call and response

in call and response, jess pretty wraps her audience in a conceptual, and literal, embrace. Unfolding as a dance-based, experiential conversation – between pretty and her younger selves, her ancestors, and everybody else in the room – call and response is a kind of casual, yet devotional, soirèe or salon or kickback, with pretty as the host.

within an environment of familiar (and familial) comforts – living room furniture, record player, books and plants; all of it bathed in continuous, deep blue light – call and response doles out laughter and music as soft (and generous) launching points for an experience of memory and reflection that is shared and felt as much as it is witnessed. it endeavors to slow down the room; and invites us to join in the attempt.

www.jesspretty.com/callandresponse

This project was made possible with the support of the Imagine Fund Annual Faculty Research Grants through the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota.