Kattorris Bang! (Nathalie Nia Faulk and indee mitchell)
Nathalie Nia Faulk: They // Them // Theirs
indee mitchell: They // Them // Theirs, He // Him // His
[ID: A photograph of two Black people, indee mitchell and Nathalie Nia Faulk, laughing and looking fantastic in front of a sparkling purple-and-white backdrop. They are both wearing black and white. mitchell stretches their leg and white platform boot out in front of them. Faulk is bent to the side with a wide grin, arm raised to touch their forehead.]
Portrait photo by J. Franklin.
New Orleans, LA
2023 USA Fellow
This award was generously supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
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Kattoris Bang! are performance-based artists, cultural organizers, and community historians working from a radical Queer Black Feminist lens rooted in rich Southern traditions. Kattoris Bang! are space holders, thought leaders and they dream real big. They lean into their ancestral wisdom and practices as models for change that pushes forward the liberation of all Black people. They envision a world where Black Trans, Gender Non Conforming (TGNC), Non Binary, Intersex, and 2-Spirit people can thrive, living self-determined lives: a world where they are celebrated for their brilliance, creative and beyond.
Their work is freedom work and sits at the intersections of performance, public history, and trans liberation. This takes form on stage, in classrooms, and, like many Black feminists before, around kitchen tables. Their practices engage all the senses — whether heard in a podcast or experienced physically through movement workshops — creating containers that center the wellness, joy, and healing of their people. At the core of Kattoris Bang!’s work is storytelling and creative expression that unveils the truth of the Black Southern TGNC experience and encourages dreaming of Black Trans futures.
Kattoris Bang! has been building and creating together for nearly a decade. Its members have been named South Arts Emerging Leaders, trained at RockWood Leadership Institute, Highlander Research and Education Center, and have organized and performed with coalitions at the local, regional, and national levels with the support of New England Foundation for the Arts, Greater New Orleans Foundation, Alternate Roots, and more.
Processional, 2017. A walking ritual and performance installation created as a response to the rise of the Say Her Name national campaign to honor the lost lives of Black women to police and state sanctioned violence in the US. Performed by indee mitchell in partnership with Dante Brown|Warehouse Dance, Brooklyn, NY.[ID: A Black performer stands in front of a projected screen wearing a leotard. The screen contains white text on a black background, which reads: “In honor of the Black, Indigenous and Brown Trans Women, Femmes and Gender Nonconforming people murdered for existing in their own skin.”]