Jennifer Archibald Brings a Quiet Strength and Raw Presence to BalletMet
When Jennifer Archibald walks into a studio, she doesn’t take up space with volume. She doesn’t command attention with big gestures or theatrical flair. Instead, she brings something rarer: stillness, focus, and an unmistakable energy that shifts the room.
For her BalletMet debut, Archibald is creating a World Premiere titled Rivers Do Not Speak, But They Are Heard, drawing inspiration from an African proverb that speaks to quiet power. It’s a fitting metaphor for Archibald herself. As a choreographer, she doesn’t rely on spectacle or noise. Her impact comes from deep listening, emotional intelligence, and the kind of stillness that holds weight.
Originally from Toronto, Jennifer Archibald’s path to choreography wove through diverse disciplines: classical ballet, modern, hip-hop, and theater. She trained at the Alvin Ailey School, launched her own company, Arch Dance, and became the first woman of color to serve as resident choreographer at Cincinnati Ballet. Her work is genre-fluid, emotionally rich, and always grounded in the people in the room.
At BalletMet, Jennifer Archibald’s process has been highly collaborative. She doesn’t arrive with a preset vocabulary or a fully locked concept. Instead, she reads the dancers—how they move, how they listen, how they respond to the music and to one another. Then she builds from there.
“I see what energy is in the room,” she says. “Who has intensity, who has softness. I let the dancers influence the work before I influence the dancers.”
That ability to tune in—to dancers, to sound, to emotion—is central to her artistry. She works in sensation more than counts, often guiding dancers with metaphor and imagery. Archibald wants movement that breathes, that pulses with truth. She encourages dancers to think less about execution and more about embodiment. What does it feel like to melt? To resist? To move as if your body remembers something before your mind does?
“There’s a difference between dancing and being seen,” she says. “And I’m always looking for dancers who want to be seen.”
But creating this particular work wasn’t without challenge. The piece was originally set to receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. That funding was approved—and then rescinded with little explanation. The news came after Archibald had already begun creating the work. The loss of support didn’t just affect logistics. It landed with emotional weight.
“It made me question whether this story was considered valid,” she says. “Whether my voice and the voices of the dancers were being heard.”
Still, she pressed forward. And perhaps, in some ways, the funding loss made the piece even more urgent. It reinforced the core message: that you don’t have to be loud to be powerful. That stillness, too, is a form of resistance. That presence—especially when it’s been overlooked—is its own kind of protest.
To build the soundscape, Jennifer Archibald turned to music by Italian composers Ezio Bosso and Luca D’Alberto, whose cinematic scores carry both fragility and force. The dancers move through it like water—fluid, grounded, sometimes crashing, sometimes suspended. The choreography doesn’t follow a clear narrative, but it does tell a story. One of resilience. Of identity. Of quiet power.
Archibald doesn’t ask dancers to become someone else. She asks them to become more fully themselves. Her studio becomes a space for truth-telling, often without words. There’s no posturing. No ego. Just artists showing up, revealing themselves, and moving through something together.
“Dance is a vulnerable career,” she says. “You’re constantly revealing who you are.”
Rivers Do Not Speak, But They Are Heard is not about spectacle. It’s about presence. It’s a reminder that attention doesn’t have to be demanded—it can be earned through honesty, connection, and the courage to be seen.
Jennifer Archibald doesn’t just choreograph movement. She choreographs meaning. And in doing so, she offers something rare: a space where dancers—and audiences—can feel something real.
See the World Premiere of Jennifer Archibald’s Rivers Do Not Speak, But They Are Heard, during BalletMet’s 24/25 production of Black Voices at the Davidson Theatre, June 6-14, 2025.