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A sun-skinned, mixy transmasculine person rests against a tree with a ball cap on looking directly into the camera. They have scraggly chin beard, gold septum piercing, and they wear a denim gray button-down shirt.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artists

devynn emory

He // Him // His, They // Them // Theirs

Choreographer, Dancer, and Multidisciplinary Artist

Brooklyn, New York

“my practice is not in silo. my current body of work is an invitation to collaborate with me, weaving connection and community with one another. it is an invitation to return home to ourselves as we all have movement within us. in this way, we build steady relations with self, others, and the lands we are from, living on, or occupying.”
devynn emory is a choreographer/dance artist; dual-licensed bodyworker; a holder of collaborative spaces gesturing to collective ritual; a medium; educator; and registered nurse practicing in the fields of acute/critical care, hospice, COVID-19 and integrative health in Lenapehoking (NYC). emory's performance company, devynnemory/beastproductions, finds the intersection of these fields, walking the edges of thresholds — drawing from their multiple in-between states of being. They hold space for liminal bodies bridging multiple planes of transition while finding reciprocity practice as a constant decolonial practice. they are currently working on a trilogy centering medical mannequins holding the wisdom of end-of-life experiences and weaving stories from patients and elders, inviting audiences into grief and somatic practice in collaboration with land. The trilogy is composed of part 1: deadbird (film) and can anybody help me hold this body (grief altar + global archive), part 2: Grandmother Cindy (live performance + film) and Cindy Sessions: LOVE, LOSS, LAND (three films), and part 3 in process: boiling-rain. They have also run a private practice since 2002 named sage that holds a variety of practices and teachings. Born on Lenape Land, emory is of mixed settler/European ancestry on their matrilineal side and is a Lenape/Blackfoot descendent on their patrilineal side.

Donor -This award was generously supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

This artist page was last updated on: 07.11.2024

Dance
Two performers in blue medical scrubs hang an IV bag. In front of them, a medical mannequin lays on a red table covered in a red sheet. In the background of the set is a projection of a woman's face and two statue-like figures draped in yellow.

Still from Part 2 of the #mymannykinfriends trilogy. Image from the rehearsal of “Grandmother Cindy.”

Photo still by Jorge Cousineau.

A backlit figure stands in the middle distance against a desert landscape. They stand in profile with their knees slightly bent and their arm bent upward at the elbow. Above them is a vast and crisp blue sky.

A still from the filming of Cindy Sessions: LAND, 2022.