Artistic Manifesto | NIA LATRIESE

My Artistic Manifesto

I am a performer and theatre artist who believes in storytelling and truthtelling as healing. As I investigate my own experiences with curiosity and truth, I am freed to create art and form characters with authentic strokes. I am an artist who believes in the specificity of storytelling as universal. I am an artist who is dedicated to centering the stories and lives of Black Women, Femmes and Trans folks across the Diaspora of Blackness.

I deeply value Laughter, curiosity, fun, Blackness, Womanhood, nature, human relationship, and sensuality.

I will always be an advocate for myself.

I will always be an advocate for thinking less and feeling more.

I will always be an advocate for Care.

I am inspired by Barbara Ann Teer and her work in the Black Arts Movement. I am actively centered by the work of Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, and more. I am guided by radical Black Feminist theory and praxis. I am inspired by my elders and predecessors (names known and unknown) who created, lived, and resisted in every radical way, which has allowed me the opportunity to do the same with more freedom than before.

I am a healing service worker with the tools of care, sustainability, love, and craft:

Service: My code for best practices, and responsibility for the application of my skill to my fullest capacity. Service is the power and the fortitude that we exercise when we task ourselves with the act of labor.
Care: The provision of what is necessary for health. My goal is for care to be reflected in my process and performance.
Sustainability: What works for me, is the work for me. Work it better consistently, not perfectly.
Love is as love does. Love is an act of will -- intention and action. I will strive to do love every day without betraying myself, as best as I can
Craft: Devotion to the purpose of creating joy or sustenance for myself and/or others. Devotion to the work of loving and living. The kind of work that is sacred, persistent, ever-present, and communal. The work that Spirit rewards with anointing and grace.

My strength comes from sacrifices and protections made for me and on my behalf (known and unknown to me.) My strength comes from my Mother and all of my village mothers. My strength comes from my ancestors. My strength comes from Black Women and Femme artists, activists, and Imagineers. My strength comes from all the times that I have wanted to curl up into a ball and cry and didn’t, or did!

I am committed to keeping open!

I promise to listen to Spirit. I promise to not hide when called upon.

I will be proud enough to call it all art.

"This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."
- Toni Morrison.

My Artistic Manifesto

"This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal." - Toni Morrison.

"This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."
- Toni Morrison.