Armond Dorsey

Armond Dorsey (they/he) is a world-builder and interdisciplinary artist-researcher synthesizing storytelling with research to deeply inquire “why not be free?”. Their creative work builds dream-like worlds through rituals—cyclical structured improvisations involving audience participation—to foster collective healing and actualize radical imaginations of our shared reality free from antiBlackness and oppression. Armond immerses audiences into live performance, installation and theater settings to experience these worlds otherwise using health-promoting sound design interwoven with poems on everyday Black life. Born and raised in Prince George’s County, Armond amplifies intergenerational memory across the African diaspora by drawing from narratives of how Black folks have lived and dream of living. Deeply-listening to these narratives grounds their practice as a performer-composer, poet, playwright and dramaturg. As a Dartmouth alum currently pursuing their M.Div at Harvard Divinity School, Armond’s core principal instructors include: Ashley Fure, César Alvarez, Allie Martin, Taylor Ho Bynum, avery r. young, Carmen Rivera-Tirado, William Britelle and Samita Sinha.

The David C. and Thelma G. Driskell Award for Creative Excellence, created in partnership with the University of Maryland’s Arts for All initiative, is designed to provide emerging scholars and artists with access to The Driskell Center’s collections in order to conduct new research or create new artistic work that furthers the Center’s mission of expanding and deepening the field of African diasporic studies in the visual arts.