Performance

Wanjiru Kamuyu/WKcollective: “Fragmented Shadows” by Wanjiru Kamuyu in collaboration with Sherwood Chen and Elodie Paul

Place

Wexner Center, Columbus, Ohio, October 22, 2025

Words

Steve Sucato for Fjord Review

It was apropos that I attended choreographer Wanjiru Kamuyu’s latest work, “Fragmented Shadows,” just before Halloween. In many ways, the work felt like watching a horror movie—the dancers’ often contorted bodies and facial features looked as if they were exorcising internal demons. The piece was also meditative and reflective in parts, and those disparate elements combined to create a unique and powerfully visual and emotional experience.

Kamuyu, a former dancer with Urban Bush Women, based the hour-long abstract contemporary dance work on epigenetic and psychosomatic research. This research explored the intersection of environmental and psychological factors that may influence gene expression and impact biological and physical health. Informed by this, the piece, says Kamuyu, sought to investigate invisible wounds—personal, ancestral, and societal—that imprint on our bodies and shape our well-being in both visible and invisible ways. 

The piece, performed by Sherwood Chen, Elodie Paul, and Kamuyu, began alarmingly with a loud sonic buzz that tore through the silence of the Wexner Center’s black-box Performance Space, jolting the audience to attention. It was the first volley in a cacophony contained in French composer Lacryoboy’s (Jean-Philippe Barrios) brilliant, atmospheric, and cinematic soundtrack. The sound set Chen into motion, who began rapidly stamping his bare foot on the stage before easing into a slow, deliberate solo of articulated body movements. 

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