The Shift Show




The Shift Show invites audiences into a new world that rejects technology as we know it. Instead a new kind of power is produced by the catalytic offloading of objects, movements, and words we need to shed. Spoken word poet U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, dancer Emily Beattie, designer Rosa Weinberg, musician Akili Jamal Haynes aka CHIBUZO DUNUN, and a mysterious organism playfully guide audiences through a ritual. The performance is immersive and inherently interactive. 

Our intentions are to shift beyond our realities, empower a new source and encounter new objects, ways of moving, and ways of speaking. In The Shift Show, the powerful exchange between the performers and each audience member transforms the performance into a collective ritual of joy. Together we gather objects, speak in unison, and move. The work is immersive, interactive, and experimental in nature. Heavily based on speculative futures but reactive to current events, The Shift Show is meant to be personally cathartic and communally healing for all.


This work was collaboratively created by U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, Rosa Weinberg, Emily Beattie, and Akili Jamal Haynes.

Choreography by Emily Beattie

Written Word by U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo

Set Design by Rosa Weinberg

Music Performance and Sound Design by Akili Jamal Haynes aka CHIBUZO DUNUN

Produced by Anne Dresbach

Costume design by Heidi Henderson

The work is supported in part by the Live Arts Boston grant from The Boston Foundation. Grateful to the Microsoft Garage in Cambridge, MA for residency and space for project development.