Inspired by the emotional and transformative power of a dream the artist Nene Humphrey had of learning to sing with the gospel choir in her late husband’s family church in rural Georgia, the performance crafts a multi-sensory experience through a fusion of live and recorded music, video projections, drawing, and poetry that explores the profound intersection of memory, loss, healing, and communal song.

This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time emerged from processing loss through art, as well as science, working as an artist in residence with the LeDoux Neuroscience Lab, NYU to depict the neuroscience of emotion. What evolved is a dream landscape—a tangible, evocative space that mirrors the ephemeral regions of the brain where complex emotions and dreams are born and how communal singing can biologically elevate mood and foster well-being.

Utilizing multiple forms of storytelling and reimagining the dream experience, This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time invites the audience to share in a liminal space where loss is transformed into beauty, joy, and connection through song, visual art, and movement. The piece is a celebration of life, memory, and the healing power of community—one that challenges the boundaries between dream and reality, personal and collective experience.

 

About Nene Humphrey

Nene Humphrey is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans across mediums including performance, video, drawing, and sound. Known for her unique approach to storytelling, Humphrey’s projects often explore the connections between personal memory, dream states, and the collective human experience. This Like a Dream Keeps Other Time is the culmination of years of research into the emotional and psychological impact of dreams and the healing power of music.  Humphrey and Catlett have worked together for years, a collaboration that began with  Circling the Center which premiered as a performance and installation at 3LD in 2016. Humphrey has exhibited in numerous museums and galleries including The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center, and Sculpture Center, New York, NY;  the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Mead Museum, Amherst, MA; Palmer Museum, PA;  High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA;  and the Lesley Heller Gallery, New York, NY. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, Brown Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, Dora Maar Foundation, Watermill Arts and Anonymous was a Woman among others. Her work has been written about in numerous publications including The New York Times, Art in America and ArtNews, Sculpture Magazine, and Hyperallergic. Humphrey currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. https://www.nenehumphrey.com/

 

THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED, IN PART, BY PUBLIC FUNDS FROM THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS.