D. SABELA GRIMES

d. Sabela grimes is a trans-media storyteller, sonic ARKivist, and movement composer. Improvisational systems and collaboration are at the heart of his creative practice, inhaling through socio-historical observation, self-examination, and speculative meanderings, exhaling through layers of interconnected sonic, visual, and kinesthetic arrangements. Sabela's creative practice invests in the poetics of assemblage, the magic of mutability, and mastering misuse. Past projects include Philly XP, World War WhatEver, 40 Acres & A Microchip, and ELECTROGYNOUS. Frequently his enduring creative curiosities converge at a crossway where art is technology and science is speculative. Sabela’s current collaborative endeavor with Meena Murugesan, Parable of Portals, dreams Butler's professional and personal writings into live performances, audio-visual installations, site-specific short films, and interactive community activations. Each experience realizes quantum Blackness as a means to play within the nowness of recurring futures. On faculty at USC’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, he continues to cultivate, Funkamental MediKinetics, a movement system that draws on the layered dance training, community building, and spiritual practices evident in Black vernacular and Hip Hop/Street dance forms. He is a 2023 USC Associates Award for Artistic Expression recipient, 2021 Bessie Award winner for Outstanding Performer, 2017 County of Los Angeles Performing Arts Fellow, and 2014 United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow.