Okwui Okpokwasili On Her New Work for the “Edges of Ailey” Exhibition, Let Slip, Hold Sway

When the Whitney Museum asked choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili to make a piece for its “Edges of Ailey” exhibition, she wasn’t sure what her place was within the legacy of Alvin Ailey. Her work is experimental, highly theatrical, and bears little resemblance to the seminal choreographer’s. But as she dug through Ailey’s vast archives, discovering his connections to choreographers like Anna Halprin and Ralph Lemon and his lesser-known dance works and short stories, “I realized, I actually am in the lineage of that work,” she says.  

Okpokwasili won’t say much about the specifics of Let Slip, Hold Sway, which will premiere on February 6 as part of the exhibition, and which she’s making with her partner in life and art, Peter Born, under the auspices of their company, Sweat Variant. But the research process she describes seems to align with the exhibition itself, which aims to reveal the peripheries of Ailey’s life and work. The commission comes at a busy time for Okpokwasili, who with Sweat Variant recently launched two programs—the Artists Supporting Artists Program and the Threading residency—intended to support fellow artists. And if you watched the hit Marvel television show “Agatha All Along,” you may have spotted Okpokwasili, who briefly appeared as the witch Vertigo.

Did the Whitney approach you about participating in “Edges of Ailey”?

I’ve known Adrienne Edwards [the exhibition’s curator] for a while now, from when she was with Performa. So they did ask me, because it’s called “Edges of Ailey,” right? So there are all these parts of his practice, his relationships, that we don’t know. I come from a theater movement practice that’s really outside of contemporary dance. So I was kind of like, “What am I going to do here?” I know that he spent some time with Anna Halprin. And then I learned that he gave Bill T. Jones his first commission, and I think he gave Ralph Lemon his first commission. I was really compelled by the extent of his understanding of the whole world of dance; that he kept connected to what choreographers were exploring outside of these institutions.

It sounds like you were, in the spirit of the exhibition, discovering the edges of Ailey. 

I had no idea. I’m recognizing how I am entangled in this legacy. What we’re doing is not a direct echo of Ailey. But I feel that it’s connected, and I’m held in the space that he was cultivating. 

You’re launching two artist support programs. What’s the intention behind those?

I feel like my work has always been held by this community of performers, this larger ecosystem. We’re trying to be really clear about the fact that without this ecosystem, we don’t exist. So what can we do to sustain this ecosystem? With the generosity of the Mellon Foundation, we have some funding, so we’ve been able to think about other artists that we know and love, and some artists that we don’t know, that we can give a little something to help them realize their work. We had an inaugural residency where, when we’re away over the summer, we give some space in our house for someone to stay and use our studio. Because a lot of people, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic, had to move out of New York City. So, how do we also use some of the resources that we have that we may not have imagined as a resource? But all of these are still seedlings—we still have to build a way for them to be sustained over the long term, because we know that cultural funding is shifting so much. It’s a useful challenge to think about: What do you want to fight to hold on to? 

Tell me about your experience being­ on “Agatha All Along.”

It was fun. It’s always great to be a part of a larger cultural creative act that’s really feminist. Who doesn’t want to be a witch, if you want to be an empowered woman? That’s the icon. I haven’t watched the whole thing, but all of the ways it’s trying to get these women to get back to some sort of core power that they hold in themselves—and that can never be taken from them—is such a beautiful thing. It’s a kind of fantasy that I want to be with, no matter how much damage they do to each other.