https://lesliecuyjet.com L E S L I E C U Y J E T Sat, 11 Oct 2025 20:55:01 +0000 https://lesliecuyjet.com en http://lesliecuyjet.com/with-marion-2025 Sat, 11 Oct 2025 20:55:01 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 458141 With Marion 2025 <img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/535bd3327488f79c453381e30e5b324187fb6cb7e93a604c6b8e7c970c8f7c16/DSC_4877-Michael-Valiquette.jpg" data-mid="1420946" border="0" /><img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/80e613368d897f86cc2fb10545773ac1e2f7fdb60388342c2494281f0de23e7e/DSC_4832-Michael-Valiquette.jpg" data-mid="1420947" border="0" /><img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/bee73ce61cbc948e84ec6f9415af27478e984536191ff86a2fa52350e3b78c85/DSC_4610-Michael-Valiquette.jpg" data-mid="1420950" border="0" /><img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/34259f5f8b7c38b2c226f547de0fa4fbf101e93a5513bed3a1535d40133783a3/DSC_4457-Michael-Valiquette.jpg" data-mid="1420949" border="0" /><img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/9c0753939303f916c9ec13d8b91a653b0a198875135835f924fb8437e051e665/DSC_4712-Michael-Valiquette.jpg" data-mid="1420948" border="0" /> images by&nbsp;Michael Valiquette With Marion 2025 images by&nbsp;Michael Valiquette http://lesliecuyjet.com/images Sat, 11 Oct 2025 19:59:46 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 458140 images <img width="3024" height="4032" width_o="3024" height_o="4032" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/ce612624b1f476fc70789aa42718b8cc9b0d5cc8228785bf443cd4550f78f69b/IMG_3829.jpg" data-mid="1420940" border="0" /> <img width="3824" height="2152" width_o="3824" height_o="2152" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/ffa23f8da89a1dd34c4e3f1289dd70495b6a9101fb3e10f7b0598b61d9cc567c/For-All-Your-Life-Studies.screenshot-1-Leslie-Cuyjet.png" data-mid="1420941" border="0" /> <img width="2548" height="1434" width_o="2548" height_o="1434" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/d2090fa699fa03533b28aad1ee5b79b86269dfd8fa53e67b6c627f55def44b9c/102020-MADvidstill02.png" data-mid="1420942" border="0" /> <img width="2302" height="1536" width_o="2302" height_o="1536" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/73b0345bdc04912e9b94e606a9e05f367611c538558ffc87455ba28da8588e94/WideAwakesDanceCorps-byJasonWatt-02.JPG" data-mid="1420943" border="0" /><img width="3200" height="1800" width_o="3200" height_o="1800" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/665ca16b22189eea01fa06eab9fb9c79aa6a32001305de2d502b103df81697bd/lc-archival-presentation-marfa02.25.jpg" data-mid="1420944" border="0" /><img width="1920" height="1080" width_o="1920" height_o="1080" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/3bbd98dad34a609d30b1886f6e36dcdba06f586b97a1db9dd26cba9c725b0148/LESLIE---FINAL-8-1_13.jpg" data-mid="1420945" border="0" /> images http://lesliecuyjet.com/thanks Thu, 21 Nov 2024 18:11:45 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 454955 thank you.home &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  ooo, supporting the arts looks good on you. <img width="3200" height="1800" width_o="3200" height_o="1800" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/4c5b3c6cf0e2c9ba68922f28ba1e267b274d330c23974288c548cd7d55d29e26/FAYL_Lock_Revised_240401.01_06_28_03.Still013.jpg" data-mid="1385637" border="0" /> in gratitude, Limage by Daniele Sarti© 2025 Leslie Cuyjet thank you.home &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  ooo, supporting the... http://lesliecuyjet.com/bio Sun, 22 Sep 2024 13:49:22 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 454326 biohome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  Narrative 150 wordLeslie Cuyjet is an award-winning performer and choreographer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her dances often integrate text, video, and live performance while interrogating the performing body, personal legacy, and dance history. Mostly known as a performer, she is also a writer and video editor, which all play an ongoing role in shaping her interdisciplinary artistic practice. Her tenure in New York is decorated with performances and collaborations with Jane Comfort, Cynthia Oliver, Niall Jones, Yanira Castro, Will Rawls, David Gordon, NARCISSISTER, Kim Brandt, and Sarah Michelson, among others. Cuyjet’s work has been presented at BAM, The Kitchen, The Shed, ICA Boston, The Chocolate Factory, and Center for Performance Research. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants for Artists, Princeton Hodder Fellowship, and an Outstanding Choreographer/Creator “Bessie” Award for her 2021 work, Blur.150 word Leslie Cuyjet is a choreographer, dancer, and writer. Integrating video, text, and performance her layered, research-based events explore notions of black embodiment within personal and postmodernist histories of dance and movement. Recent solo presentations include For All Your Life, BAM, Brooklyn (2025) and The Chocolate Factory Theater, Queens (2024); With Marion, EMPAC, Troy, NY (2025) and The Kitchen, New York (2022, 2023); Blur, The Shed, New York (2021); and THICK WAKE, LMCC, New York (2024); among others. Cuyjet is a Guggenheim Fellow (2025), Princeton Hodder Fellow (2021-22), and MacDowell Fellow (2020, 2021); is the recipient of the FCA Grants for Artists Award in Dance (2022); and two New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards (2019, 2022). Cuyjet lives in Brooklyn. Narrative 265 wordLeslie Cuyjet is a choreographer, dancer and writer whose multidisciplinary practice weaves together dance, video, text and installation. Her work functions as a living archive, tracing both personal and collective memory. Born breech in Illinois, the family story goes that she "came into this world dancing," feet first and kicking. After arriving in New York in 2004, Cuyjet spent years as a performer for a diverse group of downtown choreographers and artists, including Cynthia Oliver, Jane Comfort, David Gordon, Niall Jones, Juliana F. May, Narcissister and Will Rawls. Her choreographic voice is driven by interrogating these experiences as a performer through the lens of the black body, and questions how the performer is perceived, staged, and remembered. Cuyjet's solo performances and installations present these intersections of history, personal narrative and the politics of presence as pathways to visibility and black embodiment. Her work has been presented at venues like BAM, ICA Boston, EMPAC, The Kitchen, The Shed, MoMA PS1, Center for Performance Research, SculptureCenter, and The Chocolate Factory Theater. Cuyjet has garnered recognition and support with a Guggenheim Fellowship, Princeton’s Hodder Fellowship, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants for Artists; with residency support from Sarah Michelson at David Zwirner, Performance Space New York, MacDowell, Chinati Foundation, Watermill Center, and Movement Research. She is also the recipient of two New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards. Cuyjet is a graduate of the inaugural cohort of the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program; and proudly served as co-editor for the online journal Critical Correspondence for two years. She received a B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. First Person 250 wordMy name is Leslie Cuyjet. I was born in Illinois to education professionals who grew up in Chicago’s South Side. I was always dancing, after being born breech, and enrolled in classes as soon as I could walk.&nbsp; But then I would dream of dancing for Janet Jackson, on Broadway, or with Alvin Ailey who, I was told at the time in performing arts high school, was one of my few avenues to become a successful modern dancer. I enjoyed dance classes and competitions, soccer and violin lessons, SAT tutoring, and (almost) a cotillion due to my family’s firm placement in the middle class. This understanding, much later in life, would fuel my lifelong investigation into larger themes of privilege, race, class, and history. I moved to New York in 2004 after college, and quickly gained work dancing with a range of artists in venues across the city’s downtown scene. In 2016, I left the collective I co-founded and my corporate job in digital design to make my own work. Over the last several years, my creative practice shifted to include daily writing, image collage, and video projection. I published, performed, and installed video installations in galleries. I attune my art to my curiosities, blending my life into my work