Black Public Media’s AfroPoP Digital Shorts series marks Pride Month with an innovative AI dance party film, “Hands Performance.”
The film, set to premiere June 17 on the organization’s YouTube channel, features a non-binary AI named Being the Digital Griot. Created by acclaimed Oakland director Rashaad Newsome, Being seamlessly transitions between Black Queer American Sign Language and dynamic dance styles, such as vogue and flex.
“Hands Performance” draws its name from a signature element of vogue fem, emphasizing storytelling through expressive hand movements. The film furthers Newsome’s ongoing exploration of Black cultural production as movement research, data storage, and collective navigation. With the collaboration of Black Queer ASL interpreters, vogue fem performers, flex dancers, and motion capture technologists, Newsome transformed his original poetry into a movement dataset that highlights the uniquely Black and Queer aspects of sign language.
The visual journey of Being the Digital Griot, who Newsome first introduced in his 2022 exhibition “Assembly” at the Park Avenue Armory Drill Hall, combines speculative future visuals with a high-energy score. The soundtrack, filled with booming bass, synthetic snares, snaps, claps, and glitchy computer sounds, creates a futuristic sonic experience.
Black Public Media, a Harlem-based national nonprofit, has been funding and distributing films about the Black experience since 1979. “Hands Performance” is the latest addition to their AfroPoP Digital Shorts series, which aims to highlight diverse and underrepresented stories.
For a glimpse into this must-see film, viewers can watch the trailer below.
