Artist Alethea Pace’s Listening with: Drake Park | Civic Practice Partnership 2023–2025

“We’re at a moment in time where there is a lot of effort to ignore the history of slavery. It’s really important for us to name and acknowledge and center that history as a way to understand how we can move forward.” Alethea Pace is a Bronx-based award-winning multidisciplinary choreographer and performer. During her residency, she is taking a process-centered approach and discovering what the work will be alongside her community. Her first activation was intended to be a picnic gathering featuring performance, storytelling, and historical sharings in Joseph Rodman Drake Park and Enslaved African Burial Ground. When weather forced her to change course, BronxArtSpace graciously offered their space to host the event. Following the gathering, Alethea returned to the Burial Ground to make an offering of her dance. The Met’s Civic Practice Partnership (CPP), launched in 2017, catalyzes and implements creative projects that advance healthy communities by bringing the skills and interests of neighborhood stakeholders together with those of The Met and artists who are socially minded in their practice. Invited CPP artists work in their own neighborhoods across New York City and at The Met to develop and implement ambitious projects and forge meaningful collaborations. Watch the video: Learn more about The Met’s Civic Practice Partnership: Learn more about Alethea Pace’s CPP Residency: #AletheaPace Subscribe for new content from The Met: #TheMet #Art #TheMetropolitanMuseumofArt #Museum © 2023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art