Channels of Hope
What does a world where people are free look like, and how can it be achieved? In the late, longtime Asheville resident Helen Moseley-Edington's poem, "I Dream a World," which is a take on the 1941 Langston Hughes poem of the same name, she writes of the world she dreams of, one Africans knew before ships approached their shores. She asks that readers dream of this world with her. To do so, one has to have a sense of self, which is "crucial if we are to join ourselves to the past and the future, to commune with the ancestors as well as the coming children" writes Vincent Harding in There Is a River. He refers to the formerly enslaved as "human channels of hope," the ancestors Moseley-Edington asks readers to consider.
In Channels of Hope, Moseley-Edington's granddaughter, Asheville resident LaVie Danielle Montgomery, reads her grandmother's words while choreographer and dancer Alexandra Joye Warren invokes memories and ancestors through movement. Moseley-Edington knew of this world and wanted future generations to know it, too.
Runtime: 3:29 Poem: Written by Helen Moseley-Edington; performed by LaVie Danielle Montgomery
Choreography: Alexandra Joye Warren Performance coordinator: Myra Weise, Proxemic Media
Video: Filmed and edited by Julia Wall Director and producer: Michael S. Williams
Trailer for Channels of Hope. Video by Julia Wall.
"In the early 1900's, the black person's world was a climate in which hope and despair created a desire to succeed or give up. ... Times were difficult for all people of color. ... Feelings of discontent, guided by the spiritual practices within, turned to humbleness and thankfulness."
— Helen Moseley-Edington, Visionaries: Asheville Men of Color
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Photo by Julia Wall
LaVie Danielle Montgomery is an Asheville native and community leader in the nonprofit sectors of healthcare and education. She received her undergraduate degree in English and Sociology from the University of North Carolina Greensboro and her Master of Science in Healthcare Management from Winston Salem State University's Department of Economics and Finance.
Montgomery is the Director of Operations at SistasCaring4Sistas, a 501c3 community-based doula organization developed to combat the infant and maternal mortality rates of Black and brown women locally and nationwide.
Montgomery is also the CEO of Dope Divas LLC where her bold, unique, and stylish earring collection serves as a "conversation piece" as the imagery and quotations capture inspirational and human rights themes.
She holds the titles mother, daughter, granddaughter in the highest regard, but also wears hats such as facilitator, community organizer, educator, storyteller, and birth and bereavement doula. In her free time, LaVie enjoys hiking, photography, comedy shows, and traveling with her family.
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Photo by Julia Wall
Alexandra Joye Warren is an Assistant Professor of Performing Arts at Elon University and Founding Artistic Director of JOYEMOVEMENT. Launched in 2014, JOYEMOVEMENT is a contemporary dance company that has performed regionally and toured nationally at colleges, universities, festivals and conferences, including Opening Night of American Dance Festival in 2017 and at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in collaboration with activist Bree Newsome.
A native of the Washington, D.C. Metro area, Warren received her BA from Spelman College in 2003 and MFA from UNC Greensboro in 2006. She performed, choreographed, and taught in New York, where she was a member of Christal Brown's INSPIRIT. Warren had the privilege of studying at Germaine Acogny's Jant-Bi at L'Ecole Des Sables in Senegal. Her performance experience includes Bill T. Jones’ FELA! the Musical, and working with Paloma and Patricia McGregor's Angela's Pulse, Maxine Montilus, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, Van Dyke Dance Group, and Amy Love Beasley.
Warren has presented her choreography as scholarly research at the Collegium of African Diaspora Dance Conference at Duke University and at the National Women's Studies Association Conference in San Francisco, California. She is a recipient of the 2019 Arts Greensboro Regional Arts Grant.