radical resilience

“People are trapped in history,

and history is trapped in them.”

  • James Baldwin

Empty theater seating with a colorful mural on the wall featuring a woman's singing face and various patterns.
A portrait of a Black man with dreads, looking directly at the camera against a dark background.

Client: Penumbra Center for Racial Healing Director/Writer/Producer: Andrea Ellen Reed Cinematographer/Editor: Chris Jopp

This is a piece that I created for the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing. I wanted to craft something that would introduce their new equity offerings while addressing their institutional history as the first Black-owned theater in the country. I developed a treatment that enveloped the theater's sights and sounds with vibrant visuals and soundscapes, while still grounding the narrative in an approachable way. 

Empty theater stage with a black floor and rows of blue theater seats in the background.

HISTORY

LEGACY

HEALING

To start this project, I wanted to experience the space alone and feel the energy of the theater in which Penumbra Center for Racial Healing had been founded. I knew that I wanted to convey a certain feel, so I decided to explore the landscape of the theater with a lense that would bend and shape the light to evoke a sense of drama and intrigue. Much like equity work, certain parts of the frame are in shadow until they are illuminated by the light. This exploration (see images below) helped me learn more about the important place that birthed this work, visually find my way into the story and guide me and my crew and me through the shots that would help create the foundation of this piece.

A collage of various theater and backstage images, including dressing rooms, stage setups, lighting equipment, a mural, and artistic props.

BREATHE

Close-up of an Asian woman with closed eyes, dark curly hair, wearing red lipstick and a large orange and black earring, with a dark background. She is practicing a breathing excercise.
A woman with curly hair and earrings sitting in a warmly lit room.
Close-up of a woman with her eyes closed, facing sideways with emphasized dark skin and braided hair, lit with bluish lighting.

Breath work is an integral part of how Penumbra centers its equity work. With this in mind, I wanted to convey a sense of peace that breath work brings and ground this piece by starting in the same way Penumbra starts its sessions. To achieve this, we captured footage of their practitioner guiding us through centering her breath. I wrote the script to weave in and out of her breathing and interspersed it with the key narrative delivered by the Artistic Director of Penumbra. By creating a soundscape with audio of the practitioner’s inhale and exhale, supported by a music track that expands and contracts as breathing does, and a well-timed edit, we were able to mimic senasation of breathing for the audience.

A vanity mirror with bright lights surrounded by various signs and notes on the wall, with a chair and some items on the table below the mirror.
A woman standing in a dressing room with a mirror and bright lights, surrounded by signed posters and memorabilia on the walls.