as so many who I’ve worked with before have demonstrated. Interrogating how it all fits together to perform for you, in the hopes of understanding my positioning, my voice. hi-res headshots please include image credit: Photo by Maria Baranova <img width="2000" height="1992" width_o="2000" height_o="1992" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/1256ebf1c60472cbd236c2f785791838b19ef108971eee65c139d0b8669ca4ef/Leslie_Cuyjet_Baranova_October_2024_002.jpg" data-mid="1432456" border="0" /><img width="2000" height="1992" width_o="2000" height_o="1992" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/620f1d8dcfc0ac335a9b3f2fc01b3ac3df94787b74cfd61e9718391dce52f649/Leslie_Cuyjet_Baranova_October_2024_010.jpg" data-mid="1385413" border="0" /> <img width="2000" height="1992" width_o="2000" height_o="1992" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/23c84da47c337a1449c4d8a8b1f8ea327ebe2844ed4f1a92bf234ac2d31d9e57/Leslie_Cuyjet_Baranova_October_2024_005.jpg" data-mid="1389227" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="1515" width_o="1500" height_o="1515" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/e1cc8d97adb1fa13b2eb77e573940ff0649cb1642c0f85abd95399f7f96f6a34/Leslie_Cuyjet_Baranova_2020_007.jpg" data-mid="1432445" border="0" /><img width="1200" height="1199" width_o="1200" height_o="1199" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/f83e5c767b04cc2a2bcb47c43fa5f4d7735485187e6089deedefe46dd25e9757/Leslie_Cuyjet_Baranova_2017_003.jpg" data-mid="1432459" border="0" />all images by Maria Baranova © 2026&nbsp; Leslie Cuyjet biohome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  Narrative 150 wordLeslie... http://lesliecuyjet.com/thick-wake-transcription Wed, 24 Jul 2024 20:02:16 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 453797 thick wake AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION: The pressure of water on your skin is different depending on the type of water you are in. You know this, not because you can distinguish the minute variance in pressures of water. You know this because this is physics. At least the way you understand it. No, physics is not subjective. Rather, this is the way you understand what you’ve read in the National Geographic magazines that sat on the shelf in your grandmother’s living room. A little trivia bit you’ve carried with you since flipping through the glossy pages on the carpet, on your belly, heels kicked up and crisscrossing. There were stacks and stacks of old issues and every now and again you would gravitate by that worn spot in the carpet below the shelf. Your mom suggested getting rid of them, as they were simply collecting dust. You would lose yourself and time while your parents were doing the things that you will learn much later that you do with your parents at that age, when your roles start to reverse. But for now, you’ve proceeded to lose yourself in the contours and sinuous lines depicting the hydrodynamics of humpback whales as they dive to depths of hundreds of feet. And didn’t realize you were holding your breath. Crisscross, applesauce. In an ocean, the water is more dense because of salt, dissolved over time. (That part is chemistry, not physics.) The salt content and depth of the oceans are much greater than the chlorine water of a pool, say, even the deepest deep end. Even the block-long Olympic-sized public pool in your neighborhood in Brooklyn. Or how deep you imagine it would be. You’ve never been there, after it reopened as an actual pool instead of an edgy venue for a massive outdoor dance performance. The performance’s success led the city to reinvest and refill the pool for all to use as it was intended. There were no more glass bottles and used needles that filled the pool, thanks to the performers who cleaned up the concrete themselves to make it usable for dancing. And then the city said, thanks, we’ll take it from here. Splish, splash. Water pressure can feel more intense because of temperature too. The salty cold waters of the ocean put more pressure on your skin than fresh water or bathwater enhanced with epsom salts. Being in salty cold water brings on a feeling of freedom you can’t replicate anywhere else. Swimming comes naturally to you. You can’t explain it more than that. Our bodies are