Dancer E. Gaynell Sherrod, Ed.D., describes the challenges and triumphs of creating the sonic landscape for 350,000,an immersive film installation featured in the exhibition Dawoud Bey: Elegy.
This episode also features Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
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About E. Gaynell Sherrod
Dance educator, choreographer and historian E. Gaynell Sherrod, Ed.D., danced professionally with the Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO!) and Urban Bush Women, Inc. She earned a master’s degree in dance education and a doctorate in dance pedagogy and performance from Temple University.
A Fulbright-Hayes scholar in dance research, Sherrod's artistic and theoretical works are steeped in African American vernacular and African Diasporan dance and rhythms, mentored by acclaimed scholars Dr. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, and the late Drs. Kariamu Welsh and Katie G. Cannon. She was previously the Director of Dance Education for New York City public schools, where she implemented professional training initiatives for dance educators, teaching artists and classroom teachers. She co-founded and directed the New York City Department of Education Dance Institute: Based on the Katherine Dunham Model, for which she was awarded a DANA Foundation Grant. Sherrod taught at New Jersey City University, New York University and Florida A&M University, where she earned tenure. In 2014, Sherrod joined the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as Chair of the Department of Dance + Choreography. From 2019-2020, she served as the Interim Executive Director of PHILDANCO! on an organizational sustainability position funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation.
She is currently professor of dance at VCU—teaching, writing, choreographing, creating work mixed media and a consultant for dance organizations. Her work TWINE! (2017; 2022), earned her a Sage and John Cowles Residency at University of Minnesota Dance. In 2022, Sherrod collaborated with acclaimed photographer Dawoud Bey on his film 350,000, for which she created the choreo-sonic score. The project—Dawoud Bey: Elegy—was commissioned by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and exhibited from November 2023 to February 2024. More recently, it was on view at the Sean Kelly Gallery (New York City) and at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Sherrod is the author of Katherine Dunham and The Dance Griots: Reading the Invisible Script (Mellen Press, 2022).
About Valerie Cassel Oliver
Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Since her debut at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, she has organized several critically acclaimed exhibitions including the retrospective entitled Howardena Pindell: What Remains to be Seen co organized with Naomi Beckwith (2018); The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse (2021) that toured nationally. And most recently, Dawoud Bey: Elegy (2023) which also toured.
Cassl Oliver has lectured extensively and is a widely published author on contemporary art, artist and art practices. Cassel Oliver holds an Executive M.B.A. from Columbia University, New York; an M.A. in Art History from Howard University in Washington, D.C. and, a B.S. in Communications from the University of Texas at Austin.
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VCUarts Uncharted is recorded in the Community Media Center in the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU. Music by Felipe Letão.
For more information, visit arts.vcu.edu/uncharted.
