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Still courtesy Zandashé Brown

BodyPoetry: A Short Film

Meet the Louisiana “movement architect” whose workshops heal and mesmerize

In BodyPoetry, filmmaker Zandashé Brown documents the work of paris cyan cian, a New Orleans–based practitioner of “ethereal and otherworldly” movement sessions. “paris has an excellent way of seamlessly connecting bodily awareness and experimentation to time, space, desire, and wellness,” Brown explains. “She does this with the land in mind, taking into account New Orleans’s cultural, geographical, and historical specificity.”

This original nonfiction short was produced in conjunction with the Oxford American’s 2023 Film Issue, which is devoted to the impact and intricacies of Southern cinema.





Zandashé Brown

Zandashé Brown is a New Orleans-based writer/director and programmer born-and-bred in and inspired by southern Louisiana. Her work raises a Black femme lens to the tradition of the Southern Gothic by exploring the axis of self-excavation, spirituality, and lived experience in the American South.