Guest host Brinda Guha reflects on the ancient technologies embraced by Marjanie Forté-Saunders when developing her new work during a 2025 Pillow Lab residency.
Dance Interaction videos and essays related to this episode include:
PillowVoices podcasts related to this episode include:
Remembering Blondell Cummings with Paloma McGregor
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow Archives. I'm Norton Owen the Pillow’s Historian and Founding Director of Preservation, and it's my pleasure to introduce Brinda Guha, an artist, producer and administrator, who hosts this episode focused on choreographer, performer and community organizer Marjanie Forté-Saunders. Together we’ll hear about Forté-Saunders relationship with ancient technologies: such as ritual, embodiment, and ancestral transmission as she muses on her process of developing a new work during a Pillow Lab residency.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: I am Marjanie Forté-Saunders. I am a choreographer and a performing artist. I'm also a mother. I am a wife, a partner. I am a daughter and I am many things so I wear a lot of hats but primarily I'm activated by a sense of purpose in my making. I am a conjurer invested in manifesting and assembling and gathering to be a part of a long lineage of change and evolution. That's my work and that's my journey.
Brinda Guha: Other than holding deep respect for Marjani’s shapeshifting artistry for many years now, I first interacted with Marjani directly when I was producing a series at Dance/NYC called “Artists Are Necessary Workers.” She was on a panel called “Touring in a Post-Covid World” where Dance/NYC led a discussion with arts workers and presenters as they thought about the future of touring engagements. She said something then that stayed with me since. She said, “the art is gonna art, no matter what”. I realized then her dedication to embracing a dignified and fortified change: one that we must all undergo as artists in a field defined by uncertainty, and requiring a relentless practice of discernment. In this conversation, Marjani discusses her 2025 Pillow Lab residency creating the first phase of her new work, Float. She moves across time with ease: ancient spiritual technologies, modern projection and sound design, Buddhist philosophies of change, Black futurity, nervous systems, wombhood, ensemble practice, and more. Nothing here is linear, and as you’ll notice, that’s not by accident. Rather than guiding you through this discussion as a straight line, I want to invite you into it the way Marjani works: in cycles, in spirals, in weather systems. So, when Marjani talks about technology, she’s not limiting us to machines or screens. She’s widening the frame.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: ‘The piece was called Chicken Soup, a polyvocal, what was that what was that, a polyvocal archive and Seta Morton…. And she curated. She and Judy curated, Judy Essie Taylor, my re-staging of the seminal work belonging to Blondell Cummings’ Chicken Soup. I learnt this work from Blondell directly when I was with Urban Bush Women in 2006 and toured it throughout 2007. And became I think the only person to have performed the work on stage. And so it lived in my body, I call it like a tattoo because of the time that we spent together. But still, learning it in my 20s v/s performing what it in my new 40-year old body was a total whirlwind of remembering, not only the work, but what I do. And what I do, is conjuring, and being in connection with what we’ve been calling in process, ancient technologies as well as spiritual technologies that are at work in my life. Period. So with them at work in my life, I can understand how they can then work in the microcosm of my work and helping me to again gather and assemble ideas and concept and energy and stories to create an art piece that works as a prism and reflects not only the many stories and many voices but distinctly my voice. So that’s among the ways I am using ancient and ancestral technologies. The modern technology bit is because I am in love with set design. I am in love with projection. I am in love, literally, with sound. My partner-in-crime and in concept and thinking and in making, Everett Saunders. Collectively, we operate as a 7NMS and the way that we uphold each other’s works and ideas and the way that we are galvanizing resources behind them to make them real. But as a sound designer, we are often in conversation about techniques and reusing and unfolding, which is ancestral.
Brinda Guha: Marjani names ancient technologies: ritual, embodiment, ancestral transmission, alongside modern ones like sound reuse, projection, and set design. What connects them is not novelty, but function: How do they move information through the body? How do they carry memory forward? How do they prepare us for futures we don’t yet have language for? She references adrienne maree brown’s groundbreaking work, Emergent Strategy, particularly the idea that enslaved Black people understood futurity. Not abstractly, but tactically. Teaching children at night. Encoding survival, freedom, and imagination into ritual. These were technologies of liberation.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: I love, I tell this quote all the time, but adrienne maree brown talks about “even captive Black people who were worst slaves in this country understood future teaching their children in the night, rituals and traditions that they could carry with them into their lives as portals for their both their freedom and their evolution.” adrienne says it way cuter and way more concise. I'll offer that, but she talks about that in her work Emergent Strategy, and it's something that I cling to when I think about how I'm engaging modern technologies.
