Awards and Accomplishments
amara tabor-smith is the 2023 recipient of AAR’s Religion and the Arts Award. tabor-smith (she/they) is an Oakland, CA-based dance and performance maker, and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater. With its ensemble of dance and performance artists, Deep Waters Dance Theater draws from the folklore of Africana and Black cultural heritages and ancestral traditions to create multimedia dance theater works rooted in a Black feminist framework, one that promotes healing and liberation from environmental, gender, and racial oppression.
“We’re thrilled to honor tabor-smith with this year’s award. Her work brings together visual and rhythmic registers, movement, and brilliant engagement with Africana religious forms and traditions, while at the same time bringing the artist herself into conversation with local and broader communities. This is very much the kind of work we at the American Academy of Religion hope to do — the work of community-building, education, and inspiration — and it’s a privilege to see how tabor-smith accomplishes this mission through artistic means,” said Anthony M. Petro, Chair of the Religion and the Arts Award Jury.
tabor-smith describes her work as Conjure Art. Her interdisciplinary, site-responsive, and community-specific performance-making practice utilizes Yoruba Lukumí spiritual technologies to address issues of social and environmental justice, race, gender identity, and belonging. Her work is rooted in Black, queer, feminist principles that insist on liberation, joy, home fullness and well-being.
In addition to her own work, tabor-smith has also performed in the works of artists such as Ed Mock, Joanna Haigood, Ana Deveare Smith, Ronald K. Brown, Julie Tolentino, Adia Tamar Whitaker, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and Faustin Linyekula. She is the former associate artistic director and company member with Urban Bush Women and was the co-artistic director of Headmistress, a performance collaboration with Sherwood Chen.
tabor-smith is a 2021 Rainin Fellow, a 2019 Dance/USA Fellow, 2018 United States Artist Fellow, and a 2017 Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellow. She is currently a teaching artist in residence at Stanford University.
Following the presentation of the award, expert discussants Benae Beamon and Elizabeth Pérez will join a panel with tabor-smith. Rachel Lindsey will moderate the panel, as we invite tabor-smith to reflect on the role of the artist in framing the public understanding of religion. Please join us in honoring tabor-smith for her rich explorations in movement, creativity, and joyful community-making.
Religion and the Arts Award Panel:
Sunday, November 19, 5:00-6:30pm