Malik Nashad Sharpe is a choreographer and movement director working with dance, dark fantasy, and horror. Creating primarily underneath the alias Marikiscrycrycry, he makes provocative performance works that are formally engaged with the formal construction of affect, atmosphere, and dramaturgy from the marginal perspective.
He graduated with a BA in Experimental Dance with highest honours from Williams College, and holds a certificate in Contemporary Dance from Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance, where he won the Simone Michele Prize for Outstanding Choreography. He often works with dance as a social art form and relies upon a variety of techniques and practices to articulate his choreographic systems and values.
His works often address violence, alienation, horror, melancholia, belonging, and the horizon and his works have been widely presented across the U.K., Europe, and Canada. He has received commissions for new work from The Yard Theatre (U.K.), Theatre La Chapelle (CA), Festival Trans-Amerique (CA), New Queers on the Block (U.K.), Marlborough Productions (U.K.), Dansehallerne (DK), MDT (SK), Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts (U.K.), Dance4 (U.K.), The Place (U.K.), Theatre in the Mill (U.K.), Fierce Festival (U.K.), CCN Caen (FR), Block Universe (U.K.), Dansehallerne (DK), MDT (SE), Cambridge Junction (U.K.), Roskilde Festival (DK), amongst many others and his work has been shown in venues including at Battersea Arts Centre (U.K.), Montreal arts et interculturels (CA), Birmingham Hippodrome (U.K.), Edison/Betty Nansen Teatret (DK), Pia Bouman at Soctiabank Theatre (CA), University Settlement (USA), Schauspielhaus (AT), Insitute of Contemporary Art (U.K.), Kampnagel (DE), Tate Britain (U.K.), MDT (SE), Beurrschouwburg (BE), Inkonst (SK), and in festivals such as ImpulsTanz (AT), Birmingham International Dance Festival (U.K.), Glasgow International Dance Festival (U.K.), American Realness (USA), Les Urbaines (CH), Skopje Pride (MK), amongst many others.
In the 16th edition of Festival Transamerique, he premiered High Bed Lower Castle 2022, a work co-created with Montreal-based choreographer Ellen Furey to critical acclaim with critics deeming it ‘bold, rich, dreamlike’ (Artichaut) and ‘remarkable, mesmerising’ (Westmount). In Roskilde Festival 2023, he premiered his large-scale production of DARK, HAPPY, to the CORE to widespread acclaim, with critics calling the work, ‘jaw-dropping’ (******* in Scenenblog), ‘entertaining, good style, sexiness’ (***** in Politken), ‘quivering, smouldering, postapocalyptic’ (Seismograf), ‘exciting, challenging, intense’ (TBA.no), ‘grabbed my by the collar and reminded me of the radicality and wildness of Roskilde’ (Information.dk)
As a movement director, he has worked widely across the British theatre sector, including on the productions of Henry V(Shakespeare’s Globe/Headlong), Bootycandy(Gate), Closer (Lyric Hammersmith), The Glow(Royal Court), Scandaltown (Lyric Hammersmith), Two-Character Play (Hampstead Theatre), Fairview (Young Vic), and Effigies of Wickedness (Gate/English National Opera), A View from the Bridge (Headlong/Chichester Festival Theatre/Bolton Octagon) and in the autumn 2023, he will join the creative teams for Mates in Chelsea (Royal Court), and Ada(National Youth Theatre).
In 2019, he was named a Rising Star in Dance from Attitude Magazine, and in 2022 he was featured on the prestigious Forbes 30 under 30 list for his unique and pervasive choreographic achievements. In 2023, he was nominated for the Premio Cunha e Silva Prize at Galeria Municipal do Porto (PT)
He is currently an Associate Artist at The Place, and a studio resident of Somerset House Studios. He has held artistic residencies at Sadlers Wells, Barbican, Performance Situation Room, Dance4, Duckie, and Tate Modern. He is currently a guest teacher in dance and performance at the Stockholm University of the Arts in Sweden. He lives in London, U.K.
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What are you most excited about joining the new group of Work Place artists?
I’m excited to be in conversation with and alongside other artists who all have different approaches to dancing, choreography, and all of its constructions.
Where do you seek or find inspiration for your work?
Deep conceptual holes, images and visual phenomenon, video game design and virtual environments. The Internet. Movement itself. I spend a lot of time thinking about things like gestures. Like how and why a singular gesture can do so much, and I just get inspired by every part of that inquiry. I also get a lot of inspiration from my friends and peers who are really amazing artists doing really radiant shit.
What does it mean for you to be an artist in this day and age?
Asking difficult and sometimes unanswerable questions, leaning into complexity, riding sensation, a contemporary form of searching, philosophising, theorising, receiving and interpreting the joys and harshness of this world. Looking at the human condition. Taking risks, taking care.