Bringing together multiple movement languages and lineages, Makini [jumatatu m. poe] and Jermone Donte Beacham have blasted open the performance world through their sustained collaborative work. Trained in African and contemporary dance, Makini first encountered J’Sette artist Donte on YouTube; one-thing-led-to-another and into their decade-long series of projects, Let ‘im Move You.

Rigorously choreographed and improvisatory, jumatatu and Donte create duets and group works, with movement that is tough and gorgeous, powerful and lush,  lyrical  and raunchy, fluid, flamboyant, joyous and ALIVE. Their quality of fiercely playful competition – sometimes called ‘battle’ - is rooted in J’Sette, the high-energy call-and-response dance style which emerged in the late 1970’s from all-female dance squad majorettes at Jackson State University, then evolving aesthetically and socially in African-American gay club culture throughout the South.

Fabulous as it can be, dance is never just about the movement. Through their work jumatatu and Donte investigate intimacy, eroticism, hierarchies, Blackness, queerness and care, and, in the doing, create relationships and community. Their choice of performance venues - black box theatres and galleries, in clubs, and, “daring to be beautiful in public spaces” -- the streets – is both purposive and reflective of the dance worlds they come from. And always aware of the world outside the studio, two weeks after the murders at Pulse Night Club, they responded with a brand new work. In their individual practices, Makini teaches and performs throughout the US and internationally. Captain of a queer ‘Sette squad, Donte’s teaching focus serves Black and Indigenous artists.