Works on video

Choreographed, Written, and Performed by Cynthia Oliver.
Music composed and performed by Jason Finkelman and Geoff Gersh.
Costume by Adrienne McDonald.
The Kitchen, New York, New York. 2001.

because she was is the solo iteration of the larger evening-length work SHEMAD, a meditation on black womanhood and madness, Oliver summons the worlds of women where their critique of one another can move from vicious to tender to humorous. She evokes the myth of the Djablesse and calls madness diagnoses into question, perhaps considering it's deployment a container for women's supernatural powers.