Psychopomp is a diverse group of makers and dance artists that create dance theater works and host movement workshops. The core group of artists in Psychopomp includes five to six performing artists in addition to director Shenandoah Harris and her collaborator Ryan Howard who assists in the production of all of Psychopomp’s work. Psychopomp creates and shares the Jewish way, battling erasure and rebelling against universal conforming belief systems, making space for the Jewish perspective and all historically excluded viewpoints. In Miss Harris’s work she invokes her cultural and ancestral practices of Talmudic study, acting in Chevruta (partnership), making accessible spaces for everyone to wrestle with the creation, appreciation and discourse of dance. The movement style is rooted in complex floorwork, powerful acrobatic parkour movements and draws spaciously powerful traveling modern dance techniques. Psychopomp explores identity, morality, and questions our place in the world. The work is highly narrative, drawing inspiration from Jewish mythology along with Rabbinic and wider cultural commentary. We compare these formative stories cross-culturally, working to recontextualize them into modernity.
Since Psychopomp’s first self produced show in 2019 the company has continued to self produce as well as be presented in a wide variety of spaces. From traditional a variety of theater spaces to a demolished department store on the Miracle Mile, on top of the Baldwin City Overlook, in tandem with the UCSB orchestra, or in front of 8,000 people during a dust storm at Lighting in a Bottle Music Festival, we are always searching for new spaces to bring dance. In August of 2023 Psychopomp produced its own multidisciplinary two weekend festival of diverse LA dance and theater artists at Highways Performance Space entitled CHAOS!
The company also offers a variety of workshops, classes and other events for dancers and movers to connect, train and explore the work and world of Psychopomp. One of the highlights of the company’s season is our annual Creation Workshop where we work together with a group of professional and pre-professional artists over just four days and create a brand new piece that is performed live at the end of the workshop. In 2023 our Creation Workshop students performed on opening night of our CHAOS! Festival for a sold out audience.
Coin & Ghost is proud to support Psychopomp through our Fiscal Receiver program.