Home Made Me: Nina Simone Tribute

Live sound design and multimedia for Home Made Me, a dance and spoken-word tribute to Nina Simone produced by SLIPPAGE@Duke and directed by Thomas F. DeFrantz. Performed at the North Carolina Museum of Art as part of a weekend celebration of Simone’s legacy and the effort to preserve her childhood home in Tryon, NC.

My role blended live performance with sound design — transforming some of Simone’s most iconic recordings in real time alongside multimedia visuals that pulsated with color behind the dancers. Each dancer performed a solo to a specific Simone song, with live sonic transformations creating a space between faithful tribute and creative reimagination. The performance moved through the arc of Simone’s life: childhood in Tryon, the emergence of the “High Priestess of Soul,” the activism that ran through and between it all, and the solitude of her later years.

The company included spoken-word artist Monèt Noelle Marshall, dancers Shireen Dickson, Tristan Andrè Parks, Andrea Woods Valdès, and Brittany Williams. The performance was part of a weekend that also featured a concert by Lisa Simone (Nina’s daughter) and a screening of the documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, with proceeds supporting the restoration of the Nina Simone childhood home — one of only two African American childhood homes with National Treasure status in the United States.