Quiet As It’s Kept is a dance project that explores the intersection of historical sexual trauma, southern culture, and silence in the African-American community. As a point of departure, the program interprets the oral histories of black survivors of sexual abuse living in rural coastal North Carolina. The program incorporates dance, puppetry, and music rooted in the region’s traditional folk arts.

Quiet As It’s Kept directly addresses historical and systemic racism and trauma by centering the suppressed narratives of African-American sexual assault victims. By coming together to share stories, we give language, shape, and form to our experiences and the need for safety.

Quiet As It’s Kept will, through movement, storytelling, and reflection, fuse the arts into a reconciliation and revival process that empowers and gives voice to southern communities of color, helping them grapple with the sociopolitical causes and effects of their traumatization and to make multigenerational and transcultural connections through art.

Listen to our podcast series about which documents the creation of Quiet As It’s Kept. 

Funding provided in part by New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project Production Grant,  Wilmington Arts Council, The Black Seed, and Queer Mobilization Project.

Articles, Research, and News about Quiet As It’s Kept
Wilmington arts company wins grant worth tens of thousands, StarNews
Wilmington choreographer Kevin Lee-y Green gets national exposure and a local premiere, StarNews
In coastal North Carolina, Kevin Lee-Y Green fosters healing through dance and theatre, UNCSA
Making Dream Come True, Salt