Jasmine Hearn, Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle
KST Presents
Friday & Saturday, April 24* – 25, 2026
7:30pm – 8:30pm
*with post-show discussion
Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $20 – $35
How do we hold memory together?
Jasmine returns to KST, a creative home that has supported Jasmine’s performance and choreographic journey since 2007, to share Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle – an interdisciplinary dance theater performance that names the work/rest and past/future of Black people who mother and mentor. Sourcing a spectrum of dance and listening practices, Jasmine traces a network of teachers that shaped their life and devotion to dance and memory keeping by mapping shared movements and memories with an incredible constellation of mentors, teachers, and collaborators including Melike Konur, Bekezela Mguni, Ursula Payne, Staycee Pearl, and Alisha B. Wormsley. Together, they remember and imagine everyday dances, gestures, and recipes of nourishment, care, and resilience that have built and sustained worlds throughout time.
Photo Credit: Jakayla Monay, Courtesy of the artist and DiverseWorks
Memory Fleet: Stay in the Circle is part of the continually expanding, episodic, migrating project Memory Fleet. Led by Jasmine Hearn, Memory Fleet is a performance and archive project that preserves shared memories and stories deepening Hearn’s past work, Memory Keep(H)er (2015), a dance solo made to preserve the oral narrative of Jasmine’s grandmother. For over a decade, this solo has expanded into a multi-aspected project that includes a series of performances, a shared embodied practice, an evolving installation of archival materials, and a digital archive. These elements name and celebrate the memories, dances, and gestures passed on through intergenerational practices of listening and responding.
Memory Fleet is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by DiverseWorks in partnership with Chocolate Factory Theater (Queens, NY) Kelly Strayhorn Theater (Pittsburgh, PA), New York Live Arts (New York, NY) and NPN (New Orleans, LA). The work has received additional support from Creative Capital and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.
AND DON’T MISS…
Spectrum of Strength
with Jasmine Hearn
Saturday, April 18
12:00pm – 2:00pm
KST’s Alloy Studios | 5530 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $10 – $25
Citizens Community Dinner
with Jasmine Hearn
Monday, April 18
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Kelly Strayhorn Theater | 5941 Penn Ave.
Pay What Moves You: $0 – $25
- ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Jasmine Hearn, an interdisciplinary artist from occupied Akokisa lands (Houston, TX), is a performer, teacher, doula, and organizer. A 2025 Dance Magazine “25 to Watch,” Hearn has received awards including the Bessie Award and the FCA Grants to Artists. They’ve collaborated with artists like Solange and Bill T. Jones, and presented work at major venues including BAM and the Guggenheim. Their practice honors matrilineal memory, somatic traditions, and community through movement, sound, and design.