organized in such a mysterious way that no study of science can unlock the origin of our instinct to walk, breathe, or swim.Five years ago, I edited home videos of my swimming competitions from 1990 for a video installation. A process in collaboration with my father, who carefully transferred vhs cassettes to the digitizing contraption he’d acquired. A process both of us took very seriously. He indexed and handled them as if he wore museum gloves. My dad loves artifacts. And I have loved film and video since I was a child. I only realize this now, some decades later. But as my friend pointed out, the first serious dance I made in college was full of video and projection. I somehow forgot about that, as I was so focused on Dance at that time. And Autechre, and Jeff Buckley and Ben Harper (…mmm Ben Harper). Video affords me an indisputable memory. I can see it and share, saying “look, this happened.” Rather than wait for my recall to fail me. It will entirely, inevitably, as unreliable as it is now. This time, the summer of 1990, reduced to a video cassette tape, serves as my whole memory. I suppose a box keeps my ribbons in a closet in my parent’s house, as well. My mom is not as fond of artifacts. Yet she allows this box to consume a small piece of real estate in her home in my old room. A space not used, but not forgotten either. Our third place, the pool, most days of every summer for six years were spent there. My mom would take us for ass-crack swim practice and we’d stay until late afternoon when dad would join after teaching. All that remains is a digital file from a plastic cassette bound for the dump, and a deep affection for Lemonheads candy. Seeing these home videos now, I am struck by the constant cheering of supportive parents on the pool deck (that was thankfully silenced as I swam, after every breath between my stroke). As my home video-maker and basketball coach, my dad executed a zoom-in on my stroke, following me back and forth the 25-meter pool so I can review later and improve. He held it steady despite joining in with an occasional “com’on Leslie!” I imagine his old photography itch is tickled with this new technology as he gathers pick-up shots: artfully panning across an empty pool, capturing my mom floating on her back silently during adult swim, and films (out of mic-shot) my sister and I clarifying the rules of some game before both going underwater to see who could scream the loudest. Grainy and cam-corded, our bronzed bodies against the bright blue of the pool struck me as a beautiful and satisfying. A palette that just imbued Summer. My sensorial memory is fantastic, I should add. It lives deep in my bones and I can still feel the pool’s water almost too hot by the end of the day, smell the chlorine and bleach combo in the bathroom, and of course taste the sticky sweet Lemonhead secretion coating my fingers. I could feel my mom’s breath on my own face, as I watched her with my baby sister, blowing before she dunked her underwater to teach her the basics. As she had taught all of us kids to do. It was important to her. (She still swims, and advocates for it. I watched in awe as she convinced a member in her bridge club, some seventy years old, let her teach her to float on her back. Another basic move, according to my mom’s expertise.) What’s missing from these images, this collection of magnetic imagery and sound, is contextual. The zoom on those cameras was shitty anyway. Often, artifacts like these chime the nostalgic bell so effortlessly, it’s too loud to make out any of its negligence. The noise, like the parents’ cheering, becomes a wall of sound, impenetrable by the realities that could cut down this memory at the knees. Was it obvious and evident then and I was just too young? Or it happened so frequently, it was simply unremarkable? Or perhaps my parents, instead, sought out opportunities to infiltrate monotone spaces? This landscape, so wholly suspended by a single VHS tape, suddenly expands and races to meet me bent at the waist, staring me in the face thirty years later. Were we the only black family at this members only swim club? They used to drain pools, you know. You go to the ocean when you’re lonely, you get to float out there and disappear for a while. Not needing to catch up, for