CAT MAHARI

Mahari’s practice is built from a richly layered body history, stemming from an archive of research, physical training and intent of manifesting an intellectual, material and informal legacy through documentation. Through an examination of personal cultural markers she creates transformational processes. She references genealogies of being to expand a liberationist agenda affecting her built inner and outer environment. She is the founder and director of 31st&Brklyn, a platform for performance art and community engagement, a 2021 Chicago Esteemed Artist, and a Charlotte St Foundation Generative Performing Artist Fellow. Her upcoming experimental work Loving Each Other, recipient of a Propeller grant, is a cinematic investigation into Blackness, intimacy, trust, and vulnerability (2021), and was most recently in-community as part of Chicago-based Three Walls In-Session programming. Her post-disciplinary solo, the mixtape series: Violent/Break, has been in development at Imir Scene Kunst in Norway (2019). The BAM! series beginning with Expectation of Violence/Rites due Spring: B-BAM! (2015) is an immersive ensemble work, focusing on Blackness, America, and violence. Mahari is a culture bearer of Hip Hop and House, and former member of the Krump family Gool, with a BFA in dance performance from the Conservatory of Music and Dance, and a MA in Performance, Practice, and Research from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.