Keeper of Sadness
Union Station | Seattle, WA
August 1–2, 2026
Keeper of Sadness is an immersive performance and living archive centering the experiences of Black Womxn.
The work brings together movement, sound, and storytelling to explore grief as something ancestral, collective, and deeply personal. It reflects on the intergenerational impacts of trauma, societal narratives, and historical erasure while holding space for memory, resilience, and reclamation.
Keeper of Sadness invites audiences into a shared encounter with grief. Not as something to resolve, but as something to witness, carry, transmute and understand on a deeper level.
Performance Artist/Michele Dooley
Keeper of Sadness offers an intimate exploration of the ways grief is carried, remembered, and passed on across generations.
Through performance and environment, the work considers how Black life is shaped by forms of loss that are both visible and unseen. It holds space for experiences that are often carried but rarely named, and asks what it means to witness them collectively.
The work draws attention to the ways memory, erasure, and survival are intertwined, using storytelling as a site of remembrance and resistance.
Photo/Lisa Swimmer
THE EXPERIENCE
This installation unfolds over two evenings at Union Station in Seattle. Audiences will move through a space shaped by performance, sound, and projection-based media, encountering the work in a way that is both intimate and collective. Visual elements are integrated into the environment, extending movement and narrative beyond the body and into the space itself. Light, image, and sound operate alongside the performers, creating a layered experience that is both physical and atmospheric.
Rather than presenting a fixed narrative, Keeper of Sadness invites audiences into a dynamic, immersive unfolding. Viewers are not positioned outside the work, but within it, witnessing and engaging with the emotional and spatial presence of the piece.
Featured Collaborators
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Jade Solomon Curtis
Director & Choreographer
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Nile Ruff
Performance Arist
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Michele Dooley
Performance Artist
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Anatola Araba
Projection Media Designer & AI
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Dani Tirrell
Community Liaison
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Cristina Orbe
Workshop Facilitator
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Arif Gursel
Executive Producer & Technology Consultant
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Everett Saunders
Sound Composer & Designer
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Management + & Booking
Supported by Solo Magic, a PACE 501c3 program
Keeper of Sadness is a project of Solo Magic, an experimental arts platform supporting multi-disciplinary artistic practice and new forms of cultural storytelling. Within this context, the work exists as both performance and archive, evolving through each presentation and the communities it engages.
This current showing is an offering, a gathering of every element that makes up KOS, in one room, for the first time.
Support for Keeper of Sadness at Union Station has been provided by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and 4Culture.
GET TICKETS
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GET TICKETS •
August 1–2, 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
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Keeper of Sadness is an immersive performance and living archive that centers the experiences of Black womxn.
Through movement, sound, storytelling, and projection-based media, the work explores grief as something ancestral, collective, and deeply personal. It invites audiences into an experience of witnessing where grief is not something to fix, but something to carry, understand, and transform together.
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The upcoming offering will take place at:
Union Station
401 South Jackson Street
Seattle, WAEntrance on King St and 5th Ave
This historic site and former train station becomes part of the experience, transformed into an immersive environment shaped by performance, sound, and visual media.
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Keeper of Sadness will be shared August 1–2, 2026 at 8:00 PM at Union Station.
This offering is an opportunity to convene the creative team in an immersive space and open the work to the public free of charge. This work is still becoming. You will be witnessing the first time all of the elements are in the same space together.
Additional performances, community engagements, and future iterations will be announced as the work continues to evolve.
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This work exists to hold space for the grief that has been carried, inherited, and often left unnamed within Black communities, particularly among Black Womxn.
Keeper of Sadness asks what it means to collectively witness that grief. It honors memory, confronts erasure, and creates space for resilience, reclamation, and deeper understanding.
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No. The experience is spatial and immersive.
A select number of seats will be provided, with preference given to audience members with disabilities and elders. Audience members may move through the environment and engage with different elements of the work as it unfolds.
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Each performance runs approximately 1 hour, including the immersive experience and any integrated components.
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Keeper of Sadness centers Black Womxn and their lived experiences.
All audiences are welcome, especially those committed to witnessing with care, respect, and openness.
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Yes.
The work engages themes of grief, trauma, memory, and historical erasure. We encourage audiences to enter with care and awareness.
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All August 2026 performances at Union Station are free and open to the public.
While RSVP is not required for entry, we strongly encourage you to RSVP in advance.
RSVPing helps us:
Prepare the space with care for those attending
Understand how the work is reaching community
Sustain and grow future offerings of Keeper of Sadness
Your RSVP is one way of being in relationship with the work before you arrive.
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Yes. Post-performance engagements are an essential part of the KOS experience.
These sessions create space to:
Process emotional and thematic content
Engage in guided dialogue
Build community through shared reflection
Capacity is limited, and advance registration is required.
RSVP will be shared in June 2026.
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No.
Keeper of Sadness is a living archive. Each presentation evolves based on the space, collaborators, and community it engages.
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Keeper of Sadness is built through collaboration with individuals and organizations that value storytelling, community engagement, and cultural care.
Partnership opportunities may include:
Hosting future presentations
Supporting community activations and workshops
Sponsorship and resource alignment
Please reach out to Gail Boyd Artists Management to begin a conversation.
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You can support by:
Attending and bringing community
Sharing the work
Donating or sponsoring
Partnering with us
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Keeper of Sadness was created, driected and choreographed by Jade Solomon Curtis. Her multidisciplinary collaborators include a team of artists, designers, and community contributors.