Brinda Guha: Marjani’s theory of change isn’t about disruption for its own sake. It’s about continuity through adaptation. Technologies (ancient and modern) are how knowledge survives pressure. And for Marjani, this pressure is met with concepts of Zen, an ancient Buddhist philosophy describing the direct realization of reality. Although I personally am agnostic, I grew up in a Hindu household, and I always connected to the Sanskrit mantra “asato ma sat gamaya” meaning “Lead me from the untruth to the truth”. The way she describes her relationship to Zen reminds me of her unwavering commitment to receiving instructions of change. Turns out, her entry point is an injury. A forced stillness. Nine months of recovery. Sitting at her mother’s house, watching mountains, clouds, the sky, water.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: At the least and also as someone knew or fairly green in my understanding of this Zen Buddhist concept, the highlight of it for me in my life, and the way that it was applying or connecting to me, was primarily through the notion of being like clouds and water. I picked up on it when I had torn my ACL with Urban Bush Woman. Very early in the career, we were all looking forward to going on this tour with Compagnie du Champie, directed by mama Germaine Acogny and we spent time in Senegal building the piece, and we were going on the road to share the piece. And at the premiere, I jumped out on stage at the beginning of a section called “Women's Resistance,” and I landed, and my femur went like that, and right at the beginning of the tour, I had to sit down for nine months and have surgery. So while my kinfolk, my village, my sisters and brothers and human beings of great delight at that time. I'm in my 20s. We're having a ball. While they're doing that, I'm sitting at my magic chair gazing at the mountains in Southern California, in Pasadena at my mom's house. This is the same house that, fast forward, 20 something years later, would burn down in the Eaton Canyon fires. So it is absolutely magical and apropos and divine that this notion of being like clouds and water advancing without, I won't say without. Advancing period. By changing in the way that clouds in the water do. Around obstacles. Will continue to be, I would learn it then at my knee moment, and then I would need it now, in the wake of great change, both in my body, in my world with the fires, and in our lives as a family.
Brinda Guha: Clouds don’t resist transformation. Water doesn’t argue with gravity. They advance by becoming something else. Marjani names this as divine. Not because it’s supernatural, but because it teaches her how to endure. How to move forward without hardening. How to survive a moment of great change by yielding intelligently.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: In terms of ancient technologies, the way that's showing up in this work, it's showing up here as I'm looking at change, as I'm looking at change as a facet of life, but most certainly as a part, as a critical part of how we endure, as a critical part of how we, of how to, of how I'm continuing in spite of because of and alongside of.
Brinda Guha: While working on Chicken Soup, a profound work by Blondell Cummings, rest her soul, she encountered a text (anonymous and prophetic) that spoke about the care required for our nervous systems. That idea stayed with her. Not intellectually, but somatically. Meditation, stillness, quiet, attention. These are not aesthetic choices. They are interventions.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: I am deeply interested, quick diversion, we started working with Marlies Yearby to understand more about ways we can be in relationship to meditation, ways we could engage or different approaches to meditation to support our dive into the work. Part of that study, for me, is understanding the real life impact of meditation on the body, on the central nervous system. See when I started working with Dancespace Project again and rehashing this word, Chicken Soup, I even then, was deeply interested in what was happening with my central nervous system and with the central nervous systems of people at this very critical time in the world. But my central nervous system is, of course, a priority in my journey right now and in so being I had, I had just come across a piece of text that was offered to me by this really auspicious collective that began sending out these semi anonymous notes via email during the pandemic, and among the notes, one of the notes that they had sent talked about the calm and the attention that we needed to give our central nervous system. This was wild. It blew my mind. Who else could be thinking like this, wow, I'm going through it okay. And so I opened up Chicken Soup, my iteration of Chicken Soup, in 2025, at this point in my life, with that text, so that people could understand that the work was soothing, not just me, but could be a balm, B, A, L, M for them. And could be an invitation to pay attention, to get quiet, to get still, to drink your water, to remember, to reflect and to pay attention to your central nervous system that is are receiving messages every day, all day, and in turn, and are how we are internalizing such messages and then conducting our wellness and our abilities to show up and be present, anywhere. How does that look then that's a great theory. That's a great thing to say out loud. But then not for real, like, what does the science look like like when I pull up an MRI, what does that look like? That's what I want to do with the scientist.
