Vincent E Thomas is a Black gay man, a professional dancer, and a Professor of Dance at Towson University (MD). Vincent’s dance company, VTDance, recently celebrated its 22nd Anniversary in Baltimore. Vincent grew up in Edgefield, SC where he sang joyfully (and dutifully) in the choir at his Southern Baptist Church, and yet he felt as though he had to spend much of his adult life washing the church from his soul. 

Gabriel Thom Pasculli is a queer, white-bodied, second-generation Italian-Irish-American, who has been working in Chicago and New England as an ensemble theater-maker and is now a Lecturer of Directing and Performance at Union College (NY). Gabriel Thom grew up in the Catholic Church in New Jersey and has spent his adult life seeking the mystical experience he failed to find in the religion of his childhood.

Both artists are returning to a time they thought they had left behind. They are returning to the tender questions they developed as young people, torn between their inner desires and the confounding morality of the communities in which they were raised. With great curiosity, intimacy, risk and availability, Praise! is asking how we reconcile those past experiences and conflicted parts of our younger selves to make new meaning in the present. 

Praise! Project events are co-created, curated, and co-facilitated by Desiré Graham, a New Haven-based artist working in original theatre and musical performance, and Malia’Kekia Nicolini, a Massachusetts-based dancer, actress, choreographer, artistic director, facilitator, and arts educator.