SaltWater Road Performance Institute is an Afro-Diasporic woman–founded artist led performance company and creative humanities institute based in Montgomery, Alabama. Our mission is to research, create, and present original Southernist dance and devised performance rooted in site, ceremony, and public life, advancing experimental performance practices grounded in the histories and cultural legacies of the Deep South.
Through studio practice, artist collaboration, and public-facing programming, SaltWater Road cultivates rigorous performance research rooted in the cultural landscapes and histories of the American South. Our work positions movement, gathering, and embodied inquiry as powerful tools for artistic innovation and cultural exchange.
MISSION
SaltWater Road supports the investigation, creation, and presentation of original Southernist performance through studio-based research, collaborative artistic practice, and creative humanities programming. We cultivate environments where artists engage deeply with place, history, and collective movement as sources of knowledge and artistic excellence.
VISION
We envision SaltWater Road as a world-class home for contemporary performance in the Deep South — a generative studio and cultural hub where BIPOC artists create new work rooted in Southern histories and shared with audiences locally and globally. Inspired by artist communities such as Jacob’s Pillow, we are building a space where artistic rigor, experimentation, and cultural memory converge.
ARTISTIC FOCUS
SaltWater Road operates as a producing performance company grounded in dance and devised performance. Our studio-residency model supports artists through intensive creative research that integrates movement composition, site-responsive exploration, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Sound artists, installation artists, and moving image practitioners are welcomed as collaborators whose work expands the choreographic and dramaturgical field. Each creative process culminates in public offerings that invite audiences into embodied encounters with performance in both theatrical and civic spaces.
OUR APPROACH
SaltWater Road operates as a performance company with an embedded studio-residency model. Artists develop work through field engagement, ensemble practice, and iterative experimentation shaped by their individual lines of inquiry.
This process culminates in public sharings and ceremonial presentations that honor artistic research while building relationships between artists, audiences, and place. Through partnerships with local organizations and communities, SaltWater Road creates accessible opportunities for audiences to encounter contemporary performance in meaningful and transformative ways.
SOUTHERNIST CONTEXT
Montgomery and the broader American South are central collaborators in our work. SaltWater Road engages landscapes shaped by histories of movement, gathering, resistance, and cultural transformation, positioning the region as a vital site for contemporary performance research.
Rooted in Womanist practice and AfroDiasporic creative traditions, our projects explore how performance can activate historical memory while imagining new artistic futures grounded in Southern place and community.
CREATIVE HUMANITIES & RESEARCH
SaltWater Road exists at the intersection of artistic practice and humanities scholarship. We approach performance as a form of cultural research — one that values embodied knowledge, collaborative inquiry, and the creation of new artistic languages.
Through documentation, archiving, and interdisciplinary exchange, our work contributes to evolving conversations in performance studies, Southern Studies, and public humanities. By centering BIPOC artists and site-based engagement, we expand how performance functions as both artistic expression and knowledge production.
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