Brinda Guha: Her upcoming collaboration with a neurologist won’t be about validation. It will be about dialogue. What does science see when artists have already felt the truth? What happens when data meets lived experience? This is where ancient and modern technologies meet again. But this time, inside the nervous system itself. When asked about the process of making work, Marjani tells us plainly: she does not make work linearly. But she also understands responsibility to the audience. Care. Orientation.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: I rarely speak in linear form. I don't even know you see, in order to answer a question, I have to go way back to give you some background. So I offer that it will not be in a linear form, because I don't even, I don't understand linearity as a, as a way to do this work yet. But I do understand needing to communicate before and after. So the before and now and after. So what I will leave for people to be with is the chart, is the kind of storyboard that we've been engaging in, it's a process I inherited from Jawole to help get the ideas out. Because if I were to leave it to myself, everyone would they're already swirling, okay, but they would really be everybody, my collaborators, Everett, would be swirling in a place would be so destabilized. And so I created this time I worked not only with the storyboard to get those drafts and nuggets of things out. But what I love about the storyboard process that I learned from Jawole is I can name the images that we've been referencing. I can name the stories. I can name the text that we've been referencing.
Brinda Guha: When I experience Marjani’s work, I can immediately feel the container she’s built through her storyboarding process that she learned from the great Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. This part of the conversation really resonated with me, as I am in the grueling and fulfilling process of building a show with my percussive trio, Soles of Duende, entitled The Kitchen. We are in the arc-building phase of the work, and we are asking questions like “Who is invited into our kitchen?”, and “What are we cooking?”. “How do families relate to each other?” From Marjani’s reflections, I am learning that as long as we ask the right questions about our frame, our picture will emerge clear when time and process allows it to. And then there’s the concept dial: her own invention. A kind of sundial for ideas. A tool for thinking in circles.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: And what emerged for me for this particular residency, is I, I created a, you know, like a sundial. I created a concept dial (Unknown speaker: Oh I love that), and so, and that helped me. And I also think, hope that it speaks to those who are like me, weirdos who think in circles, because then I could list all the concepts that I am chewing on in a way, and I could not be linear. But instead, we can lift those concepts in the way that they might show up for us individually inside of the work. So I concept dial and a storyboard and look, that's my best effort. That's what I got. That's my best way to make it all visible.
Brinda Guha: This feels important: Nonlinearity does not mean chaos. It means multiple points of entry. Multiple truths coexisting. Marjani is clear about one thing: change cannot happen alone.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: For me, it's been a wild transformative process because I realized, oh, there's some firsts here. It's been a long time since when I've done any sort of like cohabitation or touring or making with folks who I didn't, wasn't already in love with. I've been touring PROFIT with Everett, which is the last work that we made, to get with that we made at 7NMS, co-visioning on that work. So he was performing, and we made that work with the support of d. Sabela Grimes and with the media projection and visioning of meena murugesan and with my my very close friend who would also be there within cosi and could work in company manager form, Camille, Camille Tyler was going by Camille Tyler at that time. I believe her last name has changed. And oh my gosh, who else was in there? Marcella, Marcella, Ann Lewis, who was the third performer with us. And we were in love, all of us. We knew each other well. We spent years together at this time. So there was that. And then prior to that, was Ego with meena again and myself and Everett on sound and Sabela would come and hang out. We're all family. We're all friends. They are auntie and uncle to my son. So this is the first time that I'm touring with folks I am getting to know Yeesh, what a journey. One, this work is about change. Be open. Two, 10, days. Yes, we get to dive together for 10 days. That's a sizable residency. That's a good time to sync in together. Three, it's necessary. I can't do this work by myself, and it's not a solo. The work necessitates it, that I be among others, for I am curious. I am forever curious of how, what is the process of translating? You know, I'm going to say this here because it's true, and I don't know how or when or what the shape is. At some point, I want to work with the same group of people for a significant period of time in the form of company. That's a very strange thing to say, in the form of a company. But I think the form of a company has changed with the economy, with the now, and so as I attempt to discover what that is, I am curious about the practice of ensemble-hood in this now. There is a practice of ensemble-hood I learned with Urban Bush Woman. We were meeting from 11 to 6 every day for several weeks at a time, and then we were on tour, and we had a 36 week contract. I don't know who has a 36 week contract in 2025 with this economy. So what does it look like for people to assemble in relationship to this now, according to the resources that there are regularly, what does that require, and what does it mean to build in relationships with to with familiarity. Dare I say, familyhood, I have curiosity about that. And so in order to exercise any form of that curiosity, we must try, and we must do. And so the Pillow Lab has been an incredible gift in that first, I don't want to say attempt, but. In that first experiment, and in that sense, it's been glorious, and I've been deeply grateful, and I love what we've manifested together, and it'll be perfect for this moment.
