ABOUT

Ladies of Hip-Hop (LOHH) is an all female intergenerational dance collective that creates dance works illuminating the strength, power and diversity of women in Hip-Hop. Ever present in the work are the freestyle, cipher, and call and response aspects of the origins of street and club dance culture, while exploring performance across cultural and theatrical spaces.

Under the direction of founder Michele Byrd-McPhee, LOHH interweaves the embodied experiences of women, creating a communal fabric that paints a picture of a more global women experience. Through their work, LOHH is reclaiming and transforming spaces, not only in the realm of dance but also within the broader cultural landscape.

The driving force behind LOHH, Byrd-McPhee is a street dance activist and creative visionary who works to decolonize hip-hop culture along gender, sex, and cultural and socio-historic racial lines. She situates Black dance forms, theories, dance techniques and the value of the lived artistic experience within spaces that honor and acknowledge cultural roots along with the many creative pioneers who have shaped them.

LOHH infuses their work with a spirit of liberation, asking audiences to celebrate the strength, resilience, and creativity of women from all walks of life, while sparking important conversations about gender equality and representation. Through women-powered workshops, performances, public talks, and professional development training, LOHH is educating and cultivating Hip-Hop's next generation of women leaders.

The Black Dancing Bodies Project is an initiative to uplift and celebrate Black women in street and club dance culture; addressing the erasure and miscoding of Black women’s contributions to American dance culture. Black Dancing Bodies Project: Speak My Mind reclaims community stories, gestures, mannerisms, hairstyles, dances and cultural norms. With neck rolling, eye rolling, tongue popping, teeth sucking, hand clapping, and finger snapping. We will be loud, expressive, gentle and soft. We will be authentically ourselves. We will speak our minds.

Black Dancing Bodies Project: SpeakMyMind was commissioned by Works & Process, developed in Works & Process LaunchPAD residencies at Bethany Arts Community (2022, 2023, and 2024) and Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), Office Hours Residency at The Kennedy Center, and Jacob’s Pillow Lab.

Black Dancing Bodies Project: SpeakMyMind is a 2023 New England Foundation for the Arts’s National Dance Project grantee, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation.

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