Time Will Tell: Stage I
Ollie L. Jefferson, Ph.D.
Playwright | Director | Producer

Ollie L. Jefferson, Ph.D. is a teacher-scholar/artist specializing in diverse performances and creative practices to enlighten, educate, and entertain. Her award-winning work embodies inspiring teaching, writing, directing, producing, and performing. Time Will Tell: Stage I, II, and III by Dr. Ollie L. Jefferson is a timeless true story that uses personal experience (“auto”) to describe and interpret (“graphy”) cultural texts (journals and archival records), experiences, beliefs, and practices (“ethno”). Dr. Jefferson directed and produced the autoethnographic performance at regional and national theaters such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Page to Stage. She performed alongside her talented and gifted daughters, Nailah and Miniya, who portrayed the younger version of their mother. View the full performance at https://www.timelessvisualworks.com/publishing-inspiration

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While on a romantic date in their native land, Kariz Marcel & BlackShesus are captured and sold into the transatlantic slave trade. 400 years after their abduction and murder, they resurrect, blind, and in search of their other half. Guided separately by ancestral forces they journey through lifetimes and a foreign land to finally unite in holy matrimony and end the colonizers reign. In the tradition of family, we pray their village leads them safely to the others love. Will they? Executive produced by BlackShesus and musically scored by Kariz Marcel this break out silent film will challenge your perception of dialogue, love, and Blackness.

Learning from the magic tricks that a bird can dow with its feathers to attract a mate, Bird Dance uses elements of that seduction to create an entrancing and transformative experience for its viewers. Fan-shaped performance objects were used to make the mask worn appear larger. A mechanism was created so that patterns on the fans can be changed during the performance, emulating the transformative feathers of a bird.

Mrs. Beepbilibop's Cooking Show is a satire on the culture of learning from YouTube videos during the pandemic. It is a cooking show that is shot in a YouTube Cooking tutorial format to highlight the difference between reality and expectations. Mrs. Beepbilibop embodies the universal frustration of living and making during a pandemic as a housewife who 'fails' at making a simple onion soup with noodles.

Transforming Masks is a dance that slowly reveals the layers of identity that one wears. There are three layers of masks worn on the body of the performer. The movements are supposed to resemble gestures of shielding and punching, which represent the defensive attitude one has towards concealing and revealing their identity. At the same time, the artist realizes that these movements speak to something older - the Tang-ki ritual he watched with his grandmother as a child.