Location
Mandell Theater
3220 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104

“If I could speak my mind, what would I say?” The Ladies of Hip Hop Collective responds to this question through new writings (spoken word tracks), music, and movement spanning dance styles from African to waacking, vogue, hip hop, and house. Curated under the direction of Michele Byrd-McPhee, The Black Dancing Bodies Project is an initiative to uplift and celebrate Black women in street and club dance culture, addressing the erasure and miscoding of Black women’s contributions to American dance culture. The Black Dancing Bodies Project: Speak My Mind reclaims community stories, gestures, mannerisms, hairstyles, dances, and cultural norms.

Artist discussion immediately following the performance.

Tickets are free but registration  is required: https://drexelperformingarts.universitytickets.com/

Engage more with this artist:
The driving force behind LOHH, Michele Byrd-McPhee is a 2024-25 Rankin Scholar-in-Residence for Drexel’s Antionette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design. A 2023 Bessie Award winner for Outstanding Service to the Field, Michele is a street dance activist and creative visionary who works to decolonize hip-hop culture along gender, cultural socio-historical, and racial lines. Michele Byrd-McPhee’s visit to Drexel includes a week-long residency, October 8-11, 2024.

SpeakMyMind was commissioned by Works & Process, developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2022, 2023, and 2024) and Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), Office Hours Residency at The Kennedy Center, and Jacob’s Pillow Lab.

SpeakMyMind is a 2023 New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Dance Project grantee, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation.

Photo: Titus Ogilvie-Laing