Ma’at Works Dance Collective

a project-based dance collective for time documenters. story tellers. conjurers. healers for black futures & avid believers in science fiction.

.about me.

Mawu Ama Ma’at Gora, MFA (dey/dem) is a queer, Caribbean artist and Brooklyn native currently residing in Philadelphia. As a multimodal artist they explore movement and textile art. Interested in lineage and blueprints as both ephemeral and perpetual spaces of exploration.  A graduate of Georgian Court University (BA) and Temple University (MFA). An educator at Bryn Mawr college and various community organizations in Philadelphia, NY and NJ at large. They have had the pleasure of working with luminaries such as Silvana Cardell, Dr. Kariamu Welsh, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar & Lela Aisha Jones. Learn more here.

In De Back of God’s Eyes (2024 - 2027), is inspired and given life to by black queer Caribbean folk and all folk who are considering ideas around inheritance, ancestry, and traditions. Through live performance we physically embody transformation and expansion in time. Questioning the contradictions of the danger of queerness in the Caribbean and the ways historically, politically, and colloquially, Caribbean folk have embraced queerness as a means of preservation.  Iterative themes seen in carnival are visited in structural orientation of the work. Iconographic images native to the Caribbean are treasured and sought after in this sensorial experience that is offered to the audience through enthralling performance. We are grateful to be partnering with the Caribbean Community in Philadelphia to support development and further growth. Learn more.

Photographed
James Nathaniel Prescott, Mary Magdalene Pounder & Mawu Gora

Photography
by Alejandro Castillo & family

Digital Art
by Mawu Gora



Photographed
Felisha George, Mawu Gora and Jah Elyse Sayers

Photography
by Hanifah Griffith

something soft (2021-2024), is a multimodal performance ritual exploring modalities of softness through diverse ideas of technology. Through multiple invitations we invite the audience into rhythmic somatic patterns, sensory exercises and lullabies to reimagine how we hold, suspend and care for ourselves. Afro Presentism speaks of the future as a moving present. We implore these strategies and use technologies from Alexis Pauline Gumbs, undrowned to imagine ourselves in our softest humanity. The work is inspired by black, neurodivergent, queer, trans and non-binary folk. This work premieres in the Spring of 2024. Our work is made possible through the support of the Painted Bride, the National Performance Network the Velocity Fund and the Leeway Foundation through the Window of Opportunity Grant. Learn more about the project, here.


.collaborators.

.images captured by Angel Edwards from Project Assata: Conscious States of Rage. Featured artists: Tyra Jones-Blain, Lee Edwards, Ye’Tsunami Graciella Maiolatesi, Sophiann Moore, Amethyst Quint Lattimore, Edwina Theurtulien and SJ Swilley

Project Assata: Conscious States of Rage (2016-2019), is an iterative work centering the legacy of Assata Shakur. It lends inspiration from original text from Shakur’s autobiography, which captured, frightened and inspired me. Intertwining complicated legacies of Shakur, black women, femmes and trans women as a way to liken our lived experiences. Movement is generated from the influence of the movement artist. Intergenerational dialogue about rage as resistance, eroticism, strength and healing. Rage as a means of healing. Reimagining a future of existence as resistance, rage as pleasure process and history as a guide to new black futures.

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.skin care.