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@memory_fleet

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Memory Fleet is a performance and archive inspired by the shared memories of Hearn’s Aunties & Matriarchs of the North & South communities of Houston.

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Dear jhon @jhonnielove
I am unsure where I’d would have l landed without your mentorship, friendship, accountability, and sure footed truths.

You ushered the light in our worlds for Memory Fleet. You wove your voice throughout timelines. Your dances alongside opened portals to wisdom my body knew and others I had forgotten.

My heart grows with each memory of us making, moving, remembering, and dreaming over good food and necessary laughter and the medicine of practice.

I love you and celebrate you.

Image 1: from video
Image 2 & : Lynn Lane
Image 3: Olivia K. Young
Image 4: Preetika Rajgariah, courtesy of Diverseworks
Video: selfie
Video: me

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Dear General Sisters,
Ginger @brookstakahashi and dana @danamindlbr …. dana and Ginger.
Y’all had me out in Braddock, PA in Ginger’s teal hunter green pick up truck with wildflowers in hand. Gleeful to be able to learn from the two of you — your famous herb salt on my palate and an array of dishes deepened my understanding of nourishment and communion.

Medicine from plant to plate. I learn from you both that information is a resource, and that listening hands make meals that are remembered for a lifetime.

Thank you for all of the love, wisdom, assurance, and holding from our first protest to Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle and beyond. May the salt stay with us.

Images from the archive 2012-2026

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dear etta,
grated raw carrot and beet with black sesame seeds and tahini.
backyard conversations with the beginnings of Let’s Get Free
learning what was
the banners you made
the banners you made with many
the letters you wrote
the letters you wrote with many
the ceremony at the rivers
the banners you made for us
Thank You for extending such rigor and work to Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle.

Images by etta cetera

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@kstheater you are one of a kind!!!
It has been an incredible ride! The Kelly Strayhorn Theater has been a home to me since 2011. Almost 15 years have passed and the support that folks at KST have shared with me is tremendous. Thank you Joseph Hall, Melanie Paglia, Sarah Gilmer, Michelle Lee Betts, Piper Clement, Melike Konur, and J.R. Shaw. Thank you to the past leadership of janera solomon. And thank you Ben Pryor!

I have so much to say and not enough space on this platform to express my overwhelming appreciation for this time to celebrate Staycee, Ursula, Alisha, Bekezela, Anqwenique, Melike, and so many folks who shaped a web of resilience, tenacity, brilliance and beauty in Pittsburgh.

Thank you for the space, time, attention, and chance to make something special more than once in a place that is more than special.

Image 1: Chad Isaiah, courtesy of Kelly Strayhorn Theater
Image 2: Laura Petrilla for Table Pittsburgh
Image 3: Chad Isaiah, courtesy of Kelly Strayhorn Theater
Image 4: courtesy of Kelly Strayhorn Theater, sculpture by Blaine Siegel
Image 5-7: courtesy of Kelly Strayhorn Theater

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Sky wide thanks to Staycee Pearl, Herman “Soy Sos” Pearl, and the mercurial PearlArts Movement and Sound team for supporting the behind the scenes work of Memory Fleet.

To have been able to record songs that landed in multiple iterations of the performance series continues to be a resource I do not take for granted and truly cherish. It has been a long and moving journey for me as a lyricist, songwriter, and vocalist. Thank you for such a special place to make sound and movement with patience and specificity.

Expansive gratitude for the time to clarify as an artist in residence as part of the PearlDiving Residency program – it changed my life in 2014 with its support of the trio, “Mama, am I clean yet?”. I am so grateful to have had the privilege to return in 2025 to further the choreographic and sonic trajectories of Memory Fleet.

Many thanks to each of y’all at PearlArts Movement and Sound! The work you have done and continue to do over the years influences all of us to stay focused and inspired.
<3

Pictured: Jasmine Hearn Photography: Herman Pearl , Courtesy of PearlArts Movement and Sound, April 2025.

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Dear Sibyls Shrine
You are a place to come home to — conjuring necessary light and cave. A floor that feels like butter to dance on within a building that expands with so much memory.

Thank you Sibyls Shrine for partnering with Memory Fleet – thank you for offering space to tend, opportunities to connect, and nourishment to imagine. Thank you for being a part of our remembering. The work would not have landed as it did without your care.

The beautiful exhibition “Practices of Holding” was a fortified dream to be in conversation with. I appreciate the curatorial brilliance of Jessica Gaynell Moss @jesseplane and the prisming work of participating artists; Elizabeth Burden, Tiara L. Burtin, Lisa Brown, Dail Chambers, Lish Danielle, Cheré D. Gordon, Olivia Guterson, sarah huny young, Miracle Jones, Melike Vivastine Konur, Sasha-Loriene McClain, Zllen McCollum, Victoria Ramlalsingh-Hinton, and Anqwenique.

