​​​​rhy/ntology (or, to be the rhythm)

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​​​LINER NOTES//

With rhy/ntology (or, to be the rhythm), Love remains committed to his positioning of rhythm as an embodied-intellectual method for researching Black cultural histories as he shifts his focus from working “with and through” rhythm to working “as,” or becoming, rhythm. Instead of looking towards what literary scholar Nadia Ellis calls an “elsewhere” of liberatory possibilities for Black queerness or attempting to travel to such a “new and satisfying space of exile” as he has done in his previous work, Love now ventures to explore the possibility of becoming his own “elsewhere.” Ultimately, rhy/ntology encompasses Love's embodied, rhythm-based exploration of legacy, futurity, labor in the name of liberation and pleasure, and the Ellis-ian concept of “resolving” one’s own “potential.”​

 

CREDITS//

As the 2025-26 Dexter F. and Dorothy H. Baker Foundation Artist-In-Residence in the Department of Theater and Dance at Muhlenberg College, Love is planning a workshop for development of rhy/ntology in April 2026. The cast is to feature Love, Benae Beamon, Jeffrey Clark Jr., Lisa La Touche, and Kaleena Miller.

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Photo © 2023 by Justin Williams,

courtesy of The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, U of Maryland, College Park​​