a minute. You kick your heels up and knock your head back and the two flat mounds on your chest start to dry in the air and sun. Along the back of your body, there’s a push, a snug, a holding up. And above the wind catches the hairs on your skin. A great inhale allows you to feel your chest expand both more deeply in the water, and rise above its surface, at once. Here, you are your most self: half in and half out. One is the future, the other is the past and only here can you be present. Your body intertwines with the alchemy of the water and so begins your most pleasurable decay. Flakes of skin, strands of hair, that piece of kale that’s been stuck in your tooth since lunch… is our first course. The sodium and chlorine jump to bind with your offerings, and will eventually become heavy enough to rain down for future formations of rock. You are not just spending time, this is time itself. No need for words—language is all messed up with feeling. There’s no sense in making meaning as it’s sloshing all around in arrhythmic crests. You belong to nothing for this moment. The sum of all of this negative space gives you great pleasure. Bit by bit each alchemical shift…your dissolve your demise. This could take a while so you speed it along with sips and of brine through your nose and mouth. Mmm you think, me-flavored water. Until the barrier between you is completely indistinguishable. Your very cells commingle and swirl far and wide, to depths where other, much older contaminants remain, awoken and swaying in reaction to this disturbance. A celebration for your stain, a seeping that can’t be collected and reassembled. Still, just a minuscule spot in the sea but you revel in this moment of greatness, being bigger than you actually are. Drip, drop. The ocean is not like a pool, where a contamination can be properly handled. Where a pool has lanes to create the most efficient path, the ocean curves, meanders and changes its mind. There’s no salt to keep you afloat but a ledge and ladder to give you a clear way out. Your absence, makes stagnant what your movement made alive. Just keep swimming. One, two. Keeping the rhythm. Two, one. Like a needle on a record, put your head down. While the world goes by beneath, so that we can realize the song. back to project page. thick wake AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION: The pressure of water on your skin is different depending on the type of water you are in. You know this, not because you can... http://lesliecuyjet.com/thick-wake Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:12:59 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 453406 thick wakehome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  <img width="2996" height="1696" width_o="2996" height_o="1696" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/fbdf959433d563e485ad45279f5c9e6addb702fd3e849bc0f05bd331c3cabe34/thick-wake-cover-lesliecuyjet-24.png" data-mid="1378770" border="0" />THICK WAKE is a two-channel video installation recreating imagery from previous work, White Noise (2022) and For All Your Life Studies (2021), comprised of personal home videos of swimming competitions of Cuyjet’s youth. She recast herself as the swimmer seen from underneath (and shot with filmmaker Richard Martin), in a seemingly endless stroke. Various video loops merge and segregate overhead. The video transitions, created and designed with video artist Matthew Deinhart, are activated by a live feed camera, detecting when someone is watching and continuing the theme present in her body of work, of performer visibility and relationship to audience. While Cuyjet imagines the full scope of the project and installation, THICK WAKE is in progress. <img width="4240" height="2832" width_o="4240" height_o="2832" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/8496b0d7293f76bcf844a430ef05f73c04d46aa0892d56a94f7be8d71d444aef/R2R24_LeslieCuyjet_THICKWAKE_ElanaEngelman-Lado-5.jpg" data-mid="1378777" border="0" /> <img width="4240" height="2832" width_o="4240" height_o="2832" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/5e0b5e2fb64eaeff9d336815e426c013d59c57e422112e9322d0d93c716b3333/R2R24_LeslieCuyjet_THICKWAKE_ElanaEngelman-Lado-27.jpg" data-mid="1378776" border="0" /> “In the 1950s, film star and Oscar