2025 Voices Heard Film: the refrain

the refrain by DeMar Walker

Wisconsin (World Premiere)

Running Time: 10 minutes
Dance 

Avalon Atmospheric Theater

2473 S Kinnickinnic Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207

The second installment of the dance short film series features myself as a portrayal of a traveling man or “wanderer”. It explores themes of finding home and belonging as a commentary on societal expectations of race and gender through performance. The film features cinematography by Derek Schmitt.

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Directors Bio:

DeMar Walker is a multidisciplinary artist and educator from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His work infuses dance, theatrical performance, film, photography, costume design, artifact, and text to depict Black social, cultural, and political life in the Midwestern United States. He holds a Master's Degree in English from Marquette University. He has directed, choreographed, and performed for numerous performing arts organizations including Ko-Thi Dance Company, Danceworks Milwaukee, Black Arts Milwaukee, Wildspace Dance Company, First Stage Children's Theatre, Fleeing Artists Theatre, Camp Bagatae (Guinea), and Ecole Des Sables (Senegal). 

He once served as a dance lecturer in the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 2021 & 2022, his dance short film The Beckoning was awarded Best Film and Best Director at the Milwaukee International Short Film Festival and Best Dance Performance at the Black Lives Rising Dance Festival. His artwork has been shown at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts and Milwaukee Artist Resource Network. 

DeMar has written articles for Arts Midwest, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. He is a featured poet in the publication Black in The Middle: An Anthology of the Black Midwest. In 2024, he served as a creative consultant for the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD) conference “Body Geographies|Mapping Freedoms” and the House of History MKE Project which celebrates Black LGBTQ+ voices in the city of Milwaukee. Recently, DeMar premiered his second film the refrain at the third biennial Black Midwest Symposium as an inaugural Art and Critical Praxis fellow in Dayton, Ohio. He is the founding editor of the literary zine series CURRENTS which he debuted as an inaugural artist-in-residence with Milwaukee Water Commons in October 2024. DeMar just finished his first solo art exhibition JUNIOR held at Arts-at-Large as a 2024-25 Artist-in-Residence.