Marquita Sams
Marquita Sams is a choreographer, dancer, filmmaker, painter, and spiritual healer whose work is based in Afro-diasporic knowledge systems from a variety of cultures (including ancient Egypt, Nigeria, the Sea Islands, and Haiti). Through her multi-disciplinary practice, she strives to be a conduit for the power of African cosmologies. In 2006, Sams received a BA in African and African-American Studies and Dance from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2013, she received an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she focused on the spiritual and cultural significance of the dance of the African diaspora. She has performed with dance companies all over the country including Philadanco D/2 (Philadelphia), The Slaughter Project (St. Louis), Project Motion (Memphis), Ko-Thi Dance Company (Milwaukee), Wild Space Dance Company (Milwaukee), and Hayiya Dance Theatre (Macon), and she has choreographed and performed solo work at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Drucker Center in Chicago, the Kenilworth Arts Studios in Milwaukee, and the Tubman Museum in Macon. She has also choreographed pieces for full company performances, lectured in university dance history classes, taught dance classes and workshops to elementary school students, and led movement and meditation classes for adults. Sams was the Producer and Movement Consultant for the Rainbow Serpent production Obi Mbu (The Primordial House) (2021), a 30-minute film which presents a choreographed dance performance exploring the movement of Black dancers illuminated with ultraviolet light as they reenact an Igbo myth of creation. She has also created other short dance films that explore sites important to Black history in the South.