nominee Dorthy Dandridge dipped her toe in a pool after being told that facility in the hotel she was performing in was not available to her because she was black. Due to the rebellion of her toe, the pool was emptied and refilled. I think about my own contamination, real and imagined. And about the alchemy of water and its relationship to the body; the transference that occurs when we are submerged and surrounded despite our consciousness of it. I imagined this image, a dark-bodied swimmer in a perpetual stroke viewed from underneath, for a long time. Not knowing exactly why other than “needing to,” I am grateful to LMCC and Black Gotham Experience for supplying the space and resources to find it. This installation (an ambition that is limited here to the technology of projection and video), is a marker on the map of a larger journey, demonstrates the current state of my process and reconsiders the past as presence: past dances, a collective history, the remnants after a disturbance... It folds former ideas into new iterations. I appreciate you stopping by to offer your eyes. If you are watching, then you too are contaminated. What to do in this wake?” <img width="2998" height="1678" width_o="2998" height_o="1678" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/1caf20a7997d441a9220699590a427d9a3761e44cf546838540e499f8206172f/thisck-wake-lesliecuyjet-1.png" data-mid="1378774" border="0" /> duration: 20:00as part of LMCC’s 2024 River to River Festival Black Gotham Experianceexhibiting June 20 - 22, 8:30 - 10pm Thank you to Matthew, Kamau, Shana and everyone at LMCC. Thank you Rich and Jessie. installation images by by LMCC film stills by Richard Martin © 2025 Leslie Cuyjet thick wakehome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  THICK WAKE is a... http://lesliecuyjet.com/TEST-1 Wed, 05 Jun 2024 20:35:08 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 453257 Leslie Cuyjet start here About“Inc.” works thick wake for all your life with marion white noise blur performances upcoming:faye driscoll cynthia oliverjuliana f. may video thick wake for all your life studies in studio/out choreography catacumbo the vicksburg project publication 1993 for all your life a leveling in conversation voice over samples&nbsp; demo Leslie Cuyjet start here About“Inc.” works thick wake for all your life with marion white noise blur performances upcoming:faye driscoll cynthia... http://lesliecuyjet.com/blur Thu, 01 Jul 2021 15:41:30 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 408158 window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'GT-KTTTCDM3'); Blurhome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  <img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/c1b0740437d9670f79f824e966103b6a6f12e1334fb9cff973dc360d23d5ab48/The-Shed----Open-Call---Leslie-Cuyjet-20-web.jpeg" data-mid="1113688" border="0" />Blur is a solo performance that experiments with visibility and invisibility, and the relationship between performer, audience, and object. Viewers are invited to navigate a phonetic landscape of Cuyjet’s voice and text, through the lens of race and objectification. Her costume is composed of close-up images of her own skin. Reading. “Being Seen. An Interview,” with Tara Aisha Willis. <img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/071eb8890ba3f81ffcf7d8ee2ee2312835e60921cc2c8016459664c7bb60fd25/JQ6A5848-Edit-web.jpeg" data-mid="1113692" border="0" /> <img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/235fbc91123acdde0018685398c5cc080c75d90aee5b842cbf5e83fa05e0c3e9/JQ6A5888-web.jpeg" data-mid="1113685" border="0" /><img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/9ddf6dcdc4928faf477e1ec932f7c4aa45c244995d52eddc5747a6c0b3a2ec8d/The-Shed----Open-Call---Leslie-Cuyjet-26web.jpeg" data-mid="1113687" border="0" /><img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/b8b45269f952ac37299dd7785f90368e4a598541c1cb1ad0482e5f0a659a3ee3/JQ6A5941-web.jpeg" data-mid="1113691" border="0" /><img width="2500" height="1667" width_o="2500" height_o="1667" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/a318ff04597a35104e85ec62a8fdcc0f950ea1bd8dace83dd639494e021c2265/JQ6A6272-web.jpeg" data-mid="1113684" border="0" /><img