photo of amara tabor-smith by Robbie Sweeny
amara tabor-smith (she/they)
Born in San Francisco, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land, and based in Oakland, amara is a choreographer/performance maker and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater.
She describes her dance and performance making practice as Conjure Art. Her interdisciplinary site-specific and community responsive performance experiences utilize Yoruba Lukumí spiritual technologies to address issues of social and environmental justice, race, gender identity, and belonging. Her work is rooted in Black, queer, Afro futurist/surrealist, womanist principles, that insist on liberation, joy, home fullness and well-being.
In addition to her own work amara has also performed in the works of artists such as Ed Mock, Joanna Haigood, Ana Deveare Smith, Ronald K. Brown, Julie Tolentino, Adia Tamar Whitaker, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and Faustin Linyekula. She is the former associate artistic director and company member with Urban Bush Women, and was the co artistic director of Headmistress, a performance collaboration with Sherwood Chen.
amara is a 2024 recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship award; a 2023 recipient of the American Academy of Religion’s Religion in the Arts Award; a 2021 inaugural recipient of the Rainin Fellowship; a 2020 recipient of the Hewlett 50 grant with East Side Arts Alliance; a 2019 Dance/USA Fellow; a 2018 United States Artist Fellow and a 2018 recipient of KQED’s “Bay Brilliant” award.
Rooted in her Oakland community, amara is a member of the Black Cultural Zone (BCZ) Arts and Culture working group in East Oakland. She is a co-founder of the Oakland Anti-Racist Organizing Committee (OAROC), a collaboration of BIPOC artists, activists and educators that holds space for individuals and organizations to address internalized structural racism. And she is the co-founder of Conjure and Mend, a creative sanctuary for survivors of Sex Trafficking in Oakland in partnership with sex trafficking abolitionist Regina Evans.
amara received her MFA in Dance from Hollins University and is an artist in residence at Stanford University.
Photo from “REVIVAL: Millennial ReMembering in the Afro NOW” by Robbie Sweeny.
Deep Waters Dance Theater
Founded in 2006 by Artistic Director amara tabor-smith, Deep Waters Dance Theater is an ensemble of dance and performance artists creating interdisciplinary performance experiences that utilize Yoruba/Lukumí spiritual technologies to address social and environmental issues facing BIPOC and our communities.
Drawing from the folklore of our cultural heritages and ancestral traditions we are committed to creating multi-media dance theater works rooted in a Black feminist framework, and that promotes healing and liberation from environmental, gender and racial oppression. This is achieved through community dialogues, social activism, performing ritual ceremony, storytelling, and the re-telling of our cultural myths and stories which we believe are the blueprints for our survival.
Our creative process revolves around a collective internal ritual process and practice that enables us to cultivate mutual understanding, support and respect amongst ourselves and with our communities. This approach supports each member to continue to deepen their own work as artists and cultural activists committed to social change through a community-engaged performance making practice.