Our Movement

Tulsa Modern Movement (TuMM) thrives as a dynamic force for local artists and audiences. Our projects rely on a collaborative group of dancer/innovators making progressive work that surprises, delights and stimulates, working within a broad network of producing artists.
Our mission is to invigorate contemporary dance in Oklahoma by creating and presenting new choreography, promoting life-long learning in the art of dance and collaborating across disciplines.
The company formed out of collaboration and curiosity. We unveiled with "Suchness" - a public performance of site-specific dance on the bank of the Arkansas River in June 2011. Since then, we have continued to communicate perspectives beyond words and connect people through experience to the knowledge and intelligence that resides in the body. 

BLACK LIVES MATTER

A message from our Executive Artistic Director, Ari Christopher
July 19, 2020

As an artist -- a creator who makes things where they hadn’t previously existed -- I believe it's my power and responsibility to imagine. In solidarity, I imagine a more equitable world and pledge to help build it. I pledge that my creative and collaborative work will never shame or diminish Black, Indigenous and/or People of Color (BIPOC) and it will never protect White fragility. I am an anti-racist. My hope is that I can speak to fellow dance artists and audiences here on the Tulsa Modern Movement platform from a place of compassion as I invite you to join me: let’s chip away the layers of fear and ignorance and soften into patience, curiosity and radical love.    

If you’ve been following my work, you may have noticed that I frequently make dances that wrestle with questions of identity, belonging and equity. “Greenwood 1921” (2016), with poetry written and performed by Tony B., was about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the power of community in maintaining a life of dignity. “Mother Tongue” (2016) explored forced assimilation and subjugation of generations of BIPOC by White America. “Phenomenal Woman” (2019), a solo dance film celebrating Maya Angelou on International Women's Day and “How To Mutate” (2019), a collaboration with Candace G. Wiley about racism and privilege hoarding, are examples of recent works highlighting Black voices. I make work around these issues because that’s what I care deeply about and what inspires me. I am deeply grateful for the other artists and donors who have made this work possible.

I’m a gender non-conforming, bisexual who was raised atheist in the Bible Belt as a White child in mostly Black schools in North Tulsa. I learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre when I was only 8 years-old and that started a life-long quest in me to understand. I make work that wrestles with identity and belonging because *I* wrestle with identity and belonging; and because, while I understand that dances won’t take guns out of police hands, I believe that dance and other body-based art have a direct line to people’s empathy systems. I say: turn up the volume on empathy, even if it makes people mad, sad, or angry. FEEL. Feel. Feel to understand.

We are living in an important moment in history, and one that I am hopeful about. I also recognize that we may have a long process of reckoning and reform ahead of us, but I believe that the process will be easier on those who get knowledge and perspective. I share the linked document, Scaffolded Anti-Racist Resources, because it is a fascinating and thorough list of resources for allies, artists and audiences. Like any other generative endeavor I urge you to stay curious, keep notes, and notice how you feel while you engage with this material. Let yourself feel, wonder, reflect and stay present. 

Scaffolded Anti-Racist Resources

Processes & Priority

 An artist statement from our Executive Artistic Director, Ari Christopher

My choreography draws upon classical modern dance, release technique, and weight-sharing, playing with pushes, pulls, weight, and initiation points throughout and between connected vessels. I often work in collaboration—usually with an artist or thinker from a different domain, discipline, or life experience—because I find fruitful ground in the overlaps and enjoy the discovery process.

I gravitate toward ensemble-driven practices, where movement emerges through relational negotiation rather than predetermined structures. I am interested in how shared authorship, responsive composition, and physical listening generate a heightened state of presence—both for performers and audiences. These practices allow dance to function as more than just performance; they become acts of meaning-making, research, and radical presence.

When making work for public spaces, I aim to shift environments and tune into states of being that amplify both presence and the politics of our bodies in shared space. Dance, in this context, acts as an intervention—not to disrupt but to reveal, invite, and reframe. It creates an armature where the ways our bodies are seen, felt, and positioned in public life become undeniable. Rather than simply adapting a piece for an unconventional setting, collaborators and I engage with the site and its social context, allowing movement to emerge in dialogue with both place and people. Public dance offers an opportunity to decenter the stage, deconstruct traditional audience-performer dynamics, and open space for collective witnessing.

My recent work for the stage explores storytelling through immersive, dance-based theater. I am interested in how movement in time and space affects text and vice versa, shaping embodied narratives that offer both performers and audiences an active role in meaning-making. The main purpose of this work is to offer my audience permission to reflect upon difficult issues across disparate and historically unequal groups - not just to speak but also to ask questions.

I operate with the understanding that every person balances the need for safety with the need for truth. I take risks in my work to offer the audience a safer place to sit in truth—to take a risk toward their own truth and vulnerability.

I am deeply grateful to each person—dancer, collaborator, donor, friend, and family member—who has given of themselves in time, talent, encouragement, and resources to help make this company and my work possible.

BIOS

Ari Christopher - Executive Artistic Director
Ari Christopher (they/them) is a dance artist, educator, and researcher exploring improvisational dance as a site of relational negotiation, social choreography, and emergent composition. Their artistic research examines the interplay between dance, identity, and social theory, centering decolonized dance practices and radical togetherness in public spaces.

Ari creates original dance productions and site-specific performances, teaches Modern Dance Techniques and Contact Improvisation, and provides K-12 teacher development in arts infusion. Their choreography has been commissioned by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Harwelden Institute, and The Greenwood Art Project, among others. As co-founder of Tulsa Modern Movement (TuMM), Ari has spent over a decade developing ensemble-driven practices and creating work that challenges dominant narratives and engages embodied citizenship.

They have created over 35 choreographic works, three dance films, and numerous community-engaged projects with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the George Kaiser Family Foundation. Their honors include the Distinguished Graduate Student Fellowship in the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Best of Fest at Exchange Choreography Festival. Their dance film This Car Up received awards at American Dance Festival and Screen Dance International and has been featured by Dance Magazine and PBS.

Ari attended the BFA program in Modern Dance and Choreography at Marymount Manhattan College, studying with Merle Holloman, Lone Larsen, and Gerald Otte. They engage nationally with the evolving field of dance, exchanging ideas and movement practices through festivals, conferences, and research initiatives.

Before TuMM, Ari was Associate Director of Project CREATES, an arts-infusion initiative supporting teacher development. They continue to expand dance education through school and community partnerships, sustained by charitable gifts to Tulsa Modern Movement.

TuMM is a Project-Based company. Dancer and collaborator info is in the descriptions and documentations of each work.