artist statement

as a poet in american theater/ i find

most activity that takes place on our

stages overwhelmingly shallow/ stilted &

imitative. that is probably one of the

reasons i insist on calling myself a poet or

writer/ rather than a playwright/ i am

interested solely in the poetry of a

moment/ the emotional & aesthetic im-

pact of a character or a line/artist statement

- ntozake shange

Wielding ecowomanist and Black feminist practices, I devise theatrical ceremonies for reclamation, re/memory, revival, and revolution.  Ignited by my family's stories of land loss and reclamation, I devise choreographic, visual, poetic, and experimental theatrical ceremonies.  Bolstered by cultural and spiritual technologies of southern, rural Black folks, by historical and contemporary ecowomanist, ethnographic, environmental methodologies.  and movements for climate reparations and liberation.  My current body of work explores “generative apocalypse,” as a necessary upending of regressive systems to make space for a more just society.  Fueled by messy, magical, and medicinal rituals for Black liberation, thriving, and climate reparations, I imagine my work as a gathering ground, where portals of possibility are imagined and conjured as secular and sacred rituals for planetary evolution.

biography

Ebony Noelle Golden is city-born, southern, Black woman descended from country folks, farmers who self-emancipated from sharecropping in rural east Texas and Louisiana and migrated to Ft. Worth, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles for jobs and university.  She works as a theatrical ceremonialist, culture worker, public scholar, and entrepreneur who wields ecowomanist and Black feminist practices-- often invoking messy, magical, and medicinal methods to support movements for cultural wellness and social justice.

Since 2009, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, her consulting practice, has served more than 100 social justice, education, and arts & culture institutions. In 2020, she established Jupiter Performance Studio as a space to practice and perform Black diasporic, spiritual, and cultural traditions. Her approach to community arts, consulting, teaching and cultural organizing is steeped in the practices of Black women, activism, experimental performance and social/spirituality that honors and affirms self-actualized, self-determined, creative and liberated communities. She has served as an entrepreneurship fellow at Princeton University, a visiting Associate Professor of Performance and Performance Studies in Pratt’s graduate program and a visiting lecturer at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at New School, among other institutions. 

Golden’s performance art oeuvre venerates the spiritual technologies of Southern Black folks as witnessed in the site-specific ceremonies and visual poems she devises and directs.   Golden’s work embodies the power of art and collaboration as drivers of the movement for liberation.  Ebony’s work has been profiled by the New York Times and National Endowment for the Arts.  Her work has been commissioned by National Black Theatre, The Shed, Weeksville Heritage Center, Apollo Theater, and Double Edge Theatre. Golden is an esteemed alumna of Cave Canem, Yaddo, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, MacDowell, and Hi-Arts. Additionally, Golden has received Creative Capital, National Theater Project, and Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s Transformational Practice Awards.  

Ebony’s recent work includes:  The Divining, The Keeping, specter of sunlight// (an evening-length dance ritual), and 79 Moons (a performance film).  Her current work, again, the watercarriers, is the next episode of In The Name of the M/other Tree , which uplifts wisdom, healing practices and earth-affirming rituals of Black women and femme healers over the age of 60, the primordial mothers described in Yoruba cosmology as the Iyaamí, and her own maternal lineage. The work is slated for a 2025 tour. 

Golden holds degrees in poetry from Texas A & M University (B.A.) and American University (M.F.A.), and in Performance Studies ( M.A.) from New York University.  She is a proud member of the United Order of Tents-Diretha Tent #35, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and serves on the board of directors for Double Edge Theatre.  Learn more about what Ebony is up to by visiting bettysdaughterarts.com or via instagram @ebonynoellegolden.