width="2500" height="3125" width_o="2500" height_o="3125" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/e362f0dddf829c6887e0ffc58e36739429ef1d99368b39927357b0fa63bf2987/The-Shed----Open-Call---Leslie-Cuyjet-2-web.jpeg" data-mid="1113689" border="0" /> sound deign by Brandon Wolcott costume design by Miodrag Guberinic The Shed, NYC June 4, 2021 Blur was commissioned by The Shed (NYC) as part of Open Call 2021. Blur earned Leslie a 2022 New York Dance &amp; Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Choreographer/Creator. images by Sara Fox and&nbsp;Ahad Subzwari© 2025 Leslie Cuyjet Blurhome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  Blur is a solo... http://lesliecuyjet.com/with-marion Sat, 29 May 2021 16:47:37 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 406354 window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'GT-KTTTCDM3'); With Marionhome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  <img width="3000" height="2001" width_o="3000" height_o="2001" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/fd3235b4dd1d31bcdaa8ac4d4d0e0600510099708cd7ca4ba6f88a099bc71a72/walter-wlodarczyk-2023-11-28-WWRA9898-sm.jpg" data-mid="1356306" border="0" /> With Marion, (2023) at The Kitchen at Westbeth. Press: Fjord Review <img width="2400" height="1601" width_o="2400" height_o="1601" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/a3484b7250992fc1a8393682141ed0a649a9814ced07485ba74f64e7df76251f/walter-wlodarczyk-2023-11-28-WWRA9960-sm.jpeg" data-mid="1356307" border="0" /> With Marion, Dance and Process 2020-2021, The Kitchen at Queenslab. <img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/f1274e00a435b717a95a2a9efaf3b25612e495c509995d9b11643778953f972d/IMG_0101.jpg" data-mid="1093321" border="0" /> -- With Marion investigates the proximity of objects and self in a new performance work using projection and video. The origins of this work began with monthly musings, published on The Kitchen’s OnScreen website, on a photo composite of the same name, made from the objects on the artist’s desk. In real time, Cuyjet builds video loops and dances to assemble a fragmented archive of a fictional past to redirect a future out from under its thumb. Accompanying this performance is a five-part written series that was published every month leading up to the performance. Audiences received a free copy of the publication for additional reading.“Ok, this dance is private. It forms new pathways to allow the unexpected to emerge. It is also a constant practice of letting them all disappear quietly into nothing...” - January 2020, The Kitchen On Screen&nbsp; <img width="2512" height="3450" width_o="2512" height_o="3450" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/dfdfa17ea25f2a2b279de11102632320faa5766afc037a3396dbd3b3407f4a9d/LC_DAPcolor_Artboard3.png" data-mid="1126683" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/a0fcdd28cf77764ec4babe0d5a05fd3c385a8963b9a7e0c084382bdc45396b78/IMG_0106.jpg" data-mid="1093324" border="0" /> <img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/56ff13c60260aed57aa2d8f3947b0e36f066e88b5d8bd98714923c2b07416b5d/IMG_2822.jpg" data-mid="1093327" border="0" /> <img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/9666ae9bf07f9d9d902bb5ac6810115a676d0c170bc6f2104c9946cf2b38ae0c/IMG_2856.jpg" data-mid="1093329" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/592266321b40e61dd60d634ace8e1853c1900b1758ae71df51397dd7b38fb7dc/IMG_2826.jpg" data-mid="1093330" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/868561bb873b9b680e5da3e0e714b0bc7bc45a7023973dc7350fed5b06d07857/IMG_0079.jpg" data-mid="1093323" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/0a1a8d8c7c8e9a30d75e4588c01bc1633a0d2f13f3a273d84ccdf2b5ee46cdc2/IMG_2831.jpg" data-mid="1093331" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/11024d844f2fe9fb475d7015d236345d26f14070d3141aa988c52280f47d895c/IMG_2877.jpg" data-mid="1093326" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="1000" width_o="1500" height_o="1000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/ca5fb9a0c015c73da19a808f2fe17572202ae19e29b97a1f886c3b9d31d5cda9/IMG_0105.jpg" data-mid="1093365" border="0" /> 2025 - at EMPAC at Rensselaer in Troy, NY with Matthew Deinhart, Max Ludlow, Amanda K. Ringger, and Randi Rivera. More information can be found here.