Choreographer Brendan Fernandes on Dance in Museums

Multidisciplinary artist Brendan Fernandes created the dance piece "Returning to Before" as part of the ‪@BarnesFoundation‬’s retrospective on early 20th-century sculptor William Edmondson.

Exploring the exhibition’s themes through movement, Fernandes’ choreography examines not just Edmondson’s work, but also the relationship between Black cultural production and the American museum.

In this interview, Fernandes explains his typical process for developing performance work inside museum spaces as a means to confront those spaces’ hegemonic qualities.

Brendan Fernandes is a visual artist and choreographer whose projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest, and other forms of collective movement. In 2023, Fernandes created "Returning to Before," a dance piece presented in the gallery space of the exhibition.

Filmed on July 14, 2023.

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The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (the Center) is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, dedicated to fostering a vibrant cultural community in Greater Philadelphia. The Center invests in ambitious, imaginative, and catalytic work that showcases the region’s cultural vitality and enhances public life, and we engage in an ongoing exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice with a broad network of cultural practitioners and leaders.