Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Star Temple + Wisdom School

Nia Witherspoon’s new work, Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Star Temple + Wisdom School is a ritual-opera and a temple that merges African traditional religious approaches to healing and Black feminist theologies to both envision and enact a more evolved world through embodied experiences. By centering all radical forms of Black femme agency across time, including dreamwork, coming to voice, creative expression, sacred sexuality, and gender affirmation, Priestess of Twerk takes witness-participants on a journey populated with glorious music, spell-casting choreography, and their own personally tailored guidance throughout the piece, teaching the inter-relationship between Black Femme health and the health of our planet.

Priestess of Twerk is a ritual re-telling of ancient Egyptian goddess Isis’ journey to the underworld, told through the lens of contemporary Black feminist text, The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara, and narrated by The Mothermind, the collective consciousness. 

Commissioned, developed, and produced by HERE Artist Residency Program.

Priestess of Twerk can be experienced in two ways: 

After a unique divination experience during their ticket purchase, audiences on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays will be guided into a functional temple to participate in a 4-hour long ritual opera event that places them in one of the temple’s seven chambers. Here, they will take part in intimate experiences with the priestesses of the temple that include twerk meditations, radical runway processions, sonic journeying, sacred partying, and an array of cleansing, grieving, and praying rituals. The temple’s seven chambers are: Death, Birth, Erotica/Warrior, Inner Child, Voice/Naming, Dream, and Love. All of these elements are woven into the larger ritual-opera that journeys along with Isis, her twin sister Neb-Het, Queen of the Underworld, and The Mothermind.  Buy Tickets

Audiences on Wednesdays and Thursdays will experience a two-hour Song Circle of Priestess of Twerk that highlights music from the ritual-opera inside participatory communal ceremony. Song Circles call us to use our voices in community as a way to heal, to ask and answer questions, and to remember our gifts and collective power.  They also allow us to step into joy, embodiment, praise, and a little twerk!

Buy Tickets to the Song Circle 

Affinity performances for Black Folks will take place on May 18, June 1, and June 8.

Affinity performances for BIPOC audiences will take place on May 26 and June 7.

Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Star Temple + Wisdom School is created by Nia O. Witherspoon, a 2023-2024 Tow Foundation Playwright in Residence. It is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature along with support from The NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City

Council. Commissioning and development support provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. Priestess of Twerk is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Links Hall Incorporated, Brava for Women in the Arts, Home for Contemporary Theatre and Art Ltd., Oregon Shakespeare Festival Association, Phoenix Hostel & Cultural Center, and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information, visit npnweb.org. Priestess of Twerk was developed, in part, through IRT’s Archive Collective in partnership with HERE’s HARP Residency Program (irttheater.org).

This project is also supported by HERE’s Fund for Women Artists, which was generously established by Jennifer Suh Whitfield and Benjamin Whitfield. They are joined by Abigail Gampel, Helen Mills, Alan Ostroff, Amy Segal, Christie Snider, and Tommy Young.