Thank you for the resources to further this devotional practice.

Pictured: Ursula Payne, Staycee Pearl, Jasmine Hearn. Photography: Dahlia Saenz, Courtesy of Sibyls Shrine and PearlArts Movement and Sound, March 2026.

“Legacy” by Anqwenique (image 1)
Weaving by Alisha B. Wormsley (Image 2 & 3)

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Dear Melike,
It is wild to remember that in 2007 I was assigned to run sound for a rehearsal that you and one other dancer were in preparing for Point Park’s student concert. You were wearing a light pink leotard that matched the pointe shoes on your feet. I remember being entranced by how you scaffolded such potent vibrancy with your entire being.
Throughout that year while in Jaka’s jazz class – I had a chance to witness you in your warm boldness and melodic truth-telling.

You cut through the bullshit and expressed your power in ways that inspired me to keep going. You taught me how to take up space and I needed that lesson.

Thank you for all the ways you cast your voice, movement, history, and wisdom. You awaken worlds I dream of.

Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle, Pictured: Melike Vivastine Konur. Video: Myssi Robinson. Video Projection: Nica Ross. Lighting: jhon r. stronks. Red Dress: Athena Kokoronis of DPA. Photography: Chad Isaiah, Courtesy of Kelly Strayhorn Theater, April 2026.

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Dear Bekezela,
I see the universe in your hands, hear her in your voice, feel them in your words.

When you write, I witness you alchemize remedies. When you speak, I recognize these oratory balms. Stating multiple truths with effervescent clarity. I want to move to all of your poems. And I am grateful for the moments I’ve been blessed to dance alongside the poems you have shared.

Over the years, you have made resting places for so many folks myself included. You have taught me how to braid flowers into circles and listen with my anger and grief. I am unsure how I would have turned out without witnessing you move across space with grounded listening and love. I do not take it for granted.

Thank you for your recipe of re-memories that opened “Stay in the Circle” – we arrived fully within your poetics and stayed rooted in our love.

Images 1 & 2
Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle, Pictured: Melike Vivastine Konur, Staycee Pearl, Bekezela Mguni, Anqwenique Kinsel, Ursula Payne. Video: Myssi Robinson. Video Projection: Nica Ross. Lighting: jhon r. stronks. Photography: Chad Isaiah, Courtesy of Kelly Strayhorn Theater, April 2026.

Image 3 & Video
TQ Live, Carnegie Museum of Art, August 2023.

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Dear Anqwenique
Your voice has carried us through many miracles. It has been more than ten years since we were at PearlArts Studios – when it was on N Braddock. taylor knight and I were moving on the diagonal while you were casting a circle around the two of us and arriving guests in “Mama, am i clean yet?”. That performance stays imprinted in my memory – the work we did together sealed a trajectory of what I wanted to be a part of – clarifying a path.

The circuit of frequencies, prayers, and movements you guide us towards then and now is holy work. Thank you for moving time with distinct knowing and grounded generosity. You guided our breath and our collective tethering. Casting sound that revealed canyons and constellations that yielded our bodies to songs as medicine, familiar and astonishing.

Thank you for sharing your brilliance with “Stay in the Circle” and the moments we build together. ❤️

Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle, Pictured: Jasmine Hearn, Anqwenique Kinsel, Ursula Payne. Video: Myssi Robinson. Video Projection: Nica Ross. Lighting: jhon r. stronks. Photography: Chad Isaiah, Courtesy of Kelly Strayhorn Theater, April 2026.

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🎥 This is an excerpt of a video poem by Platform 2026 Writer-in-Residence Myssi Robinson, who is not only the archivist of this Platform but has been archiving alongside Jasmine Hearn’s work for many years now. This video poem archives not only the March 7th performance of “Memory Fleet: Time & Trinity” at Danspace Project but weaves together a moving tapestry of the Memory Fleet arc to date. Watch the full video poem and read Myssi’s reflection online on Danspace Project’s Journal.

“Here is a sacred trio in a perpetual motion of mothering. A shoreline within the geography of individual and collective histories. Taking care, fooling around, channeling right, breathing deep. On a Tuesday afternoon they drink tea and prepare for a weekend of outwardness inside a very old church. The fleet is up the river, pulling the ocean with it, and the garden is under foot.

Thank you Jasmine / Byronné
Thank you Mrs. Claudette Nickens Johnson
Thank you Marýa / Sylvia
Thank you Mama Charmaine / Pearline
Thank you to all mothering Black people
Thank you to all the lands rooted
To the ones who built the church … may our dreams here feed your rest.”

–Myssi Robinson

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@memory_fleet footnotes @nylivearts

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