Barak adé Soleil (they + he), founder of D UNDERBELLY, is an award-winning artist, independent curator and noted consultant who has contributed to the contemporary art scene since 1991. Barak’s progressive practice speaks to the expanse of blackness as it intersects with disability and queer culture.
Extensive traveling throughout their career offered opportunities to cultivate meaningful exchanges with diverse communities, as well as witness, support and participate in powerful artmaking across North and South America, Europe, and West Africa.
Barak has served as Artistic Director of Tangled Art + Disability in Toronto, Director of Programs for Threewalls in Chicago, and most recently was Co-Director of Live Art Development Agency in London, UK. Acknowledgements for creative projects include: 2020 & 2017 Art Matters Foundation Award; 2019 Ragdale Foundation Residency Fellowship; 2017 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency Fellowship; 2016 3Arts Award; and Katherine Dunham Choreography/NYC AUDELCO Award for excellence in Black Theatre.
As a consultant, Barak has engaged globally with independent artists, large & small organizations and institutions, focusing on community engagement and accessibility. Current consultations are informed by a forward-thinking framework centering disability justice.
Barak founded D UNDERBELLY, a network of interdisciplinary artists of color, in Minneapolis in 1996, and returned to the Twin Cities close to 3 decades later to serve as Director of Emerging Curators Institute.
D UNDERBELLY derives its name from the ‘underbelly’ of a slave ship; excavating the legacies that surface from the depths of our cultural experiences.
D UNDERBELLY seeks to act as a catalyst for shifting perceptions, dismantling isms and recognizing the underlying contributions indigenous people from the Latin, Asia, Native and African diaspora have made to this new world culture. A transdisciplinary network of artists of color, D UNDERBELLY emerged circa 1996/7 in Minneapolis, MN, initially as a performative space for exploring the multi-layered dimensions of culture as it relates to societal notions of “blackness”. Invested in interdisciplinary experimentation through the excavation of ‘new work’ and communal exchange, D UNDERBELLY rigorously explores the ever-fluid relationship between movement, music, text, multimedia and environmental configurations in order to encapsulate the complexities of the diaspora. Moving onto Brooklyn, Ny and cultivating connections in Chicago, Austin Tx, northern California and internationally, this network continues to evolve; embracing & interrelating with Latin, Asian and Native/Indigenous traditions and forms.
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PROJECTS include: Out of Africa & Beyond Un-slave diaries Basking in Negritude Vive La Intersections Revolutionary Acts Non Je Regrette Rien Receding ’emories Koool-aid Luv Odyssey N This Hous First Dark Drama Childr’n of “O” S’Kin Deep
Water Moves the Soul
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CURATORIAL:
Intersections: Embracing the Spirit
the black trilogy – Black n Beyond, Studies N Black, the black | body Live Deep N Flow
Re-Frame: A Gathering
Mixed Movement: Chicago Edition
Dance of Decay
Moving Dialogs
Postmodern Afro-Latinidad
Open Dances
MIXER
The TALK
Intersect
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CREATIVE FOLX of D UNDERBELLY – those who have contributed creatively, part of a continuum since 1996:
Stefania Strowder
Christal N. Brown
Leean Johnson Chanon Judson Daniel Marcellus Givens André Austvoll Manelich Minnifee
Geoff Albores
Jerome Harris
Jimmy Lopez
Alejuan Afuraka
e.g. bailey
Gin Hammond
Cheles Rhynes
Ceci Lewis
Francine Sheffield
Bernard Brown
Stephan Reynolds
Penelope McCourty Margaret Morris Usry Alleyne Leann Johnson Rachel Bernsen
Chelsea Gregory Sonja Parks
Monstah Black Laurie Carlos Rafael Sanchez Nikki Patin
Onye Ozuzu
Sha Cage
Douglas Ewart
Signe Harriday Akil Davis Joe Wilson Chevon Stewart Aole T. Miller
Phanuel Antwi
Dana Michel
Olasebikan Freeman
Monstah Black
Awilda Sterling Duprey
Joel Valentin-Martinez
Myra Boone
Carolyn Alvarado Castillo Christa Bell
Shawn Odoms Gesel Mason Mameri Blue Valerie McCleod-Katz
Nicole Mitchell
Jada Odom
Sunder Ashni
Sharon Bridgforth
Natasha Diamond Walker
Nikki B.
Sadie Woods
Marcus Doshi
Maya Lori
Aixa Kendrick
Anitrice Anderson
Delano Jean-Pierre
Matt Morgan
Roxane Wallace
Yaa Asantewaa
Channie Waites
Sandra Jean Gaillard
Mutale Kanyatta
Sojourner Wright
Ronnell Wheeler
Keisha Booker
Debra McGee
Brat Happy Hips James
Brenda Bell Brown
Mankwe Ndosi
Amanda Nicole Pope
Omagbitse Omagbemi
Chris Jones
Gesel Mason
Mark Hairston
Angel
Roger Hall
Reza Salazar
Anna Khimasia
Nur Abdulle
Julie Tamiko Manning
Theaster Gates
Black Monks of Mississippi
Jess Glavina
nyx
Janet Lumb
Inti Barrios Hernandez
James Goddard
Nikita Bala
Anthony Romero
Shanti Gonzales
Shyam Pillai
Tsehaye Hebert
Awilda Rodriguez-Lora
Jerron Herman
Ricarrdo Valentine
Orlando Hunter
Honey Pot Performance Collective
Syrus Marcus Ware
Terri Hudson
NicK King
Drew Coleman
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From 1996 – 2010 D UNDERBELLY’s projects have been informed by this notion of liquid legacies: the passing on of traditions through the body the passing down of ancestral memories the body becomes the container for this information the body fills with the pain of slavery, the passion of love, the struggles of the human spirit, the labor of identity this passing on is liquid, thick, porous, moving into the core of our muscles utterly still and yet cascading over our hearts into the depths of our being resounding in our inner ear made vocal through outer words igniting our souls with legacies we know legacies we don’t want to know legacies we take on D UNDERBELLY is an urban rite of RE-remembering: a rite of embodying the dignity of a people the memory of a nation like song it propels us into states of ecstasy and fear empowering us to truly bask in the multiplicity of colors, emotions and expressions that have permeated our culture these legacies are liquid because they continue to flow through us around us up and down our spine titillating our minds with thoughts of FREEDOM!
Barak adé Soleil (they + he), founder of D UNDERBELLY, is an award-winning artist, independent curator and noted consultant who has contributed to the contemporary art scene since 1991. Barak’s progressive practice speaks to the expanse of blackness as it intersects with disability and queer culture. |
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barak adé soleil 