
Artist Residency Capstone: Donte Collins & AriDy Nox
The Anderson Center at Tower View presents an Artist Residency Capstone with poet and spoken word artist Donte Collins and playwright AriDy Nox on Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 7 p.m. in the Tower View Barn. Living and working in Red Wing through the month of August as part of the Anderson Center’s Early Career Artist Residency Program, Donte & AriDy will perform works-in-progress and engage participants in dialog around their artistic practices.
There is no admission fee and all are welcome. Another Capstone event with artists-in-residence Zosha Warpeha, Ash Goh Hua and Sarah Evenson is scheduled for Tuesday, August 29.
Donte Collins (they/them) is a neurodivergent afro-surrealist blues poet, playwright, and movement artist named the Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of Saint Paul, Minnesota. A 2023-25 Jerome Hill Artist fellowship for theatre, spoken word and performance, Donte believes poems allow us to wander back to ourselves, to meet ourselves anew. Their work harbors the question, “how does it feel?” as opposed to, “what does it mean?” Their 2017 poetry collection “Autopsy” (Button Poetry) was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award.
During their residency, Donte is revising a choreopoem entitled “Mercy.” Blending poetry and movement, verbal and non-verbal communication, the piece is about home and children’s need for a safe space to call their own and return to.
AriDy Nox (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary black femme storyteller based in New York City with a variety of forward-thinking creative works under their belt. A member of Playwrights Center Core Writers and a 2023-2024 Van Lier New Voices Fellow, AriDy creates out of the vehement belief that creating a future in which marginalized peoples are free requires a radical imagination. Their tales are offerings intended to function as small parts of an ancient, expansive, awe-inspiring tradition of world shaping, created by and for Black femmes. AriDy’s work was recently featured on Playbill.com.
AriDy is developing “freshwater or The Daughters of Omilade,” a series of seven magical realism plays exploring of the matrilineal lineage of a black family and their inextricable connection to Mother Bayou, the Goddess who safeguards (and occasionally terrorizes) their village.