'Transcend, Uplifting Their Voices' Inaugural Scholarship Awardees Announced

"Transcend, Uplifting Their Voices" concert and scholarship initiative has selected two awardees and an honorable mention recipient.

Quincy Southerland and Dizz Young are the inaugural scholarship awardees of the Black Trans Mental Health Scholarships.

Theuse Pavuna is the recipient of Honorable Mention.

In the wake of George Floyd's murder, Katharine Pettit Creative - KPC wanted to contribute and continue their work with the Black Lives Matter movement. KPC (Keeping People Connected) decided the most impactful way would be to elevate Black and Brown dance makers and raise funds and resources for young people who identify as Black Trans, Non-Gender Conforming, and Queer artists who are pursuing a career in dance.

According to Director & Choreographer Katharine Pettit, "KPC creates platforms that center and celebrate LGBTQ+ youth, an especially urgent calling throughout the COVID-19 global pandemic. Black and Brown LGBTQ+ young people need to see themselves in the spotlight, witness their experiences through movement, and hear from trailblazers in the dance world that have been where they are now."

"Transcend, Uplifting Their Voices" concert and scholarship initiative emerged as a way to offer artists and audiences the chance to work towards racial equity by dismantling systemic racism through the decolonization of dance.

Scholarship awards include a monetary gift of $1000 as well as resources from the dance community that make up the Transcend network; Kemar Jewel and Xcel Dance Crew, International Dancer Zaman and Sundari the Indian Goddess, Taranng Dance Troupe, Zamandari, Akira Armstrong and Pretty Big Movement, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, Maxfield Haynes and Okwae Miller.

Our gratitude to the Black Mental Health Alliance, Caribbean Equality Project, International Association of Blacks in Dance and New York Theatre Barn for their support and partnership in making Transcend a reality.

In Their Own Words, Spotlight on the Awardees:

Quincy Southerland

He/Him

"This experience will make me a strong performer when I graduate and move to New York!

I love performing, getting a chance to play different characters and be someone else. It's like I get to escape my reality for a little and simplify my life to focus on just one thing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made me more specific and internal with dance and life. Of course I still want to be on Broadway but now I also want to be my own artist and create my own pieces! Virtual learning and not performing for over a year has been stressful, but it's given me time to myself to really think about what I want. I want to create, choreograph, and dance."

Dizz Young

They/ Them/ Their

"All of this started eight years ago when I was a sophomore in high school. Something to do with a bare room, boombox, dope beats, and an imagination that just wouldn't stop.

I am a role model for Black, LGBTQ+ individuals like myself. I want them to know they can break into any social sphere they see fit. We break limits, no more being confined by them. I feel like dance is my medium for self expression because whatever built up rage, attitude,

sensuality, and sexuality I have stored can be expressed when I move across the floor.

I didn't stop dancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Much like the new househeads of the 70s and 80s, I saw the Covid lockdown as ample time to re-examine my character, style, and personal movement aesthetic so that when the studios and nightclubs re-open I can communicate all that I am through my dancing."

Theuse Luz de Pavuna

She/Him/They/Mona

"I was a really shy black teenager, who didn't know yet know that I was queer, having to deal with bullying and aggression everyday in High School. Art was the way that I could release all the stress and empowered me to come out, be more myself & face the world as I am. I became very interested in Drag and watched "Paris is Burning" for the first time. I was mesmerized by all of that: the unapologetic blackness, the glamorous fashion, and of course, the art of Voguing.

This scholarship is the necessary boost to my life and work projects now and the biggest

proof that hate will never win over freedom and art. Every time I fall to the ground for a dip, the closer I get to heaven."