Choreographer/Performance Artist Helanius J. Wilkins was wired to be a maker. Born and raised in Louisiana, Helanius watched a PBS Special on Black American choreographer Alvin Ailey and knew he found his calling. Today, he is an Associate Chair and Professor of Dance at the University of Colorado at Boulder and ran his own all-male, primarily-Black dance company, EDGEWORKS, in Washington, DC.

For this episode, How Art is Born host Alan sits down with him on the precipice of Helanius’s multi-year, multimedia, transcontinental project, The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-body Belonging. Together, they discuss Helanius’s efforts to build community and lift up marginalized voices in his work, never apologizing for your art (even when a project feels like a failure), their respective experiences as Black men in a predominantly white community, selfcare for the end purpose of larger change, and more.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Watch excerpts from Helanius's 2018 project, A Bon Coeur: Pages From A Journal

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It!)

Helanius’s current project, The Conversation Series: Stitching the Geopolitical Quilt to Re-body Belonging

Helanius’s website

Follow Helanius on Instagram

Follow Helanius on Twitter