In his album The Clearing (2021), the JJJJJerome Ellis imagines his block stutter to be a point of departure for examining the relationship between music, blackness, disabled speech, and time. The artist's stutter manifests as intervals of silence in his speech. He calls these intervals “clearings,” which shift from compositional tool to metaphor to disruptor of “conventional” time as the album unfolds. For this exhibition, the opening track from the album was presented as an immersive audio and video environment in SP2. Through musical and textual references alike, Ellis expanded on Harriet Jacobs’ concept of the “loophole of retreat,” exploring practices of refusal in Black speech and music. Ellis says of The Clearing: “I hope this album offers the listener some of what my stutter offers me: an opportunity to imagine new ways of being in time.”

The installation was presented in conjunction with a live improvisation by the artist on May 25th, 2023, produced with support from Dallas Contemporary, which reflected Ellis’ research into how themes explored in The Clearing come into contact with ecology. Drawing on materials collected for his book Aster of Ceremonies (September 2023), Ellis sensitively transformed archival material of so-called “runaway slave advertisements,” into an open-ended song for Black ancestors moving through 19th century Virginia. Reimagining these figures as plants in bloom, he sang for their safety, considering the relationship between ecology and practices of freedom. JJJJJerome Ellis: Loops of Retreat was curated by May Makki.

JJJJJerome Ellis (b. 1989) is a stuttering, Afro-Caribbean composer, poet, and performer. His works are invitations to healing, transcendence, communion, and deep listening. Through an interdisciplinary practice that focuses on oral storytelling, improvisation, and the interrelations between speech, silence, disability, and religion, he’s collaborated with choreographers, rappers, playwrights, booksellers, typographers, podcasters, toddlers, and filmmakers. Mr. Ellis’ work has been presented or developed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, Lincoln Center, MASS MoCA, and WKCR. He is a writer in residence at Lincoln Center Theater. Born in Connecticut to a Jamaican mother and a Grenadian father, he was raised in Virginia Beach, VA.

As a composer, Ellis was awarded a 2015 Fulbright Fellowship to research traditional samba performance and write new music in Salvador, Brazil. There he performed with local musicians at Teatro Gamboa Nova and Feminaria Musical at the Universidade Federal da Bahia. Recent sound design/composing credits include Help (The Shed), Passage (Soho Repertory Theatre), the Radical Craft Design Salon (TED Conferences), and LAB RAT by A$AP Rocky (Sotheby’s/YouTube). From 2008 to 2011, Ellis was resident composer and saxophonist with pianist Trudy Silver at 5C Cafe and Cultural Center in New York City. As a jazz saxophonist, he has performed with Joseph Daley, Aaron Scott, and Shayna Dulberger. Ellis earned his B.A. in music theory and ethnomusicology from Columbia University, studying ear training and counterpoint with pianist and composer Ramin Arjomand.