SWIS)HER

SWIS)HER is a dance performance project rooted in butch queen vogue femme, lip sync, and camp. The work uplifts global LGBTQIA+ voices while also acknowledging the harm and violence queer people continue to face. Drawing from Ballroom culture, Drag performance, and Contemporary dance, the piece moves between celebration, humor, and confrontation. The performers shift between collective movement and moments of individual assertion, allowing virtuosity, glamour, and excess to exist alongside vulnerability. SWIS)HER honors Black queer dance lineages while asking how these forms can continue to evolve. At its heart, the work asks what it means to be visible, joyful, and unapologetically present while many of us are still fighting for our lives.

Artist Bio

J’Sun Howard is a Chicago-based dancemaker and writer whose work centers intimacy as a practice grounded in care, presence, and sustained attention. Across performance, text, and visual composition, he creates spaces where Black and Brown men gather in tenderness, risk, and relational play. Recent works include Total Beings | Burning Hearts, Sissies: Something Perfect Between Ourselves, and The Righteous Beauty of the Things Never Accounted For. His work has been presented in Chicago, nationally, and internationally, including at Links Hall, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Danspace Project, the Detroit Dance City Festival, the 2025 Osaka Expo, and Dance Box Kobe. Howard holds an MFA in Dance and a certificate in World Performance Studies from the University of Michigan.