As part of Community Free Day, choreographer and dance artist devynn emory is invited by Jeffrey Gibson to activate his exhibition POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT.

boiling rain is a call to honor our health care workers enduring the durational tending to bodies impacted by ongoing colonialism. it draws a circle around our departed, with an additional circle around our declining workforce in health care. this performance is an invitation to gather around medical mannequin Jeanie, as she departs this plane into the next. join dancers devynn emory, Yanira Castro and maura nguyễn donohue as they overlay their voices and tongues with the sounds and memories of the club — sweating, insisting on last breaths, and guiding a procession through Jeffrey Gibson’s garments, lights, and ancestral realms. we will offer Jeanie to the skyworld together, as she ascends into the live vocal compositions of artist Holland Andrews.

About the Artist:
devynn emory is a choreographer/dance artist; dual-licensed bodyworker, registered nurse, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, and practices as a seer; educator and holder of collaborative spaces gesturing to collective ritual in Lenapehoking (NYC). emory’s performance company, devynnemory/beastproductions, finds the intersection of these fields. as a hospice worker and decolonial death educator they hold space for liminal bodies bridging multiple planes of transition while finding collective reciprocity as a constant decolonial practice. they are currently approaching the 10-year mark of working in western medicine — parallel to the 10-year antidote performance trilogy centering medical mannequins entitled #mymannykinfriends. this triology weaves the limits of western medicine with an invitation of dreamed future death rituals with the wisdom of end-of-life stories from patients and elders. audiences are invited into grief and somatic practice in collaboration with elemental relatives. the trilogy is composed of part 1: deadbird (film) and can anybody help me hold this body (grief altar + global archive) 2021, part 2: Grandmother Cindy (live performance + film) and Cindy Sessions: LOVE, LOSS, LAND (three films) 2023, and part 3 in process: boiling-rain 2026. emory is of mixed settler/european ancestry on their matrilineal side and is a Lenape/Nanticoke descendent on their patrilineal side. the beginning stages of this work were performed with dancers Martita Abril, Yanira Castro, and maura nguyễn donohue with sound artists Chloe Alexandra Thompson, and Oga Li. this work will premiere as an evening length work at the Chocolate Factory Theater, NYC in the fall of 2026.

Programs associated with Jeffrey Gibson’s POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT are supported in part by the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Endeavor Foundation.

devynn emory, boiling rain, 2024 at the Al Held Foundation. Choreography by devynn emory. Performed by Martita Abril, Yanira Castro, maura nguyễn donohue, devynn emory, Jeanie (voiced by Olga Dekalo and Oga Li). Sound design by Chloe Alexandra Thompson. Production/Stage Management by Reilly Horan. Costume design in collaboration with Vanessa Dion Fletcher. Curated by Olga Dekalo. Photo: James Autery.