PROJECTS

Precipice: Breaths for Diving

Precipice: Breaths for Diving is a new improvised composition I developed as a composer in Zeitgeist’s Sounding Ground composer residency.

This new work for voice and small ensemble makes use of a graphic score.

About Precipice: Breaths for Diving

​The 2020s marked my entrance into a new, expanding and evolving relationship with grief. As a resident of South Minneapolis, I live(d) in the city that witnessed the murder of George Floyd and its aftermath as we navigated the early months of the pandemic, including a time when singers didn’t have any idea when we might sing together again. Now in 2025, we are live-streaming genocides in many countries around the world and in the midst of a chaotic and calamitous start to the current president’s term. 
 
I feel more and more the weight of community grief caused by the traumas and tragedies occurring to others in my city, country and around the world, while also struggling to hold the guilt from arriving late to knowledge and experiences some in my communities have been carrying for a long, long time. 
 
In my ongoing attempts to find ways to hold and digest and heal these injuries, I started singing and improvising, working within the artistic disciplines in which I am practiced. Following my improviser’s intuition, I find my artistry expanding into new areas, such as the graphic score I created for Precipice: Breaths for Diving.
 
 A singer friend likened spending time in/with grief to the diving that whales (our mammal brethren) do. Like us, whales need to breathe air into lungs so they have evolved to spend time long periods diving for their survival. During these dives, which may last up to an hour, they exist on a single breath. 
 
I have come to appreciate the idea that we can (and must) “dive” into grief to discover and retrieve the things that only exist there, to “find what we can/need.” This improvised work is born from the premise that we are at the beginning of such a dive and are taking the breath that will sustain us through and to the next place.

Photo credits: Dried Lava by Phil Kallahar, @in.finite.pictures, Painted Industrial Tunnel in Contrast by Will Mu, @mindworkaus, Dzenina Lukac, @dzeninaphoto

​Between: A Journey Through the Middle

an improvised vocal work + release event and reunion

In 2014, I debuted my first full-length improvised composition. Inspired by a trip to the Canary Islands, Between spins a singing conversation to celebrate the journeying places in each of us, reminding us to embrace edges, transition and change.

I recently revisited the 2014 recordings and realized how relevant they still are. So I am mixing the audio from the 2014 shows and gathering the Between artists for a celebration/reunion and a release event on Saturday, March 2nd.

Using invented voice, drums, song and story, we strive to balance ancestral wisdom with contemporary intuition and improvisation. All of the movements in Between contain improvisation; the ensemble discovers and develops the pieces on stage in front of the audience.

What the Music Says Do

an album of original jazz songs

I released a collection of original jazz songs in 2018. Numerous Twin Cities artists appear on the project. Click here to learn more.

COLLABORATORS

(Current & Past)

Echoes of Peace Choir

My friend Sara Thomsen began the Echoes of Peace Choir in Duluth, MN in 2002 to sing for the Art of Peace event, a local response to the events of 9/11/01. The choir grew and evolved to presenting annual concerts and singing at various community events throughout the year. I had the joy of collaborating as a guest artist with the choir on several occasions. The choir sang its final season of concerts in spring of 2023.

Ebb N’ Flow

I am part of this collective of Black Twin Cities-based improvisers.

Give Get Sistet

I have worked with these talented women individually and together on numerous occasions. We created the name Give Get Sistet to perform at a fundraising concert. We loved the name and enjoyed singing together so much that we knew we had to keep collaborating. Visit the Give Get Sistet web site.

Jazz Central Studios

I acted as artistic director for the Vocal Night series at Jazz Central Studios. Thursday Vocal Jazz was created to spotlight established singers as well as up and coming Twin Cities vocalists.

Minnesota Jazz Education

(Formerly the Dakota Foundation for Jazz Education) promotes jazz and jazz appreciation through education, funding development and partnerships.

 

Past Projects

Naked Stages 2024

Heap Cull Gather Sow is a ceremonial journey through grieving, ancestral guidance, and heart memory carried by tears and talismans, movement and memory, stories and songs. Sourced from intuition and melody, Heap Cull Gather Sow asks how we hold loss and sorrow from the present and the past and from where we garner the resources to re-imagine and re-member ourselves.

ABOUT NAKED STAGES
Naked Stages is a 7-month fellowship that provides performance artists with the time, resources, and mentorship needed to bring distinctive visions to life on stage. In addition to regular feedback sessions, the artists participate in workshops with local creators, as well as more intensive workshops with nationally-renowned artists. Once a month, they also participate in production meetings focused on the business side of art, from audience development to technical support, helping to develop their unique voice into a sustainable, artistic career.

Giving Voice to Grief

I am developing/receiving an improvised composition centered around the sounds we make when we express grief. I am exploring ways to work with my many communities of singers and music-makers to actualize this piece. My efforts are supported with funds from MRAC (thank you!).

I held a number of community sessions with singers e to improvise with me and help discover/develop this piece.

This activity is made possible by the voters Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. 

Tofte Residency

I was honored to join the Minnesota Artist Residency at Tofte Lake Center this summer. I used the time to begin work on a composition focused on doing grief work in community.

Burning Truth Project

The first Burning Truth Project — a cabaret inspired evening of story and song — was presented in the summer of 2020 with a focus on responding to the murder of George Floyd and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. In summer of 2022, we remounted Burning Truth Project to continue this musical conversation and response to the events and circumstances in our city and around the globe.

ComMUSICation

I have led circle singing and studio residencies for this St. Paul choral organization.

Dead King Mother

This blues for chamber ensemble tells the story of a near-forgotten event in North Minneapolis and United States civil rights history that has been with Davu Seru since early childhood. ​

A Hill in Natchez

Emcee Joe Horton conceived the concept for A Hill in Natchez after stopping to see Forks of the Road (one of the biggest slave markets in the southeastern United States) in Natchez Mississippi with his father. It was such a privilege and joy to join the cast of this deeply introspective, highly topical production exploring “race, power and the way historical wounds endure in the modern psyche.”

Holiness & The Feminine Spirit

This collaborative art, music and movement event centered on the artwork of painter Janet McKenzie and culminated in concerts in Duluth and Minneapolis.

Mother King

Mother King is a conceptual Black opera created and presented by OperaRising 52. Mother King interprets the story of Alberta Williams King, slain activist and mother of Martin Luther King, Jr. Vanessa Feuntes wrote the libretto and Dameun Strange wrote the score.

SIX SINGERS
Six local vocalists — Michael McDowell, Sarah M. Greer, Roland Hawkins, Kevin “Kaoz” Moore, Ava McFarlane and Liz Gre (in the title role) —  brought this story of Black Birth, Black Resilience, and Black Joy to life along with a 12-member instrumental ensemble in July 2017.

Northeast Middle School Musical Theater

I was the vocal director for this middle school musical theater program from 2009-2019.

Riotus N

It was an adventure and thrill to construct and deconstruct the music with this free and improvisational group. Riotus N is the brainchild of bassist Anthony Cox and incorporated DeVon Russel Gray on keys and synths, John Penny on guitar, Davu Seru on percussion with me on vocals.