Brinda Guha: I want to uplift Marjani’s line of questioning: What does ensemble look like now (under current economic conditions, time constraints, and resource realities)? What does it require to build familiarity, trust, maybe even family? As an artist myself, these questions will continue to stay with me as all of us artists embark upon new work. I am also deeply entrenched in the study of the feminine divine. I curate an event called “Wise Fruit”, a live gathering in rotating nightlife venues, one that is nourished and powered by this divine feminine. Marjani’s fodder around her “wombhood” is discussed with radical clarity, as she continues to weave together ideas of Zen, nature, technologies, and change.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: Can I speak out loud about my vagina? Can I speak out loud about my she/ her? Can I speak out loud about this particular pronoun while also loving the multiplicity of gender that we have. We have so many flowers and plants and weeds and seeds and trees and species of animal, such is the case with the human being. Does that mean that the daisies don't enjoy being daisies? So I would like to speak out loud about what I love and what I have to contend with. There's a great deal of change inherent in this body system, and I'm enjoying it. God damn it, I better. It's gonna happen either way. It's gonna happen either way, and this 40 year old emergence, I'm speaking out loud about that too. As a womb holding person, when I became pregnant with Nkosi, there was a world of knowing or a world of change that I would have to contend with. The first of that change, when Nkosi and Nkosi was first born, was, Oh, my God, my body. And when I was carrying Nkosi, it was, there's an alien in here. I wanted to dance. I just want to go out. I just want to put on my outfit. And there's an alien in here, and I felt like I had been inhabited by a creature, and I had been and so I there's, there's a tick, and there's a series of change that's inside of that that I'm interested in sharing and in being out loud about. And then there's more change that has happened since then, since giving, not only in the process of giving birth, but that is also a part of the womb, which is the ticking of hormonal change that starts to unfold. And it's like a very like all I can do is that if I were dancing, I would be in a kind of conversation with my body, because that seems to be a better place. But the way that shows up for me is acceptance. The way that that shows up for me is out loudedness about all of the ways that my body can express its sense, its sentiment and its sensation and its adoration and its affection, and all the ways that it longs for adoration, acceptance, sensation. I want to have some of those conversations out loud as who I am, which is very much a woman, and I love it about who I am, and I want to say it.
Brinda Guha: What emerges for me is not grievance, but acceptance. And more than that: adoration. Affection. A desire to name what her body longs for. This, too, is technology: telling the truth of sensation. Invoking the teachings of Sonya Renee Taylor, Marjani is letting the body speak without apology.
Marjanie Forté-Saunders: A function of biomimicry, this idea of biomimcry, that even, that adrienne maree brown, that I learnt through Emergent Strategy with adrienne maree brown, is a process that she too has inherited a function of how organizations are looking at their process and ways to organize themselves, in the way that nature has dealt with itself. In the way that nature finds permanence and functionality among change. That being said, the cycles that I live with. Every month, okay, that cycle, in addition to the cycle of change that comes with, the constant change of wombhood, from the arrival of puberty to the emergence of next stage, of emergence of adulthood or flowering into that which would be called menopause or perimenopause and the way that lasts, even through the grand cycle of life and death that all who are born have access to. The critical thing that I am interested in mimicking in this work. Biomimicry has been a major function in us understanding movement or in us understanding the trees here at Jacob’s Pillow and the leaves in the way they activate, in the ways that they vibrate, and in the ways that they give us information on how to be in our physical dynamics in the work.
Brinda Guha: Marjani’s work Float, is a three-year project. And she situates herself clearly: early in the arc, open, curious, and listening. What feels certain already is this: Float is not about predicting the future. It’s about preparing the body to meet the future. Through clouds and water. Through sound and stillness. Through ensemble, wombhood, and care for the central nervous system. Listen…this is a practice of change that doesn’t abandon softness. Rather, it embraces a methodology that allows the body to remember where it came from.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at DanceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course through live experiences during our Festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.