Storyboard P

Centers on two performances; in the first, dancers Storyboard P and Okwui Okpokwasili twist and twine their bodies in a moving two-part dance of desire, pain, and regret. In the second, present-day hip-hop royalty Beyoncé and Jay-Z serenade each other as part of a live performance. The work accompanies Jay-Z's track of the same name, widely viewed as an apology to his wife, Beyoncé for his infidelity and emotional failures as a husband. A collaboration between Arthur Jafa, Malik Sayeed, and Baltimore-based Elissa Blount Moorhead, the video uses cinematography, choreography, and found footage to explore complex and constricted notions of masculinity in an insightful and moving tapestry of Black love and life.

Storyboard P glides smoothly through the snow, carving shapes with his slender limbs. Though he has been sleeping rough in Stockholm for a while now, he is still flush with self-belief. “My vision takes it to an art level,” the Brooklyn native asserts. Will the talented dancer finally get his break?

Created in collaboration with the New York beatboxers Kid Lucky and Shockwave, and the spoken word artist Vocab, “Beatbox” portrays sound and movement as self-expressive navigational tools. In the style of city symphonies, the beatboxers have created the entire soundtrack of the film by interpreting and imitating the sounds of their surroundings. A mysterious spotlight shows the urban space as a stage where, following the words of Vocab, “every street corner has the ability to tell a thousand stories”.