Wednesday, July 22 at 7:00 pm
FREE
This talk will feature both artists discussing their individual practices and the upcoming one-day Bridging Acts performance — including process, preparation, challenges, and insights.
Performance Venue: UB Center for the Arts – Black Box Theatre
Saturday, July 25, 6:30–7:45 PM
Artist Talk #2 - AKG
Thursday, July 23 | 1:00–2:30 PM, Buffalo AKG Art Museum – Stanford and Judith Lipsey Auditorium
Featured artists: Alexandra Light (choreographer/dancer) and Clayton Colin (video artist/editor)
Alexandra Light is a choreographer and dancer who integrates a ballet background into contemporary work that questions and redefines tradition. After over a decade as a Principal Dancer with Texas Ballet Theater, she is now focused exclusively on her choreographic practice. Her work has been commissioned by and created for Texas Ballet Theater, the Steps on Broadway Conservatory, Martha Graham Dance Company through a Texas Ballet Theater mainstage commission, Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre, and more. Her choreography has been presented at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Battery Dance Festival, and the Ailey Citigroup Theater, and developed through residencies including Jacob\'s Pillow and the Frank Lloyd Wright Martin House. Her work centers on diasporic history, environmental memory, and layered identity, drawing from an academic background in psychology and a commitment to social practice.
Clayton Colin is a video editor/animator with extensive post-production experience (Premiere, After Effects, Blender), supporting the core premise of the project: rapid transformation of live footage into a mediated "echo."
Léwuga Tata Benson is an interdisciplinary media artist, filmmaker, and director whose work explores the intersections of memory, environmental trauma, cultural identity, and the mediated body. Rooted in his Ogoni heritage in the Niger Delta of Nigeria, Benson's practice examines how landscapes, histories, and personal narratives are transformed — and sometimes distorted — through the technologies we use to witness them. Working across moving-image installation, sound, performance, and sculptural media, he creates immersive environments that invite viewers to inhabit the emotional and political tensions embedded in overlooked or vulnerable communities.
Benson is the director of Bridging Acts: A Dialogue Between Motion and Media, a NYSCA-funded interdisciplinary performance project that brings together contemporary dance and live video to explore embodiment, surveillance, and memory through collaborative practice.
He holds an MFA in Media Arts Production from the University at Buffalo, where he developed a hybrid approach grounded in experimental filmmaking, immersive installation, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. His work has been exhibited at Buffalo Arts Studio, CEPA Gallery, the University at Buffalo Art Department Gallery, and the New York State Summer School for the Arts (NYSSSA), among others.