records thisheretree

Queer Slow Jam - spinning the records thisheretree - giving us a vibe - giving us slow - giving us intimacy - giving it to us

Makini (@makinimakes) and Donte (@idance4_me) gett

Makini (@makinimakes) and Donte (@idance4_me) getting ready late last night at @rofhiwabooks . They’ll be doing a couple short, SLOW sets tonight at the Queer Slow Jam in Durham… Come through, y’all!

Queer Slow Jam: Durham
@ Rofhiwa Book Café
May 5, 8 - 11pm

DJed BY dynamism (thisheretree)
& performances from
Makini and Donte

$5 - $10 sliding scale
no one turned away for lack of $$$
21+

ID: Makini and Donte doing modified and slowed original majorette choreography in unison, Donte holding a cell phone in right hand to record the dancing selfie style. They dance in the after hours darkness of the closed Rofhiwa Book Café, illuminated only by the street lights outside.

#tbt a year ago in Los Angeles. performance week

#tbt

a year ago in Los Angeles.
performance week in partnership with REDCAT.
a little speedthrough reminisce of our intervening through the Belmar Park area of Santa Monica.

since the beginning of the Let ‘im Move You series of projects, we have been threading in live streaming captures of our dancing, self(ie)-documenting ourselves in brief spurts as we perform. but @mx_oops had the idea to document the entire outdoor Intervention while we performed, and that they would video DJ in the moments that the dancers captured from the “inside”. it was an exciting rounding out of the performance, and one that we added to the later Intervention performances that we did for the remainder of our tour.

in LA, we did our outdoor Intervention performances and the theatrical performances of Formation at REDCAT. while we didn’t do our Queer Slow Jam in LA, our slowdancing there to the sunset was some of the sweetest we have done.

were you around for our LA performances? what do you remember?

thank you @zen_dem for being the consistent B-camera documenter.

thank you to @aprilbanks_art for allowing us to interact with your beautiful A Resurrection in Four Stanzas exhibit, helping us to find deeper context in our intervening through the city. PLEASE CHECK OUT APRIL’s WORK at aprilbanks.com

thank you to the folks who intersected with our intervening, witnessing us, interacting with us, being the care that we are consistently looking for — in the face of other kinds of attention that we receive.

thank you to REDCAT for helping us to bring this work to LA.

#fbf a year ago at @jacobspillow getting ready

#fbf

a year ago at @jacobspillow

getting ready to tour performance works in the Let ‘im Move You series

getting ready… preparing our covenants to one another… how we will agree to care for another, to spread care… how we will ask for and offer protection…

getting ready… reviving the 8-counts (and the 16s, the 24s, the 32s…)… readying our attention to the calls and the agility of our responsiveness…

getting ready those bodies. activating… turning them on… turning them on…

getting ready those attentions. noticing. feeling. sensing. sending.

📸: @angeledwardsart

#blackqueerhistories
#blackqueerhistory
#blackqueerarchives

repost from @therealjsettes ******** (this is @ju

repost from @therealjsettes
********

(this is @jumatatupoe … since a couple different people post on this account)

eons ago, when @idance4_me (Donte) and i first started dancing around together, before we knew that it would eventually become building together, before we had any articulate idea about what we were doing, before we were creating work around the play… when it was just play-play… we spent so much time just being at “attention” together. the stock-still position regarded as “attention” within majorette/J-Sette communities. present, vertical body with weight centered over the right foot, left foot — backed up by its attached leg — charging out from the hip toward as far as it can to the front of this vertical monument erected behind it.

and from there… you are ready. getting ready. for the 8-count to reach where you are in formation. to take your choreography from 0 to 100… the zero of this ready, present, attentive “attention” position to the 100 of the thrusting, bouncing, battling, seducing, calling of the 8-count (or whatever cousin multiple of 8-count that the captain might be calling in the moment, at their strategic whim).

i was always so attracted to this place of readiness, of attention. the accountability stored up in that position, in its steadiness in formation. the trust built up in that position, the trustworthiness of it. ready to witness, ready to move together, ready to be thrillingly sensed by “a billion eyes”… as Donte and i — alongside the many collaborators with whom we made community — continued in our work and play, the significance of attention and attentiveness has remained central to how we have proposed moving with care within and through our collaborative communities. it has been one of the most important lessons i have learned from our work-play together. thank you to the southern Black femme majorettes for innovating a form so rich in meaning and metaphor.

(image description in comments)

That one time half of us ended up in the same plac

That one time half of us ended up in the same place!

Cheers to us and the us’s that we were and the u

Cheers to us and the us’s that we were and the us’s that we are now. Cheers to connections “4life”. Cheers to the newness before us. Cheers to our memories. And cheers to the re-membering that we will do in our futures together! The “This is a Formation” family y’all!!!! 🖤🤎🖤🤎🖤🤎🖤

Even after 2 performances we wanted to get us one

Even after 2 performances we wanted to get us one more piece from the project as it comes to its end! My babies 4 life! 💯❣️❣️

I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THIS MUSIC

#dance #dancelyfe #letimmoveyou #family #weare #blackandbrownartists #dc #thisisaformation