"Johari Mayfield was in intense perpetual motion, making every small shift movement quality clear." --The New York Times

"A highlight was the charismatic Johari Mayfield’s Women’ Fib… She’s ready for a one-woman show." --Village Voice    

As a modern day Edgar Allen Poe, Johari Mayfield blurs the lines between technology, movement and rhythm haunting the collective (sub)conscious mind of the audience with the ongoing exploitation of a Black female body.  Hidden in the floor boards of pop culture beats the heart of a South African woman coined as the “Venus Hottentot.”  The “call and response” dynamic that exists within African dance and music is used to illustrate how this woman’s  life and death as pickled specimen in France’s Museum of Natural History have informed the present day perception of the oversexed Black woman. 

The Venus Riff is an audio and visual exploration of the ripple effect of the historical exploitation of and sexual fascination with the Black female body. We will begin with the down beat of the examination and autopsy a South African woman billed as Venus Hottentot whose select body parts were displayed in a museum of natural history for nearly two centuries. Next, a catchy play on this theme of the oversexed Black woman will find its way in the groovy orchestrations and gyrations of Josephine Baker in the 1920’s and 30’s.  And then, MTV will transfix our eyes and ears.  Click, click, click will beat the high heels of the strutting modern video vixen whose image continues riff on the original theme sparked by the Venus Hottentot.  

In this “darker berry sweeter juice” remix that samples the obsession and depravity that haunted the madman in  Poe’s A Tell Tale Heart, The Venus Riff brings us face to face with the darker aspects of our conscience as human beings.  

 

I like being lost sometimes as an artist. The "Hansel and Gretel" approach to storytelling, dropping intellectual bread crumbs all way to a square oven so that I can have my brains cooked in absolute certainty spoils my fun.

As a neo-Gothic griot, storytelling and listening to a story are not that distinct for me.  Both exercises require being alert and prepared for the world that imagination evokes-- one that the subconscious mind can transcend-- beyond linear beginnings, middles, and endings, and labels of past, present, or future. The scaffolding of dance, technology, and narrative flow supported by the body creates new spaces for my imagination to climb high, establish itself, and take off again...

What has a broad, flat tail like a beaver, webbed feet, and a snout resembling a duck’s bill?  A platypus, probably.  Whose choreographic identity is a unique amalgamation of Double Dutch meeting Martha Graham meeting John Coltrane meeting Einstein meeting African dance meeting Edgar Allen Poe? Johari Mayfield, more than likely.  Evolving in an artistic habitat that at any given moment may be a ballet class on 29th street, an audio jam on the Lower East Side, an African dance class in the Alps, a children’s playground, or a long, hot shower after watching “Back to the Future” for the umpteenth time, Johari’s work hatches out of an instinctual need to artistically explore a myriad of environments in order to make sense out of Life’s emotional, spiritual, and physical curve balls. Her dances synergize traits from movement, narrative flow, and technology that leave audiences giggling, crying, or scratching their heads. Her work has been well received in several venues and festivals throughout New York and abroad including P.S. 122, RAW Material at Dance New Amsterdam, Spark Festival for Electronic Music and Art in Minneapolis, and Die Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria.