every.single.one

“every.single.one,” is a multimedia performance by Cherie Sampson that depicts personal, familial and community stories about hereditary cancer while exploring topics of genetics, integrative oncology, and healing from a patient’s perspective of modern medicine. It interweaves three levels of testimonial – Cherie’s own, her sister’s, and those of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer survivors and previvors, whose stories were conveyed to Cherie in a series of interviews. (“Previvors” are people who take prophylactic measures to prevent cancer when they carry a known genetic risk, such as a mutation in the BRCA gene). The artist documented her cancer experience in audio-visual material, including the phone call delivering the news of the diagnosis. That collection of material has been edited into short film/video vignettes and soundscapes to comprise the audio-visual environment of the performance that, along with spoken word and expressive movement, is integral to the storytelling. Dance as a healing practice is an important throughline in the performance as it was during Cherie’s treatment and recovery. Shortly after her diagnosis, she informed her dance mentor in south Indian classical dance, Anjali Tata-Hudson, that she wished “to keep dancing through this.” Together, they worked on traditional dance items that would provide focus for physical, emotional, and spiritual strength, then later re-envisioned them into creative movement segments co-choreographed for this performance. “every.single.one” is a dramatic interpretation of an intimately personal and simultaneously universal human reality that explores the body as a site of uncertainty in illness, loss, sibling, and community interrelationship and survival. Initiating the project during treatment provided Cherie with a means to process the life-altering ordeal in which to, in the words of Black feminist poet, Audre Lorde, “examine it, put it into perspective, share it and make use of it.”

“every.single.one,” was performed at the Edlavitch DCJCC on July 26, 2024, supported in part by the Puffin Foundation grant. It has also been performed at the Southern Theater for the 2024 Minnesota Fringe Festival and at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology in 2023 at the Banff Center for Arts & Creativity in Canada. The next show will be in Columbia, MO in February, 2025 at the CEC Community Theater.