&nbsp; 2023 -&nbsp; with Matthew Deinhart, Johann Diedrick, Max Ludlow, and Amanda K. Ringger. Information on the world premiere can be found here. world premiere, The Kitchen at Westbeth, NYC November 29 - December 2, 2023 2021 -&nbsp; with video assistance from Simon Harding and videography by Iki Nakagawa as part of This Is A Dance: Dance And Process 2021 at The Kitchen at Queenslab, NYC May 15 - 16, 2021 all images by Paula Court and Walter Wlodarczyk © 2025 Leslie Cuyjet With Marionhome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  With Marion,... http://lesliecuyjet.com/for-all-your-life Mon, 30 Nov 2020 16:15:11 +0000 L E S L I E C U Y J E T 391684 window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'GT-KTTTCDM3'); For All Your Lifehome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  <img width="3200" height="1800" width_o="3200" height_o="1800" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/236a7f878de0d30aac543d212775fa4e60022c7253bd6ffd0ac161d55b1833f4/body-count-06.jpg" data-mid="1356036" border="0" />For All Your Life is an ongoing performance project and installation that examines the value of black life and black death, and launched at The Chocolate Factory Theater April 2024. The presentation includes live performance and a short film that exhibits the history and mechanism of life insurance, to offer a complication between proprietorship and legacy. more information on the project-dedicated website forallyourlife.com Reading: “Two Blistering Solos Raise the Stakes at Live Artery” by Gia Kourlas/NY Times “Impressions:” by Sarah Cecilia Bukowski/Dance Enthusiast. Previous Exhibitions <img width="1980" height="1320" width_o="1980" height_o="1320" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/34e6ad5feb8b77068bad4dfa1759b463f32cd50c0c8e4fde6cba681485f867b1/LCuyjet-SculptureCenter-Kyle-Knodell-1.jpeg" data-mid="1093338" border="0" />The first iteration, For All Your Life Studies, is a two-channel site specific video installation at SculptureCenter in Queens, NY. The projections manipulate personal home videos of swimming competitions to address a thorny relationship to the artist’s past; one that includes expressions of privilege, access, leisure, as well as survival, addressing the question: What is the value of black life and death? <img width="1980" height="1320" width_o="1980" height_o="1320" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/1bf0cdc2cf284b38c5494c679bfc721c838917c418f274a9360d8e092876fb0d/LCuyjet-SculptureCenter-Kyle-Knodell-2.jpeg" data-mid="1093339" border="0" /> While black bodies in water have historically charged undertones, Cuyjet attempts to disarm and confuse the narrative with imagery from her childhood, one of carefree joy, amidst a swimming competition. Her research is guided by the nautical roots of life insurance, one that was built out of necessity for families to sailors lost at sea, while researching the New York Life insurance company and discovering they once sold policies for slaves, and whose tagline inspired the title of this work. Her personal history, as a descendent of slaves, as well as from a middle class home, frames this intersection past and present. For further reading, visit the Walker Museum website series, MN Artists: Choreographers’ Evening 2021. <img width="1159" height="1500" width_o="1159" height_o="1500" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/b141c0ad67c1152f11ee8df3a80f29a101f6ca0da77328a0ea32270d01721559/LCuyjet-SculptureCenter-Kyle-Knodell-3.jpeg" data-mid="1093340" border="0" /> 2024 -&nbsp; Information on the world premiere found here.&nbsp; The Chocolate Factory Theater, NYC April 10 - 13, 2024 2021 -&nbsp; duration: 7:30 as part of InPractice: You may go, but this will bring you back. SculptureCenter, NYC exhibiting March 23 - August 2, 2021 This was supported with residencies at MacDowell and Movement Research. Leslie would like to thank her family (especially her father’s videography), Sebastián Patané Masuelli, Kat Reynolds, and Alexis Wilkinson. images by Kyle Knodell, SculptureCenter, and Daniele Sarti© 2025 Leslie Cuyjet For All Your Lifehome &nbsp; | &nbsp; about &nbsp; &nbsp;| &nbsp; works &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;cv &nbsp; | &nbsp; &nbsp;contact &nbsp;  &nbsp;  For All Your...